Seth Godin and Mike Sigers

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I really like Seth Godin’s and Mike Sigers’s posts today on the sales profession. It caused me to think a bit about the difference between sales and marketing.

I’ve got a baseball metaphor for you (doesn’t baseball work for everything?)…marketers design the playing field, salespeople play the game. Marketers design the stadium’s playability–the visibility for batters and outfielders, distance from home of the outfield walls, the amount of foul territory, the playing surface, and so on. Salespeople use their experience with and knowledge of that field to gain an advantage in winning more games. (Of course, they largely get by on sheer talent that has nothing to do with the field.)

Salespeople make the emotions that marketers’ want associated with a brand real. Marketers are the strategy, salespeople are the execution. Marketers want products and services to live long healthy lives, salespeople need and thrive on immediate gratification.

A salesperson has to have the framework down to be a top 1% professional. He’s got to have the what-we-really-sell down pat. The what-we-really-sell is marketing’s job at the 30,000 foot level. The sales professional then takes that big picture and makes it practical, useful, and even more easily understood by real, living potential buyers.

It’s a tough job. Ain’t it great?

Coming next: Generating instant credibility.