Rick Roberge frequently comments on this blog. He's been a salesman for decades, but is recognized as an early adopter of tools, technology and techniques that help salespeople sell more effectively. He shares freely and has helped develop many 21st Century Sales Rock Stars. In his own words...
God! No! Not a chance! Shoot yourself first!
But....
Let's set this up.
Some of your salespeople may have ended 2013 at 92% of their quota.
Your manufacturing department is happy with a 2% failure rate which means that 98% of what they made did what it was supposed to do.
Your customer service department reports that 85% of your customers are happy with you.
Could you imagine if your bookkeeper came to you and reported, "We've got great news! We've accounted for 92% of your money! We don't have a clue where the other 8% is."?
Typically, companies have a margin of error for sales, manufacturing, quality control, etc., but accounting and bookkeeping have no margin of error. They have to account for every penny earned and every penny spent. No exceptions!
So, back to the title: Should Your Bookkeeper Run Sales and Marketing? No, but they could help because they are really good at one thing. They are anal. They don't 'get' gray. Everything is black or white, yes or no, on or off, 1 or 0. Marketing and sales get accustomed to fluff, opinion and guesses. Bookkeepers want data.
Ask your bookkeepers:
- Who are my most profitable clients?
- Where do they come from?
- Did they start as inbound, outbound, referred, trade show leads or something else?
- Who are our most profitable salespeople?
- How much time, manpower and resources did we put into inbound, outbound etc and what was the resulting revenue and profit for each?
