What does process improvement have to do with marketing and selling?
Marketing and selling activities are business processes. They add value like any other business process (else, why do them?). Process improvement can improve marketing and selling results (often dramatically) just as it has improved results in many other fields. One of the key principles of process improvement is to eliminate waste: In marketing and selling that means things like reducing the amount of poorly targeted promotions, or making sure salespeople spend time only with the best qualified prospects. Marketing and selling professionals often have good strategies for improving these kinds of specific results. However, what they may not have is a way of determining their impact on the “system” of all the variables that affect their business. A common example is a promotional campaign such as trade show. These can increase the number of “leads” into a company (more leads = good marketing, right?). Unfortunately, these “leads” often go to waste. Salespeople may not have time to follo
