Know-How Exchange : Other

Hmmm. Of course no matter what we say, the real thing that will be the basis for whether you pay or not was the agreement (hopefully you have it in writing).

The basic difference in my mind is:

Marketing is when you do work that is your company promoting to many different people at once. This means producing advertisements, press releases, working with media to get favorable placements, etc. These all are aimed at getting information out about your products to many people at once.

Sales is where you are going one to one (or small group). The activities involves cold calls, demonstrations, sales calls, etc. All involve one person within your company directly talking to one (or a small group of people all related to each other) within the prospect's company.

Good luck.

hi Larry,

have you tried www.google.com ? anyway i did a search, some of the links look promising.

https://www.google.co.nz/search?hl=en&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla:en-U...

have a nice day

Carl Crawford

Do you have any evidences of meetings, warnings, evaluations or any other written documents of you warning him, evaluations, etc., on the failure or lack of marketing?

Can you prove that he knew he wasn't achieving what was agreed upon, or an original definition between you of what those "marketing" functions were to be?

f_lynch/metal guy,

All I can tell you is this that Selling would fall under the umbrella of Marketing. Although great marketing sells, Selling is only one small facet of marketing. If all he did was sell for commissions I can not see how that would be considered marketing at all. Selling is only one of the columns underneath the Parthenon of Marketing.

If you really want to know what marketing is like Jim says read the "bible" on marketing. Is there anything else I can do for you?

Your Servant, Deremiah, *CPE (Customer passion Evangelist)

Larry,

Jim has provided you with excellent advice, you do have an agreement in principle without much detail, particularly -- how to measure any marketing efforts separate from “Sales & Marketing”? Had this individual really provided “any real marketing (seperate) services” where is the proof, the measurement? In situations where agreements are vague, the business practices that are most common or standard in the marketplace will usually help provide guidelines. With the majority of small businesses, “Sales & Marketing” is treated as a single term for ALL activity that builds revenue. Small businesses typically measure S&M success by their gross sales, and will not divide out a marketing goal of increased brand equity as an example – it’s sales dollars per month or other time period.

As Jim stated – the burden of proof is on the plaintiff.

(disclaimer, I’m not an attorney and this not intended to be legal advice)

Here’s link to American Marketing Association article:
The reality is that Sales and Marketing need to synch up or sink. The two need to be integrated in order to build customer relationships, enhance brand, capitalize on leads, improve market share and to boost revenue.
https://www.marketingpower.com/content16836.php

hope this helps,

- Steve

f_lynch/metal guy

You are in a tight spot...

This is a truly global forum -what's your time zone, how many hours have we got here??? This group LURVES a challenge!

If you can post the agreement somewhere so all can read it and comment it would be helpful. If you can email it to me (see my profile) maybe I can host it on my website and give everyone a link to it. I am on GMT +10 and right now it's 13:35 Tue 16 Nov here. I'm hoping you are at least East Coast (GMT-5) or further away from your deadline.

One key question - HAVE YOU GOT YOUR LAWYER GOING TO COURT WITH YOU? If not, you may be going into court with your pants down.

If you haven't been given enough notice of the proceedings (11 Nov sounds tight if it was the first you heard of it) perhaps you can move for an adjournment of a few days while you get a lawyer properly briefed and prepared.

At the very least, maybe there's a marketing expert near you that is on this forum that could go in as an expert witness to describe the key differences between sales and marketing.

Come back and tell us what you can. Especially - where you are!

Good Luck

ChrisB

Hi!

I would develop a long list of questions for your attourney to ask the plaintiff. If most of the answers are no, then he should not get any more money out of you. Here are just a few:

1. Did you do any research to figure out who our target market is?

2. Did you formulate projections such as market potential and marketing budgets?

3. Did you do any analysis on the competitive environment? Swot? 5 forces?

4. Did you develop a marketing plan?

5. Did you do any promotions or develop any collateral for our products like brochures, catalogues, website, email shots, print ads, etc.?

6. Did you develop some metrics to measure how much of your sales can be attributed to your marketing investment?

7. Did you track customer satisfaction or customer loyalty in any way?

8. Do you have a clear idea of what our brand is and how to communicate it effectively?

Also, if he did develop some things to you, gather them and give them to a marketing expert for review. That review will hopefully be admissable in court.

The oldest known coin has the inscription, "find a need, and fill it". To my way of thinking, Marketing is the process of finding a prospect who has a need, and Sales is the process of mobilizing your organization to fill that that need.

Most small organizations do not have extensive marketing departments, and so the sales person ends up doing some marketing work. You state in your question that the employee did not provide any "real" marketing - but did he provide any marketing services at all? Did he create letters? Did he make outbound calls? Did he work to define your position in the market? Did he communicate this to others? I'm sure we will all agree that each of us can do a better job in marketing - I know I can do better, I'm sure this person could do better - but I believe the burden of proof will be on you to show that you provided all these services to him.

I agree with Bob's post above that Sales reps don't generally do a good job of marketing - but I do not believe that is the test the judge will use to decide your case. Unless you have a strong in-house marketing department yourself, in the absence of a copy of your contract, and with the limited information at hand, I'm 80+% sure your former employee performed both sales and marketing duties.