The Sales Café

I am a marketer working in the world of sales. I am surrounded by sales experts, consultants who have earned their stripes selling and helping others sell successfully. For me, it's like living in a foreign country, with a different language and separate cultures. I talk about our mission and ideas, markets and branding, social media and Twitter. They talk about getting leads. Oh, and how long will it take to see revenue from all this marketing?

Since the dawn of commerce, there's always been a thin line between marketing (telling the story of your product) and sales (getting someone to exchange something for your product). At one point in time, it was a chicken for some seeds while meeting on a dirt road. "This chicken will lay a golden egg for you." "These seeds willl grow the finest beans." (You get the picture.) Today, it's money/credit for products and services online. But we all started by telling our story. And, depending on which side of the line you lean (marketing or sales), your story might have a slightly different purpose, with a unified goal of making the sale.

I've always been sheltered from the sales side of my work. I worked on the "creative" side in publishing. The suits handled all the financial stuff, we creatives just made sure we offered the best content for them to sell. My only cold calling happened when I needed a quote for a story. It just didn't seem like sales to me. As my career evolved, I knew a lot of people who were already familiar with my work and my style. Through word of mouth, they hired me and, well, word gets around, so I get to write this column today.

You might say that I've been selling all along, that my quotas were calculated in word counts, white papers and blogrolls, that my leads have been honed meticulously throughout the years with every informant. My sales career is a work in progress.

Marketing and sales are intrinsically tied, but there is a definite space between the two. I experience it every day. Follow along as I tell the story of my journey to bridge the gap.

Everyone knows what a difference great customer service makes. In B(usiness) to C(onsumer), great service has direct, daily impact on revenue.  Consumers rate service with their feet.  Poor service means customers walk away never to return. Great services encourage customers to come back, again and again, and bring friends.  People want to do business where they are respected and treated well.

Is the same true in business-to-business relationships?  In the B-to-B market, connections take place behind the scenes, with little or no end user contact.  How can standards of service apply here?  Let’s consider the case of six meat packaging plants and a national supplier of lunchmeat to retail grocery stores. Imagine you work as a purchasing agent for the national supplier.  It is your job to review the plants and make a choice as to which of the six best choices will get your business.  Here is how you rate them:

• One plant has great product.
• Another plant has great product and is always reliable.
• Plant number three has great product, is reliable, and competitively priced.
• The fourth plant has great product, is reliable, competitively priced and helps your business succeed through service that makes you more competitive.
• Our final plant option has great product, is reliable, competitively priced, helps your business succeed through service that makes you more competitive AND doing business with them is easy and fun.

The final choice, put in these terms of comparison makes the decision easy, right? Thinking with the mindset of a purchasing agent, how much does your decision making in business differ from how you make personal buying decisions? Many B-to-B suppliers operate with the assumption that they have little in common with service icons from the B-to-C world.  Look again. Here’s a challenge for those of you in the B-to-B market:  List three places you personally frequent.  Beyond convenience, what are the top two reasons you do business with these establishments?  Now turn it around:  What is one compelling reason to do business with you that you can repackage and offer your customers?