In many industries, the terms marketing, business development, and sales are typically lumped into one word or used interchangeably.
However, these three areas have specific functions and each usually requires a different type of personality, skill set, and employee.
Curious about what each term means? 🤔 Find out below.
Understanding the Three Departments: Marketing, Business Development, and Sales
All three aspects play together for an overall winning business strategy.
Being clear about the goals of each department will ensure that you find the right person for the role.
Marketing Helps Potential Customers Be Aware Of The Company
Marketing involves everything that happens before the client meets an employee within your firm.
It’s before face-to-face or virtual-to-virtual interaction.
Marketing helps prospects become familiar with your firm and warm up to it.
Marketing includes branding, advertising, website, social media, and sponsorships.
Consistency in marketing is key, as there aren’t instant results.
Research shows that a prospect needs to see your brand thirteen times before they remember it. Be consistent! That’s the secret sauce to marketing. 📈
The Role of Marketing in Building Your Brand
In the past, marketing success was difficult to measure, but with the addition of digital marketing tools, it’s become easier to see results.
Marketers can see Google analytics, social media platform insights, which shows what pages are being visited, how long visitors stay on your website, and how they engage with your social media platforms.
These measures are constantly changing because of technology and laws, but marketers must be aware of the impact they can make by showing principals and owners the tangible success of digital marketing.
With email campaigns, marketers can also see who opens the emails and where they click through.
Confirming the Deal with Sales
Sales is confirming the deal and signing the contract.
Many times the owner, principal, or project manager closes the sale.
Marketing and business developers aren’t responsible for closing the sale.
They are responsible for shortening the sales cycle, building your firm’s brand, supporting the technical team, and giving the technical team insight into what the prospect/client really wants or needs.
The sale usually happens during the presentation/interview for the project, in which the owner, principal, project manager, and/or superintendent are involved.
It’s up to this team of individuals to close the sale and make it a no-brainer to select their team for the project!
Building Relationships with Business Development
Business development is building relationships with prospects and clients consistently.
This is face-to-face interactions or virtual meetings with prospects and clients.
Business development occurs every day in your business (or at least it should in some capacity).
Every employee is responsible for business development, as they are going to create repeat clients when delivering great projects.
Business developers are typically responsible for making cold calls and being the face of the company at various community, client, and prospect events.
The Importance of Measuring Business Development Success
Business development can be measured through direction and accountability.
A detailed business development plan gives the individual the firm’s direction and target audience, so they know where they need to spend their time developing relationships.
A business developer can attend multiple events in a day, but if it’s not where your target audience spends their time, then you are wasting the business developer’s time and the firm’s resources (i.e., money).
Setting those expectations is important, so owners and principals see the results they want.
How To Find The Right Person For Marketing, Sales, And Business Development
As laid out above, there are slight differences in each function.
At the same time, many of the knowledge and skills are transferable.
For smaller companies, it is possible to have an employee who is capable in all realms.
But in bigger companies, decision-makers may choose to specialise each department accordingly.
For marketers, choose technical skillsets with data analytics skills.
Salespeople must be persuasive, good at negotiating and excel in communication.
Business developers are creative, visionaries, and great at problem-solving.
By strategizing, collaborating, and implementing these areas of your business, you will increase profits and build your business.
Related to Marketing:
