Sales is narrowly focused on converting a prospect into a customer. Salespeople have to know precisely how the product will solve the customer’s pain points in a particular vertical. They have to speak in industry jargon and address the relevant issues based on the buyer’s role within the organization. It is the marketing team’s responsibility to ensure the sales team’s success. Marketing translates product features to business use cases, creates buyer’s personas and the relevant messaging. This is sales enablement. The better you understand your customer needs and their journey to becoming a client and beyond, the better your sales tactics will perform.

The most significant difference between Sales and Marketing is the way they measure their success. Salespeople are driven by short-term incentives and concentrate on closing deals to meet their sales quota. In comparison, Marketing’s success metrics are broader and forward-looking, from brand awareness and perception to nurturing interest in the product to customer satisfaction.

Startups tend to invest first in hiring salespeople even before developing a marketing plan, which is a mistake. Marketing is a lot more than SEO and Social Media posts. Marketing lays the strategic foundation and provides the essential subsistence that fuels the sales engine. Unfortunately, many startups fall short of their sales and marketing goals because they jump right into tactics before formulating the overall strategy behind it all.

Originally published in Medium.