My esteemed Plaxo colleague, Mohammed Thiab has asked a follow up question to my last sales and marketing response. He asks:

How do you distinguish sales, from marketing, from business development ? and on what basis ?

This is a simple question with a long answer. I will try to keep it sweet.

First we are talking about action, not physical entities. That said. we must go to the root verb to get true understanding. Let’s start with definitions:

Sell – (From Dictionary.com)

1. To exchange or deliver for money or its equivalent.
2. To offer for sale, as for one’s business or livelihood: The partners sell textiles.
3. To give up or surrender in exchange for a price or reward: sell one’s soul to the devil.
4. To persuade (another) to recognize the worth or desirability of something: They sold me on the idea.

Marketing – (From Dictionary.com)

1. To offer for sale.
2. To sell.
3. To deal in a market.
4. To buy household supplies: We marketed for a special Sunday dinner.

Business Development – (From Wikipedia)

a number of techniques designed to create and grow an economic enterprise. Such techniques include, but are not limited to, concept and brand development, assessments of marketing opportunities and target markets, intelligence gathering on customers and competitors, generating leads for possible sales, followup sales activity, formal proposal writing and business model design.
So if you look at the definitions, selling is getting someone to buy, marketing is the act of selling, and business development is the act of marketing or selling (redundant?). It is not surprising why Mohammed is challenging me to find some distinctions.

Now, HERE ARE MY SUGGESTED DEFINITIONS:

Business development is the accumulating of partnerships that will help you sell.
Marketing is the establishing of credibility that will help you sell.
Sales is the act of selling. Selling is the ability to receive money for an offering.

So, how do we define the three in an organization. In the modern organization it is imperative to let go of phrasing and look at core needs. If you need to develop a B2B channel, you will need to market to the channel or resellers to educate them on what your services are. You will need a consistent communicator to develop the business, i.e. develop the key partnerships. Finally you will need a sales person to manage the relationship and the deals that come from it.

If you are selling something B2C that requires another product or service to function then the dynamic changes. Business development must first define the requirements then develop a partnership based on mutual benefit and functionality. Marketing must then communicate to the market place the benefit or impulse for using your offering with the partnered offering. Finally sales must manage the flow of activity generated by marketing.

Mohammed I could go on and on with examples in different markets and industries but the keys to the split is simple. Business development is the art of defining what can make you grow. Marketing is developing sales ready opportunities. Sales is getting leads to become customers and maintaining that status.