While sales and marketing are closely linked, they do in fact serve different purposes. The end goals of each discipline is to grow sales, it is the approach and methods that differ.

Sales focuses on converting an individual or group to an immediate or near future customer. Marketing’s role is to reach a larger audience to build awareness, create interest and generate sales opportunities now and in the future.

Some companies combine these functions to save cost or in an attempt to better align the two processes. This can be successful if the person or department clearly understands the different roles and dedicates the necessary resources to accomplish both tasks. The risk that exists in combining these functions is that one of the roles will be undeserved resulting in either a loss of short-term or long-term sales.