Sales, Marketing, and Biz Dev: What’s The Difference - and Why Does It Matter?

It’s not uncommon for small businesses to have team members who share responsibilities around marketing, sales, AND business development. But here’s why you NEED to know the difference between these functions, even if you are a solopreneur doing it ALL yourself!

Get Clear about Roles and Goals 

Marketing, Business Development, and Sales are all distinct functions because they help your business solve different problems and capture unique opportunities.

Here's my quick take on the roles and goals of each function. 

Marketing Is Proactive and One-to-Many

This function should focus on:

• Reaching the target audience at scale with a specific, consistent message
• Building reputation for awareness and “priming” the audience to be predisposed to buy
• Strengthening future pipeline for revenue
• Diversifying the lead ecosystem for resilience 
• Enabling the highest priority Sales/Biz Dev activities through automation and asset creation

Biz Dev Is Proactive/Responsive and One-to-One or One-to-Few

This function should focus on:

• High-touch activities around pre-sale demand generation and relationship building
• Developing opportunities for entry into large accounts
• Cultivating referral relationships on purpose
• Exploring potential new markets

Sales Is Reactive and One-to-One

This function should focus on:

• Near term revenue opportunities
• Identifying, creating, and progressing current buyer journeys
• Removing obstacles, and helping prospects say “yes” 
• Closing existing deals faster
• Providing feedback to Marketing to improve lead generation

Tips for Helping Each Function Work Better

For Marketing:

Ensure you are getting executive level insight into strategy, performance, and alignment. This may mean bringing in a fractional CMO to guide your full-time marketing manager or director. Avoid having Marketing report to Sales since it turns marketing into a reactive function.

For Business Development:

Invest in developing social selling and ABM (Account Based Marketing) skills and capabilities rather than just having them network. Have Marketing support them with building a true referral marketing program so they can scale their efforts. 

For Sales:

Make sure they are getting Marketing support that will help them with streamlining repeatable PROCESSES based on BUSINESS priorities, not what seems most urgent to them at any moment. Track activities that are leading indicators to highlight the behaviors that lead to future revenue growth.

Stay Tuned for Great Conversations about Sales/Marketing Alignment

Right now, here’s a video that will help you with lead generation across ALL the areas of your business growth team.

In an upcoming episode of the Marketing Blender Show, I’ll be talking about Marketing and Sales alignment for small businesses. Be sure to subscribe to our channel so you don’t miss out on upcoming content!

For a one-on-one conversation about creating more alignment for your Sales/Biz Dev/Marketing team, grab a spot on my calendar here.

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