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Where are all the good sales and marketing people in Utah?
I had a funny realization on the phone today: I don’t know many good sales and marketing people in Utah. I was talking to one of my friends who runs a good sized software company here in Utah. He was talking about a new service his company was building and planning to launch in the coming months. He talked about the need for a good VP of marketing and sales - because he’s a smart guy - he realizes the critical function sales and marketing play in the launch of his new product. But that’s when it hit me…who would I even recommend?
Here in Utah we have great technologist who are great at building software. Once its built it needs to be sold and marketed (contrary to popular belief in many dev circles - software does not just sell itself). Its up to marketing to position the product and create a marketing plan that’s going to build brand and drive leads to sales guys.
Here’s a side note fact you may not know: of all qualified leads - a software company should close between 30 to 80 percent of its potential customers. No, I’m not kidding. So if you’re not closing at least 30 percent of your qualified leads then your sales team is doing something wrong.
On the marketing side, at a minimum one percent (three is really the average) of unique visitors should convert to a qualified lead. So here’s a simple example:
1000 unique visitors to your site per month. At least ten should convert to a qualified lead. Three to eight of those should convert to a sale.  It may not sound like a lot but if you have tens of thousands of visitor each month or if you’re converting at three percent or if your selling a service with a $25,000 to $1 million plus price point…well do the math.
Back to the question at hand. I have no idea where all the sales and marketing people are in Utah. Its the one thing that’s really missing here. There is no more powerful combination in business than a good marketing person who can get a qualified lead to a good sales guy who knows how to close. You can build all the technology you want but if you can’t sell and achieve some kind of critical mass then you have failed by every definition of what being a success is in business.
Locally look at Altiris and Omniture - over the years they have perfected this model and that is probably the single biggest factor in their success. Money in the door allows you to finance improving your product. No one ever starts out with the ideal product. You get the beta, you get some beta customers, you improve, you keep selling, you keep refining, you execute with a team.  Altiris and Omniture didn’t always have the best product but their sales and marketing people kept them alive until they did. Look where they are today.
The road to software riches is paved with great ideas created by people who couldn’t execute and didn’t get this one simple principle - you must market and sell in order to achieve success.
Here’s another issue. I’m not saying we don’t have a good marketing and sales people here in the state - I know we do - they’re just hard to find. When I do come across good marketing people I usually find that they’re way behind the curve on Internet marketing. Here’s a note to all marketing people (especially in software marketing): THE INTERNET IS NOT WHERE MARKETING IS GOING - THE INTERNET IS WHERE MARKETING IS! So learn how to use it. I can’t be anymore clear than that.
On that note, I just remembered a funny story. A CMO for a large Web services company here in Utah proposed to his employees that every morning when they got to work, they should go to Google and click on their competitors paid ads. No I’m not kidding that seriously happened. I think someone pulled him aside and told him that not only was the proposed practice unethical but that Google would quickly zero in on them and ban them from using AdWords, which was a huge part of their marketing strategy. Frankly, if I had a CMO propose something like that to me I would fire them immediately for gross incompetence.
Here are couple of other thoughts. Marketing is a very broad practice. Just because you’re the marketing guy that doesn’t make you an automatic expert in PR, product development, branding, SEO, etc. On the flip side of that - just because you’re a PR person (or any other marketing specialist) that doesn’t automatically make you an expert at other areas of marketing. The one I’m running into a lot lately are writers who think they are experts at marketing just because they are good at writing. It makes no sense.
At any rate, I’m rambling now. Here are a couple of related posts I wrote last year:
Marketing talent is what’s missing
Here’s what else I find.
- Marketing people (VP of Marketing guys) rarely get PR and lots of money gets wasted expecting PR to act just like marketing.
- Not enough PR people understand simple internet marketing ideas.
- More of us (including me) need more sales experience. I’ve done quite a bit in the process of doing biz dev at any agency I’ve ever been a part of, but I always feel like my sales skills can improve.
Left by Russell on 02/20/2008Russ:
Great observations. I know I have a long way to go on the PR side myself.
Left by Chris Knudsen on 02/20/2008Chris I know you know this and I don’t want to come off as self promoting but this is exactly how we ended up with our current model at sprout. Everyone was looking for a great VP of marketing but there were two problems.
1. all of the proven resources were taken
2. few firms can afford to hire the VP of Marketing and a PR guy and a web/SEO guy
So now that is what we do, instead of you trying to find all of these skill positions we will just be your marketing department for hire.
None of us know everything about every skill set but with the right “TEAM” we have the checks and balances in place. The other nice thing is that all of us are in our happy place. I am doing the web stuff that I love and Alex is doing the PR that he loves. He comes to me when he needs help optimizing a press release and I go to him when I have offended somebody
Left by Josh Carr Superstar on 02/20/2008Good comments Chris, Russ, and Josh. I think it comes down to having a team that each member specializes on something, and each one loves what he or she does. I think it is school that Sprout does that.
Left by Jorge on 02/20/2008The problem with Sprout is that they are spread too thin. Bruce is great but Bruce’s people are not Bruce. I was paying way too much money for a part time “VP of Marketing” when I could have used those resources to get me other things.
Sprout is a great group but they are just as constrained by the lack of resources in Utah as any other organization.
Left by Sprout Client on 02/20/2008I don’t believe the lack of quality sales talent is unique to Utah — it’s ubiquitous. The clear majority of “sales people” haven’t a clue what their doing — they don’t know how to Always Be Closing and often lump the skillset together with other disciplines, i.e. the VP of Sales, Marketing, and whatever else sounds sexy.
Left by Blake on 02/20/2008@Blake:
I agree that this isn’t a unique problem to Utah but it certainly is exaggerated here.
I don’t agree that the *majority* of sales people don’t know what they are doing. If that were the case then most companies wouldn’t go anywhere. Its easy to spot a company with a good sales organization and they certainly know what they are doing.
Lumping the sales, marketing, biz dev guy all into one isn’t the fault of the sales guy. He takes on the job because he’s usually willing to wear multiple hats even if it still just a sales job. The organization suffers and that is a direct result of the top not knowing that there is a difference and that the two need to be separated. The sales guy becomes the unfortunate victim of a bad management decision.
Left by Chris Knudsen on 02/20/2008Gee, maybe I should move back to Utah and look for a marketing job huh?
(Just kidding)
Left by Marty on 02/21/2008