The Sales Café

Have you ever seen the "Will it Blend?" video series? It's a series of videos of a guy named Tom Dickson in a white lab coat using a high-powered blender to blend  objects you never thought to blend. (Check out the sacrilegious blending of an iPhone 4 here.)

I think some organizations regard blending sales and marketing in the same way Dickson throws objects into his Blendtec blender - with disdain. (A vuvuzela?)

What really is the difference between sales and marketing? Aren't we all (salespersons and marketers) trying to achieve the same goal - more sales?

If that's true - that both groups are working toward the same goal - why is there such animosity between the two groups in so many organizations? I think that the end goal is the same, but the approach and mindset are different.

A million years ago, when I worked in the publishing world, there was a distinct, and stated, difference between sales and writing/editing, a veritable "separation of church and state," as we called it. As a reporter/writer, it was a wonderful excuse to remain objective about a topic. We turned a blind eye to the concerns of the advertisers and left it all up to the sales people. We didn't let the size of advertising budgets enter our consciousness - until we got some nudging from an editor.

That separatist thinking creeps into the relationship between sales and marketing groups, creating the schism that often exists between sales and marketing teams. I've heard so many times from sales people: "I don't do marketing. I don't believe in it." On the other hand, I've heard the same from marketing types (including myself): "I'm not good at sales."

In this separatist world, the marketing group creates the content, works on sales tools and collateral, often ignoring the fact that they are really acting as sales people.

According to my colleague, Pete Krammer, sales people today must take on more of a marketing role to be successful. I believe the same can be said for marketing - to be truly successful, we need to think of ourselves more as sales people. That might mean that I extend marketing campaigns all the way through the sale to closing, not just handing off materials like a baton to the sales team.

I guess the bigger question is:  Sales and marketing, will it blend?

While wrestling with your personal social media strategies, ponder this: over the past 18 months, your opportunity as a salesperson to influence the early stages of a buyer's shopping experience has changed radically. Most of your one-to-one prospecting tools (especially cold calling and event networking) are practically useless.

Let's think about recent history for a moment.

I am a salesperson of a certain age (meaning in my mid 50s). I began my B-to-B selling career in 1983, right at the tail end of the three-martinis-for-lunch era. Until about 1982, business buyers expected to be entertained, and a salesperson needed to possess charm, fortitude and an expense account just to get into the game in a serious way. Not being much of a drinker, I was lucky to miss all of that.

As the economy recovered from an awful recession and companies re-engineered for a new era, buyers found themselves doing two people's jobs and had little time for lunch, let alone blowing their minds out for the afternoon. Today that same buyer (be they VP of Sales, CIO, or Staffing Manager) does five people's jobs and barely has time to return a phone call!

In the early to mid-1980s, we entered a twenty-year period that witnessed the professionalization of salespeople. Until roughly 2007, to be a salesperson meant you needed to fill yourself with unbelievable amounts of information to prove to the busy buyer that you could improve their world. You needed to do this in five minutes or less before they would begin to tell you their problems. Charm barely or rarely got you in the door. You needed to arm yourself with product and technical knowledge, competitive and business acumen, team building and leadership skills. You also needed to be a strategist, a consultant, a PowerPoint expert, a great speaker, and a pithy inventor of high-impact value propositions and elevator speeches. Salespeople learned to become knowledge workers, technocrats, leaders, managers, field generals, and politicians. Charm and humor were still required.

Wow, what a change! Most of you readers weren't conscious of this change because you've spent most or all of your career practicing within that environment.

Today, our selling world is changing again. The proliferation of social media and the maturation of Web research tools has truly empowered the business shopper. By the time your prospect returns your phone call or email, they've checked you, your company, your competition, your competition's salespeople, and perhaps even your friends out. They've educated themselves about your product or service and the differences between you and everybody else. What does this mean?

Marketing is the art of communicating and influencing "one to many." The digital universe provides a multitude of channels that allow for easy consumption of product and personal information. Today, the buyer might not allow you in the door until they've completed their research. Does this mean that salespeople are now relieved of the need to know it all before the buyer will talk to us? Not really.

We either need to learn how to partner very closely with our marketing department or become our own marketing department. Our personal and product appeals need to be cleverly crafted and widely placed so that when the buyer is shopping, they can find us.

We are truly selling in a marketer's world.

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.

Did you know that people who hold a cup of coffee or a hot drink are more prone to agree to things than people with a cold drink?

This tip, called the Coffee Cup Effect, came from the Twitter feed of @atra_intelexis (Alfredo Trabulsi) and it's had an extraordinary effect on my day, making me wonder:  What other things can we do to help people say Yes to us?

If we are in sales or marketing, it’s our job to make people agree to what we are offering them, whether it's a specific product, service or idea. I suppose the best place to start is to be agreeable ourselves. The next step, it seems, is to extend that feeling and proffer something warm and sweet. One successful sales person I know carries a large bag of Tootsie Pops around with her and hands out two with her business card. “Who doesn’t like a Tootsie Pop?” she asked me. And, by her sales results, she’s on to something.

I know that bringing chocolate and sweets to a meeting makes people more agreeable—especially during the mid-afternoon slump time. The word "Free" gives people an all-over warm feeling, too, as does the sound of their own name. (This depends on the tone of voice, however. Hearing my name spoken in a condescending way makes me quite disagreeable.)

In the end, it’s whatever you are selling that must light the ultimate sales fire for the customer. Without a strong product, service or idea, you just might leave them cold.

What do you do to get a prospect or customer to warm up to you?