Yes, it's doable but in a way it is as senile as recruiting more soldiers and send them to battle unarmed because the army has no budget for weapons but human life is cheap and expendable.
It also reminds me of Jeffrey Pfeffer's (Thomas D. Dee Professor of Organisational Behaviour, Stanford Graduate School of Business) words...
"What kind of doctor would you be if your patient was bleeding faster and faster, and your only response was to increase the speed of the transfusion?"
The average attrition among sales professionals is 43%. 27% of salespeople don't produce enough to cover their costs of employment. Companies cry that their salespeople aren't loyal to them and they jump ship for better offers. The funny thing is that most companies are not worth being loyal to because they strategically destroy their own sales forces. They simply treat their salespeople like shit. There is no reason to stay.
The late Peter Drucker and four of his truisms about marketing come to mind...
"Foreign managers take marketing seriously. In most American companies marketing still means no more than systematic selling. Foreigners today have absorbed more fully the true meaning of marketing: Showing what is value of the customer."
"Because its purpose is to create a client, the business has two - and only two - functions... Marketing and innovation. Marketing and innovation produce results, all the rest are costs."
"Marketing is the distinguishing unique function of the business. A business is set apart from all other human organisations by its marketing activities. Any organisation that fulfills its purpose through marketing is a business, and any organisation where marketing is absent or incidental is not a business, and shouldn't be run as such." (The Practice of Management - 1954)
"The aim of marketing is to make selling superfluous."
If you go the "sales" route, you can have instant gratification. It's like a one-night stand with a hooker. You pay and get what you want right away. And you don't have to "waste" your time and money on the courting process. The problem is that you run a very high risk of catching some nasty disease.
The marketing route is somewhat different. You make an upfront investment, and your investment pays off over time. You get a significantly better return on your investment than in the one night stand. It's the same as investing money, time and effort in a long-term romantic relationship. That romance must be nurtured and invested in.
However, since many business owners are so amazingly greedy and everlastingly stupid that they want to see instant return on their investments, they ignore marketing and systematic business development. And I think we also talk about courage here. Many business owners are five-star cowards and don't have the guts to invest in their own ventures. They have bought shares in some blue chip companies, some biotechnology companies and even some mines, but they plainly refuse to invest in their own businesses.
The fact is that no one likes gutless, spineless cheapskates.
So, just think about how much it costs you to replace your salespeople, and then you will gain different perspective. How do your clients perceive you when they get passed on to a new sales rep three times a year? So, just start marketing and stop turning your company into a sales laughing stock.
What's the logic in putting the future of your company in the hands of people half of whom get replaced every year and go to work for your competition?
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