Sales is Part of Marketing and Here is Why
Marketing covers Product, Price, Place and Promotion. That’s the 4P’s of Marketing.
Product covers everything to do with the product or service you’ve chosen to sell
Place is how and where you are going to promote and sell your product or service. The various ways and channels you have available are important when taking a product or service into the market
Promotion is self-explanatory – that’s all the different ways you are going to promote your product or service
Price is the P in marketing often misunderstood to be looked after by the finance department rather than the marketing department
But think about it, your price is determined by your competition in your industry as well as the consumer. Price needs to also fit into the sales process and while it is fairly well known that people buy on benefits and emotion and not features, it is misunderstood that sales is part of marketing
Let’s take a look at the sales process and where marketing makes the difference
When a sales person sets out to achieve targets, they often look at what the product or service is, study it’s features and then when they are good at sales, they convert the features to benefits they know the customer is looking for.
Part of this sales process is doing sufficient research into the target market, and becoming aware of what triggers the buyer to say yes.
The sales person might use a process of questions to which the prospect answers yes and when the sales person asks for the sale, they’ll hope the prospect has been sufficiently prepared to now say yes to the sale.
For many sales people this works to convert prospects to customers but it can be a long and exhausting process.
A better way, and more aligned with the power of marketing, is to do the research and then ask the prospect questions during the sales process that reveal words and phrases the prospect uses around the product or service.
By using those words and phrases back to the prospect, the sales person can connect with the prospect and take them from their comfort zone to the realization question that opens the prospects mind to see they really need the product or service.
The sales process taps into market research, it taps into target market profiling and uses consumer behavior to align the prospect with the outcome they seek, resulting in a yes from the consumer and the sale for the sales person!
