My latest marketing pet peeve is that SALES people are calling themselves MARKETERS.
Let’s get one thing straight. Sales is NOT marketing. Marketing is marketing. Sales is sales. Once again, SALES IS NOT MARKETING.
How do I know this? Well for one thing – I’ve done both in my career.
Marketing opens the doors. Marketing creates the conditions for sales to win business. Marketing is the brand promise and the proper communication of that promise to the correct target market. Marketing is broad even when it’s targeted. The idea behind marketing is to create messaging and branding that creates the perception that Company X’s service is the only viable solution to the customer’s problem.
It’s the connection to the individuals in that target market where SALES takes the lead. Sales is the relationship, sales is the follow up, sales – done right with solid marketing – should be an easy thing to do. If you have the right brand promise and a good marketing plan – sales should happen with ease. Why would the customer go anywhere else? Marketing has shown there’s no reason to – and sales has connected to demonstrate exactly why a customer should trust that.
Somewhere along the way sales people got a bad rap. “EWWW. A sales person is here! He or She is only out for themselves to steal all of my money and give me a bad deal! GROSS.” The perception is there because, well, some of that has happened. So sales people got scared. And one day they took “sales rep,” and “account manager,” and “ANYTHING THAT SOUNDS LIKE SALES,” and changed their names to “Marketing reps,” and “Marketers,” and “Marketing specialists.”
But it’s all a stupid lie. And it doesn’t work anyway. And now you've gone and watered down MY title and MY hard work that by the way - ISN'T SALES.
So today – I am asking sales people to give me back my marketing title. Be proud of selling. Be proud of sales. Be proud of helping companies and individuals be successful with whatever it is you are selling to them! That’s a good thing!! Leave marketing up to the actual marketing professionals.
We’ll support you. We’ll bring people into your stores, to your websites, to your social media channels. We’ll create brands for you, we’ll write content for you, we’ll build exactly what you need to have customers reach out on their own for help. That’s what we do.
All we ask is that you give us our titles back. Otherwise we’ll be stuck with all of the ridiculous trendy hipster ones you’ve forced us to invent due to your thievery. I don’t want to be a “Creative Genie.” Or a “VP of Words and Pictures.” I don’t want to put on my business cards titles like “Director of First Impressions,” or “Ideation Creator.”
Because what I do is MARKETING. And I’m proud of it. Do us all a favor – be a real life salesperson. And be proud of that too. Your potential prospects will thank you by giving you their business.
And on behalf of all marketing professionals out there – I will too.