In the sales orientation to marketing, sales are king. All business activities center on aggressive sales initiatives and campaigns to drive revenue. “Sell, sell, and sell some more” is the mantra. In fact, there is no distinction between selling and marketing because they mean the same thing. Selling is marketing and marketing is selling. Everything is selling! The sales orientation focuses on “the idea that people will buy more goods and services if aggressive sales techniques are used and those high sales results in high profits.” [Charles Lamb, Joseph Hair, and Carl McDaniel, MKTG 3.0 (Mason, OH: South-Western Cengage Learning, 2010), 5].
Like the production orientation, the sales orientation fails in one critical aspect: it does not address customer needs. For example, I like to call this the “used car salesman approach.” Most of us have been there. You walk on the car lot, and immediately one car salesman jumps from the swarm and starts the process. It’s a practice we all know and hate. Some dealers are much better than they used to be, but the pressure is still on to sell, even if it means offending a potential customer. You walk off the lot fighting your way to your current car. The technique is often aggressive and tends to focus on the sale rather than the needs of the customer. I consider myself a nice guy, but this process brings the mean out in me. I just hate the process and sales environment involved. One is often forced to ask the salesman the following: “What is it about the word NO you don’t understand?”
One other example. The first small business I worked for out of college in the early 80s was a small retail store that sold personal computers. We often had roving sales individuals wander into the store selling their wares. One day I saw one coming in the front door, and the first thing he asked me was, “Do you like gold?” I said no. This threw him for a loop, and he then attempted to sell me some gold jewelry draped around his arms and wrists. Of course, I did really like gold, but I wanted to make a point with this salesman. He was aggressive, and I attempted to ruffle his feathers and disrupt his cadence. It worked and gave the employees a good laugh.
Businesses often fail to realize that a larger sales staff does not always translate into larger revenues. Sales activity does not mean revenue generation, especially if selling is without the support and understanding of marketing. Marketing’s key function is to support sales and provide many of the strategic and communication tools needed to simplify the sales process.
By Stuart Atkins
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