Are you an independent sales professional or small business owner? If you are you may have found some sales success, but you may also feel kind of stymied, and you aren't sure where to turn or what to do to continue your business growth? Neither sales nor marketing are the whole story when it comes to your professional success, but rather they are the partnership that will enable you to achieve superior performance.

What does marketing do? First, I'd like to explain that there are two types of marketing, traditional marketing and marketing that is tailored for the small independent professional. This article is written for the small independent professional because traditional marketing does not work for people like us. Now within marketing tailored for the small independent professional marketing can do one of two things. You can use your marketing either as a lead generation tool or a direct response sales tool. If you are a service professional like an insurance agent, a financial advisor, an attorney, etc. your marketing needs to focus on lead generation. Lead generation marketing communicates your message to the right people with the objective of getting those people to reach out to you.

What does sales do? Sales is the process you follow to help the people who already know they want what you have to have the information they need to make a purchase the way they like to buy. A fail-safe sales process is one where you help the other person to make a decision rather than trying to sell them anything. Sales is the process that results in money in the bank because ultimately through sales process the person makes the decision to proceed if what you have matches what they want.

How do they fit together to help me grow faster and easier? Lead generation marketing helps you to get appointments with the right people so you can use your fail-safe sales process. The marketing helps you to get people in your sales funnel that you will ultimately be able to hold appointments with. The sales process then follows up and backs up your marketing efforts to provide the means for those who want what you have to get it. Your lead generation marketing not only helps you to fill your appointment calendar, but it helps you to fill your appointment calendar with people who have already told you they want what you have.

Your sales and marketing training program helps you to obtain manageable growth. Obviously when your appointment calendar is filled with appointments with people who have told you they want what you have, you close more sales. The added bonus is that because these people reached out to you they value you and your offer more than if you had reached out to them, they are happier with the entire process because it was their idea, and consequently they send more business your way through repeat business and referrals.

Would you like to learn more about your sales skills? Try this Sales Skills Analysis and find out where your opportunities for improvement are.

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