Myth: Marketing Assists Sales, Not Vice-Versa

Sales should be Assisting Marketing. The relationship between these two departments should be a two-way street.

Impossible, you say? No, in many companies it is standard procedure.

The problem is that because modern marketing is a much younger innovation than Sales, it has traditionally been seen only in the role for which it was originally invented. As marketing has grown and developed it has become increasingly obvious in the corporate world that both marketing and sales are equally necessary and that you can't have one without the other.

But change is hard in organizations, much harder than it is in small business. In an organization, change is frequently only achieved once the highest echelons have bought into a vision and successfully communicated that vision through all levels of the organization. The problem is that change has to get past the mindset that the current way of doing things is both the appropriate and correct way. As Alvin Toffler showed in "Future Shock" it is very difficult for many people to adapt to new discoveries.

Some business organizations have discovered (and are taking advantage of the fact) that their sales force is able to accumulate valuable research data while prospecting and selling which should be channeled to marketing because it is more cost effective and efficient than gathering the same data through other means.

Bruce Fryer wrote "A Salesperson's Other Job."