When do sales people make good marketing professionals?

OK, not a fair assumption, the assumption that sales people can make good marketing professionals.  However, with almost 30 years in the IT industry with experience spanning sales, marketing and leadership positions, I am confident that in the right industry and opportunity sales people can add a great deal to a marketing team.  Not just as contributors from a sales perspective, but as an engaged marketing professional.

In a consumer marketplace, where marketing is brand awareness and volume oriented, being a sales person by trade may not add the value to a marketing team.  Sales people tend to be very coin operated, and short term focused, and marketing of a consumer product may have a short window of awareness but the brand image and the skills to attract consumer interest is not a typical strength of a sales professional.  The promotion, the insight ahead of buyer demand, and the general advertising and marketing of a successful consumer campaign requires unique skills that a typical sales person, especially consumer oriented, would not have.

On the other hand, when the opportunity is for a business to business opportunity, to support the demands of business buyers that marketplace demands some added awareness that a strong sales professional can bring to a marketing team.  The purchaser will be of a solution to advance their business, improve a process, or help them gain a competitive advantage.  These tend to lean toward strengths of a sales professional as they can add awareness and perspective that is unique and of value.

In a Business to Business market, successful sales professionals learn to listen well to their customers.  They understand where their priorities lie, and most importantly they can perceive changes in the market for their customers uniquely.

Marketing professionals, and I mean this by education, training and trade tend to look longer term at opportunity based, requirements, and how to build the awareness and a "market".  All very welcome and necessary in both a consumer and business market, but to be successful in today's marketplace for business customers the unique skills of a sales professional on the marketing team can make the difference in success or failure of an offering.

I grew up at IBM as a sales professional, for over a decade I led the sales of business solutions, software, and Internet solutions for IBM worldwide and domestically in the US.  In the late 90's that sales excellence led to a later career as a marketing professional for IBM, at Premier Business Partner, and now a "Senior Marketing Therapist".  Truthfully it led me to wonder if the value I brought to those teams was unique because of my sales experience, and the answer is yes.

In the right market, a business solution, and in the right context of higher valued solutions, having a sales professional who is also highly skilled in marketing is a welcome advantage for a marketing team and can lead to greater success.

A highly skilled sales person brings traits to your table that are unique, from the more traditional marketing professional including:

• Skills at maintaining a business customers interest in their offering, and understand the keys to assure support across a company's buying process.
• Sharp talent for listening to detect customer buying and behavior changes that either will require offering changes, or changes in marketing approach.
• Keeping the focus on the important messages for your clients, away from noise that may be generated by others especially competitors, that do not influence or impact a customer's buying process or the success of your offering.
• Being A strong team player as the typical business sales requires a team to help sell the solution.  In addition this allows a keen focus on understanding of the customer team that will be influencing and making the buying decision.
• Impatience, this may not seem like an advantage, but in my experience sales people tend to add more urgency to a particular activity as they know a given opportunity is only hot for short period of time.  They know instinctively that the window of opportunity, especially in today's marketplace, is quite short so being in the game or market is as key as perfecting a message or solution description.
• Lastly, the difference between a very good sales professional and a great one, is the knowledge of when to keep quiet.  When the silence in the room is thinking, and deliberating the next step and not just silence in absence of progress.  There is nothing more frustratingly difficult for a sales professional than when one asks for the order.  You wait for the answer that silence is key, and truly great sales professional knows that those moments of silence are precious to winning the business.

When you look for the next marketing professional for your team, consider that sales leader looking to make a career change and add a unique skill and strength to your team.

Sincerely,

Brian Silverman
Senior Marketing Therapist
bsilverman@abspartnermarketing.com