Why you need marketing in your sales-oriented company

When I talk to CEOs of small B2B companies, I often hear, "We don't need marketing, we're very sales-oriented". I've heard it dozens of times. Here's why I think it's wrong, but why I understand where those CEOs are coming from.

When Mezzanine was in its early days, we were very sales driven too, and a lot of our success came from that orientation. But something happens when a company grows -or tries to grow - beyond the size of what the CEO him or herself alone can sell. It becomes very difficult to attract and retain business development people who can also do what the CEO does, because they rarely have the same expertise or industry knowledge. And that's when marketing is absolutely critical.

If the company doesn't invest in marketing to build the reputation of the company, increase awareness and generate leads, the new sales people that the company attracts are going to have a very hard time being successful. I've seen it cause hundreds of thousands of wasted dollars in recruiting, training and compensating business development people who end up failing in their role and leaving the company within a year.

And that's why you need marketing in your sales-oriented company!