In some marketing departments, they think everyone in sales is named Willy Loman or Shelly “The Machine” Levine. Of course, these same sales people may see themselves as Dale Carnegie or Tony Robbins. The key for management is to remind each group that they weren’t hired to make great theater or start a self-help industry. They are, for better or worse, partners in the same enterprise, critical players on the same team.

The teams start off from the same places – product or service FAB, audience definitions, strategy and leads – but they diverge from there. Marketers pick the appropriate medium to drive Attention, Interest, Decision, Action and Retention (AIDA). Sales people, however, deal with people, not media.

Depending on the product, service and distribution channel, a sales person may use many of the following terms, but all Sales people must decide – usually in moments – whether marketing has succeeded, and whether they are talking to a:

• Suspect: an unqualified lead – not yet attentive or interested

• Opportunity, Contact, Call Back or Prospect: a Qualified lead that has some familiarity, but has not decided to buy “our” brand

After the Pitch, Proposal, Assumptive Close, Trial Close or just plain Close (failure of the aforementioned not-withstanding), there is a:

• New Customer: someone who has purchased, but not re-purchased

• Client, Established Customer: repeat business

This is quantitatively and qualitatively different than marketing.

Can’t we all just get along?

What can be confusing is that there are many other similarities between the two. Both the successful sales person and successful marketer wishes to gain trust; both try to handle objections. But only the sales person presents and closes sales. Both sales and marketing work to retain clients. But few marketers get a person-to-person earful when a marketer has over-promised.

And this is critical: Marketing, along with operations, needs to listen to sales, to know what worked and what didn’t. Do sales people hear what they want to hear? Do sales people sell to their strengths? Are they human? Of course, and that’s why marketing needs to balance sales feedback with up-to-date demographic and psychographic information. This is usually where problems arise – when marketing finds facts that will mean new markets, transitions, uncomfortable changes. But in the long run, the two must work hand-in-glove, for mutual improvement, and improvement of the bottom line.