Vol. 19 • No.
1 • January/February 2007
Marketing vs. Sales: Achieving
Growth Takes the Right Balance
By Carrie Steffen, Director of Consulting, The Whetstone Group, Inc.
H
ow does your firm define
“marketing?” How about
“sales?” Do your partners
think of them as the
same thing? Although many CPAs do
not differentiate between the two disci-
plines, the skills, activities, behaviors
and expectations of each are very dif-
ferent. Achieving your firm’s growth
goals requires successful integration of
marketing and sales.
Marketing vs. Sales
In the past, the concept of sales has
been a negative one in the world of
professional services. As a result, many
firms think and talk about marketing,
but don’t consider the activities required
for selling services. Some use the terms
marketing and sales interchangeably.
In the simplest terms, marketing and
sales can be defined as follows:
• Marketing is the process of position-
ing your firm (and yourself) to ask for
a company’s business, or to be asked
for help by a prospective client.
• Sales is the process of listening,
determining needs, dealing with
objections, asking for the order,
and closing the deal. In most cases,
Integrating Sales and Marketing
4 The Case for Utilizing a Sales
Professional at Your Firm
7 AAM-MAA Winner Profile
8 AAM Summit 2007
8 AAM Committee News
9 The Partner’s Perspective…
Lisa Rozycki — Issue Editor
MarkeTrends is designed by PDI Global, Inc. (www.pdiglobal.com)
in a relationship-based business
like accounting, this must be done
face-to-face.
Purely Marketing
and Purely Sales
To more clearly illustrate the difference,
it’s helpful to think about some of the
business development activities in which
firms typically engage. Some of these
activities are purely marketing. Some
are purely sales. Other activities can
be both, and if implemented correctly,
can help make the transition between
marketing and sales.
Activities that are purely marketing
include branding, newsletters, public
relations, advertising, and brochures.
These activities help your market
understand who your firm is, what
you do, and how you’re different from
competitors. Over time, marketing
activities help your firm become better
known within your target market.
Pure sales activities include sales calls,
needs assessments, proposal develop-
ment, dealing with objections, and
closing. These activities happen at the
individual prospect level and serve as the
starting point for building a relationship.
Page 2
10 Marketer Toolbox
11 AAM Chapters
11 AAM New Members
12 Member Voices
Are Sales and
Marketing a
Perfect Pair?
By Angie Grissom, VP and Director of
Consulting, The Rainmaker Consulting
Group (a division of Five Star3 LLC)
I
t is the age-old dilemma in
a variety of industries —
a disconnect between the
marketing department and
the business developers. How do accounting
firms integrate marketing with sales success-
fully, and is it really necessary? Let’s explore.
One would automatically expect market-
ing and sales to be aligned in any success-
ful organization, but we find that is not
really the case. This is how it sometimes
goes: Marketing creates unclear messages
of the firm’s services. Prospects are not
clear on what they need and the business
developers are likely to develop their own
messages, independent from marketing
to meet the needs of the prospect. This
lack of alignment causes frustration,
dissatisfaction and disengagement.
Traditionally at odds with one another,
businesses continue to prove that seamlessly
integrating marketing and business develop-
ment functions is increasingly the key to
better sales, more profits and a more effec-
tive message to prospects and clients.
Companies that can break down the silo
Page 3
www.accountingmarketing.org
Figure 1: Business Development Activities
Marketing vs. Sales:
continued from page 1
Finding the Right Balance
There needs to be a balance of market-
ing and sales to ensure growth. If you
engage in marketing activities, but never
get to sales activities, you don’t get a
return on investment (ROI) for your
marketing activities, and revenue suffers.
On the flip side, if you’re asking for the
sale from prospects that have never
heard of your firm, or don’t know about
your services, the likelihood of getting
the sale is low. As marketers, it is your
job to help make the distinction between
marketing and sales, and support growth
by developing and implementing mar-
keting activities. In addition, you can
support and encourage activity on the
sales side by providing tools, structure
and access to training as needed in order
to achieve the right balance.
Notice in Figure 1 that when you
first engage in business development
processes in a market you initially have
a high level of marketing activity. It
decreases over time as your audience
becomes more familiar with you and
brand awareness is improved. Take a
look at where the sales process starts.
When you start to achieve a certain
level of awareness through marketing
over time, you can start to get in front of
your prospects individually and ask for
the sale. The overlapping area (shaded)
represents the activities that, with the
right behaviors, can transition you from
marketing to sales (see Figure 2).
Making the Transition
The key to successfully transitioning
from marketing to sales is to understand
Figure 2: Integrating Marketing and Sales
the behaviors associated with activities asking for business cards. Help them
in the middle. Let’s take a closer look at develop a plan for following-up with a
some of the activities and understand phone call with the goal of scheduling a
more specifically how we can transition face-to-face meeting to discuss creating
each from marketing to sales. a mutual referral relationship.
Direct Mail. Direct mail can be a Seminars. Many firms hold seminars
pure marketing activity, or it can be given by their industry team specialists.
part of the sales process. Direct contact Seminars can be valuable in positioning
with the prospect is what makes the your firm as qualified and knowledge-
difference. If you simply mail a letter/ able. But when you wait for attendees
brochure and wait for someone to call, to call you, the activity is marketing
you’re engaging in marketing. There and seldom leads to new business —
is some value to this because you are unless you add the sales component.
building brand awareness. But in order Devise a follow-up strategy with all
to start integrating marketing with registrants, even if they didn’t attend.
sales, and therefore generating ROI,
Achieving Balance
conduct follow-up phone calls (either
Takes Support
in-house or outsourced) to schedule
Marketing takes time. Sales takes focus.
face-to-face meetings. Develop a tool
Achieving a balance between the two
for tracking each lead and encourage
is the key to getting an ROI. Encourage
those responsible to report on the sales
sales activity in your firm by asking your-
process. Also be sure to track ROI to
self two questions about each activity:
help measure the sales activity.
1. Is this activity pure marketing or
Networking. When partners, managers
can it make a transition to sales?
or staff simply attend an event and
talk to whomever is close, they are 2. How can I help encourage the
engaging in marketing — building transition to sales?
brand awareness. However, to transition
By facilitating the balance between
to sales, help them focus their approach. marketing and sales, you’ll add a
Plan ahead and determine with whom
valuable component to your firm’s
they would like to meet. Coach younger growth efforts.
staff on how to be proactive about
About the Author:
Carrie Steffen is Director of Consulting for The Whetstone
Group, Inc. The Whetstone Group helps professional service
firms develop and implement effective growth plans. For more
information contact Carrie at 319.447.6402, carrie@thewhet-
stonegroup.com, or visit www.thewhetstonegroup.com.