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Marketing-driven fits the times
Sales-driven just doesn’t do it anymore
by John Graham
With effusive CEO testimonials and countless articles and books describing
how companies have transformed themselves into tightly focused, totally
energized commerce machines, it would seem that change should be easy. Let’s
face it. If it were simple, there would be more of it. Even when the evidence
for change is compelling, most companies continue to cling to the known,
the familiar.
Selling is very much a case in point. The sales-driven approach to moving
every type of product or service struggles to survive in the face of obstinate
hurdles. Even though a marketing-driven strategy makes sense to more and
more salespeople, there is a reluctance to let go of the tried and true,
even while there’s obvious evidence pointing to diminishing returns.
The difference between sales-driven and marketing-driven selling is anything
but subtle. It has nothing to do with semantics and it isn’t “just
a matter of emphasis,” as some would have us believe.
Marketing-driven selling represents a completely different way of looking
at the sales process, an 180º shift in both thinking and behavior. “I
have been in business for 15 years and I didn’t get the difference
until last Friday,” says Daryn Ross of Your Image in Kearney, MO,
a manufacturer of promotional products. “I don’t understand
why it took me so long to realize that we see our products as commodities.
It shouldn’t come as a surprise to us that we’ve been selling
them with razor-thin margins.”
Even with all this, sales-driven remains the only way to go for many. The
life insurance industry has demolished thousands of potentially first-class
salespeople over the years with it. After some training, the agents are
sent out to accost friends, family, and neighbors. In effect, their task
is to con them out of a premium payment. Once the list is exhausted and
all the names have been crossed off, they don’t know what to do next
and quickly leave the business.
While this may be a somewhat blatant example of the sales-driven approach,
it captures its essence. Dress it up, change the words, make it sound more
sophisticated, but the process remains the same: Go find someone to
talk to. Get out there, get in front of prospects, and get the orders.
When it comes right down to it, the goal is still to discover a way to get
in front of the prospect and work the old magic using such gimmicks as reading
body language and applying a sure-fire close.
This picture was reinforced when we received a call from a man who described
himself as a professional salesperson who had been in the field for many
years. After speaking with him for a half hour, it was clear that he was
bright and competent. About 15 years ago, he started his own service company.
Ready for a new challenge after selling his business and taking a few months
off, he responded to a newspaper ad for a salesperson. When he walked through
the door, he was handed a list of company names photocopied from a “manufacturers
directory,” along with a handful of laser printer-produced business
cards. In effect, he was being told to go find the needle in the haystack.
As it turns out, the company also “hired” another salesperson
the same day who was given the same amount of job preparation.
All this is happening right now. The instances aren’t isolated, either.
It’s the rule rather than the exception.
To be sure, there are “refinements” to sales-driven. However,
most of them are essentially little more than a new, and perhaps brighter,
coat of paint. So-called “consultative selling,” for example,
attempts to soften the sales-driven approach, offering more of an iron hand
in a velvet glove. But the goal is still to get the order.
In effect, sales-driven selling isn’t as much a function of skill
as it is of sheer luck. Salespeople get excited that they are in the right
place at the right time. Something went wrong. A supplier failed to deliver
on time or made one too many mistakes. The regular salesperson didn’t
show up. The vendor went out of business or was acquired. Prices went up.
All are easily exploitable reasons for a prospect to leave a current supplier,
and we should remember, rationales for dropping the new salesperson,
as well.
Marketing-driven takes a different tact. It is just as interested in sales,
but it is more interested in creating customers first. And it’s not
a con game just to get the order.
If this sounds like a “soft-headed” strategy, then so be it.
We have long held that sales-driven companies send the wrong messages to
their employees, customers, prospects, and everyone else. Ultimately, they
also get the wrong results.
The problem with a sales-driven company is that it is willing to do everything
and anything to make the numbers. The ads may talk about “customer
driven,” “customer service,” and “client satisfaction,”
but behavior tells a different story. Management may preach its gospel of
doing good, but actions reveal the true motivations.
WorldCom, Inc. is a case in point. On May 16, 2002, the Wall Street
Journal reported that the company’s sales reps had been caught
“boosting their sales figures by moving existing accounts from one
billing system to another––including three star employees”
in one office.
The reason why this occurred was clear: commissions, commissions, commissions.
But that was only the tip of the iceberg. As one former employee said, “It
was really a numbers game with WorldCom. And people would do anything they
could to make those numbers.”
There’s more. “It was the Wild, Wild West, with no sheriff and
no rules,” commented another employee.
Even when the scam was reported to management, “Nobody wanted to hear
about it,” stated an employee.
The alarms are going off in my head too often these days because of sales-driven
salespeople. Beware when someone says:
• “We want to
help you….”
• “We’re ready to partner
with you….”
• “Our goal is to help our customers
achieve their goals….”
• “We can save you money….”
The essential problem with sales-driven selling is that customers see
through the scam. More to the point, we can identify it instantly in
others––but not in ourselves. Customers know when they are being
conned.
There are marked differences between sales-driven and marketing-driven selling.
Here are a few:
Salesperson’s basic approach:
• Sales-driven: figure out
a way to get through the door.
• Marketing-driven: be invited through the door as a result of being
viewed as a valued resource.
Salesperson’s strategy:
• Sales-driven: build a “personal
relationship” as quickly as possible.
• Marketing-driven: be perceived as a competent, helpful advisor.
Salesperson’s goal:
• Sales-driven: sell something, i.e.,
get an order.
• Marketing-driven: create a customer, i.e., someone who wants to
do business with you.
Salesperson’s prospects:
• Sales-driven: lucky breaks, being
in the right place at the right time, cold calls.
• Marketing-driven: a steady flow of new business by identifying and
cultivating prospects carefully and continuously.
Salesperson’s behavior:
• Sales-driven: contacts the customer
when there’s something to sell.
• Marketing-driven: stays close to the customer with ideas and suggestions
for achieving customer’s goals.
Salesperson’s agenda:
• Sales-driven: sell what salesperson
wants customer to buy.
• Marketing-driven: demonstrate that you are a consultant.
Salesperson’s mission:
• Sales-driven: get an order as quickly
as possible.
• Marketing-driven: build long-term value.
If salespeople are to be respected as professionals, it will be their commitment
to being seen as experts who are valued because of what they bring to their
customers that gives them such status.
The differences between sales-driven and marketing–driven selling
are deep. One begins and ends with the order, while the other begins and
ends with value to the customer.
© 2004 Graham Communications
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John R. Graham is president of Graham Communications,
a marketing services and sales consulting firm. Mr. Graham is the
author of four books on marketing and sales, including Break the Rules
Selling: Success Strategies that Beat the Competition (Superior Books).
Mr. Graham writes for a variety of marketing and sales columns for
business and trade publications and he presents his Magnet Power presentations
at company and association meetings. He can be contacted at 40 Oval
Rd., Quincy, MA 02170; by telephone at 617-328-0069; by fax at 617-471-1504;
or by email at j_graham@grahamcomm.com. The web site is grahamcomm.com. |
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