For the last ten years, I’ve been the sole person doing marketing at my company, in addition to my original job as inside salesperson. In what was a three person office at the time, it was a decision of economics and efficiency. Having a salesperson also handle the marketing provided synergy that made sure the company message matched the needs of salespeople and their customers. I don’t think our website would be half as good if I wasn’t able to hang up with a new prospect and immediately modify our website to answer his questions (or fix errors).
Now with more than double the team and a couple new product launches to manage, its time for me to let go of the sales job. Personally, the sales job was getting tedious and unrewarding anyway. Management has seen fit to move me to full-time marketing manager, which is the reason I went back to school for my MBA five years ago. I’m pleased for myself, but also pleased that the company saw fit to invest in its infrastructure by realizing that marketing now needs to be a dedicated effort.
Over the next month, I must train one of our engineers in the fine art of inside sales (expect several posts on this process). I will miss talking to my sales reps and favorite customers on a regular basis, but look forward to making our company more professional, our salespeople more effective, and our customer more satisfied. I’ve got a list of marketing tasks I started on the plane home from California two weeks ago that I’m dying to tackle.
Oh, and….yippee!!!