You Need A Marketing Perspective

All businesses use a selling process (sales strategy) to produce orders.  Profitable growth, and ultimately survival, depend on a productive and manageable selling process.  Creating an effective marketing and sales strategy requires both a viable strategic perspective and an effective tactical plan.

Most accept the marketing premise defined by Theodore Levitt[1]: that purchases are made to fill needs, not obtain products or services. Philip Kotler then distinguished between sales and marketing in “From Sales Obsession To Marketing Effectiveness.”[2] A summary of his four points, and solutions available from sales production quality assurance, follow:

• Sales volume vs. profit production

You need to generate profits from every sale.  You can’t focus on volume alone.  Your sales volume must be profitable volume if you are going to cover your expenses and grow your business.  You can’t lose a little on each sale and make it up in volume.

• Reaction vs. planning

If you don’t know where you’re going, it’s hard to get there.   You need a plan, beginning with goals and objectives.  Then you need to determine what strategies will enable you to reach your objectives.  And ultimately, you need to select or design tactics that will effectively implement your strategies.

• Individual accounts vs. market segments

A salesperson’s focus must be on meeting individual customer needs and closing individual orders.  But multiple customers are needed to achieve profitable growth, so someone must identify groups of prospects that can be turned into customers.

It’s the salesperson’s job to close a sale with each customer, but someone has to identify the prospects that are to become customers, and determine what features and benefits will motivate those prospects to become customers.

• Selling activities vs. analytical solutions

A focus on activities is necessary to make a sale, but perspective and analysis are necessary to determine the benefits and solutions needed to make sales activities successful.

Henry Ford is credited with pointing out that, “Nothing happens until someone sells something.”  Without marketing guidance, sales activities lack efficiency and effectiveness. Sales Performance Quality Assurance™ systems provide the structured guidance needed to sell efficiently and effectively – and thus sell profitably!

[2]. Harvard Business Review; November-December 1977.