Which comes first: Sales or Marketing?

This is yet another ‘which is first: egg or hen’ debate. Let’s first acknowledge the false notion about one of them being second to the other. A successful business is one where sales and marketing work hand-in-hand. Though this pretty much concludes our discussion, it is necessary to state both sides of the argument and prove our claim. Sales is the process of selling a product or service to a customer. It can be likened to the ‘science’ of converting a potential lead into a customer. Marketing on the other hand is the process of generating potential customers through advertisements and other campaigns. Very often, marketing is expressed as an ‘art.’ The debate between which must be more appreciated arises because of the close-knit activities of these two interdependent fields. For instance, say your company invests highly in marketing and has an excellent