Marketing and sales go together like love and marriage or a horse and carriage. Love must be true, not blind, for a marriage to succeed. Marketing must be true for sales to profit. The horse must go in front of the cart to get anywhere. Marketing must precede sales to get business going in the right direction.

Sales and marketing are often lumped together in the same category or department of a company. They are so important to one another, perhaps they should be together as a couple. They certainly are a team that must work together. Marketing and sales must work so closely that sometimes the lines will get blurred between the two. Good marketing actually begins the sales process, and good salesmanship will incorporate marketing as well.

Marketing can be divided into two broad categories – branding and lead generation. Branding is the first step to growing a business.  Branding is the process of defining the identity of a company and creating consumer awareness of the business identity.

• Does your business have a secret identity, or do you, your staff and the consumer know what your business is all about?
• Can you state in a simple sentence what makes your business unique to the consumer?
• What problems do you solve for the consumer?
• Do you solve problems for consumers differently than competitors?

If the answer to any of the above questions is no, you’ll need to start there.

Without clearly defining your brand, there is no way your marketing efforts can remain true.  Without a brand, your marketing efforts are destined to be attempts to sell products. Without a brand, the only differentiating factor you can offer the consumer is the lowest common denominator – price.

I learned most of what I know about branding many years ago from a true marketing guru, Jack Sims.

Jack taught me and a hundred of my colleagues how to brand our dealerships to grow profits and value in every sale. I am forever grateful to him for sharing the comprehensive branding methods he developed with me.  Of all of the lessons I’ve learned about marketing, Jack’s message about branding is the single most important one. Branding our business using Jack’s methods is the one thing that is most responsible for our company growing over the past two decades, surviving the “Great Recession” and allowing us to celebrate our 60^th year in business.

Thanks, Jack!

Read my next Blog, “Brand to the Bone” to learn more about Jack Sims’ methods of branding your company to grow your business…