When businesses started with the barter system, marketing and sales were glued together. The traders would do the lead generation by finding the chieftains of the tribe, do the marketing by laying out the wares and close the transaction with a sale by getting the item they have agreed to barter. When the merchants go back to their homeland, they would do the same thing, this time selling the goods to other merchants in the homeland.
As businesses and companies evolved marketing and sales were separated. The marketing department was given the responsibility of making sure that the company and the products had good image. The sales transaction was given over to the sales team. Over the years, as they specialized in their own departments, they came to compete with each other, often making the squabbles a headache to the top management.
Presently, there is a trend that is slowly increasing in popularity among companies. This is the fusing of marketing and sales again, of going back to the practice of linking marketing and sales. And there is a good rationale behind this. As information on products and feedback from social media increasingly affect the buying habits of consumers, companies are finding it more necessary to make sure that what the consumers perceive are what they get. A consistent and credible image is needed by companies today, making it necessary for marketing and sales to closely collaborate.
The good thing about this is that companies have developed means to achieve this through customer relationship management (CRM) systems and by outsourcing some of marketing and sales’ roles to lead
generation companies that offer excellent lead generation services.
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