Читать книгу Product Development - David V. Tennant - Страница 18

A common misunderstanding is “marketing is the same as sales.” They both are concerned with increasing the company’s sales. Both need to be knowledgeable about who their competitors are and their products. Both need to understand their current and potential customers’ needs. But there is a difference. Let’s first consider the sales team.

The sales group is first and foremost responsible for bringing in revenue. A second objective is to establish relationships with customers. It is always easier to sell to an existing customer than to find a new one. However, to increase sales, a sales representative must also be able to meet potential new customers. This can be done in a variety of ways. The traditional methods include attending trade shows, cold-calling (i.e., working the phone), attending local business meetings (city business chapters, chambers of commerce, etc.), and attending regional or local professional trade associations; for example, engineering chapters such as ASME (American Society of Mechanical Engineers), IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers), and other similar organizations. Beside technical groups, there are organized chapters of venture capitalists, human resources management, etc. Any professional group will be a source of potential customers.

In today’s environment, where pandemics can disrupt traditional sales prospecting, most companies have a strong online presence. This is in addition to your company’s website, and may include sites such as LinkedIn, Twitter, Reddit, Facebook, and a host of other platforms. However, an online sales presence starts to encroach into the domain of Marketing.

As noted earlier, the fundamental aim of sales is to sell products and obtain contracts: ultimately, to turn potential customers into current customers. Note that sales reps generally have goals to meet on a quarterly or yearly basis. This is typically a financial goal; for example, “Jill must bring in $400,000 dollars in revenue each quarter.” While the sales rep is concerned about meeting his or her sales goal, it is also important that products and services should have enough profit (also called “margin”) so the company makes enough money to stay in business – and ideally to grow.

The marketing group, while concerned with sales and profits, plays a very different, but complementary role to sales. Marketing is integral to the financial health of a company and must support the sales team. Pick up any book on marketing, and you will learn about the four Ps:

 Product

 Promotion

 Pricing

 Placement.

These are the marketing fundamentals, but true marketing can be very analytical, with spreadsheets, detailed market analyses, and estimated demand for the product. But first, let’s focus on the 4 Ps.