Marketing vs. Sales: Their Major Difference and How They Work Together

Business guru and well-known provocateur Tom Peters once addressed a crowd of over 400 sales and marketing executives saying: “I hate sports analogies. They’re just a bunch of male macho…” Yet, in the world of sales and marketing, sports analogies are de rigueur and tossed around like a basketball during March Madness.
To properly understand the difference between sales and marketing, however, another analogy seems more suitable: that of musical theater. Salespeople are the performers in a Broadway musical, whereas marketing folks are the set designers, producers, and choreographers.
On the surface, the two may present as a ‘selling vs marketing’ schema. Marketing puts the show together without a nod of the head or clap of the hand. Sales then takes the reins and earns the applause. However, this imbalanced view glosses over the meaningful difference between sales & marketing and altogether ignores the fact that the two entities can work together harmoniously with just a wee bit of effort.

The Sales and Marketing Relationship

While the goal of sales and marketing are notably similar (boost company revenue), this fact seems tangential in relation to their means of reaching that goal. Would it be surprising to know that a staggering 76 percent of marketers are overlooking the importance of sales enablement? Put differently, a mere 24 percent of marketing specialists have an agreement with sales on defining lead responsibilities, according to Hubspot’s Fifth Annual Review of Inbound Marketing Trends and Tactics.

From tenfold.com