Here's a pattern I see repeatedly: a manufacturing company decides to enter a new market or launch a product line initiative. They hire salespeople or engage distributors. Sales activity begins. And results take much longer than expected.
The problem is sequencing. Marketing should come before sales, not after. But many manufacturers do it backwards, and then wonder why timelines stretch and targets get missed.
What Happens When Manufacturers Lead With Sales in New Markets?
Your new salesperson is cold calling into accounts that have never heard of you. No brand awareness. No thought leadership position. No content that buyers might have encountered during their research. Nothing to reference that would give the prospect confidence that this call is worth their time.
Compare that to a scenario where marketing has spent 12 months building presence in that market. Content has been published. Relationships with industry associations have been established. Your company shows up when prospects search for solutions. Then the salesperson calls. The prospect may recognize the company name. They may have already seen your content. They're more willing to engage.
The sales cycle difference between these scenarios is dramatic. In the first case, every conversation starts from zero. In the second, conversations start with some foundation already in place.
Why Do B2B Manufacturers Hire Salespeople Before Building Market Awareness?
I understand the impulse. You want results. You want revenue. Marketing feels slow and abstract while sales feels concrete and immediate. Hiring a salesperson feels like taking action.
But in markets where no one knows you, salespeople are swimming upstream. They're fighting for every meeting, every conversation. Their time is spent on prospecting rather than selling. Morale suffers. Turnover happens. You hire another salesperson. The cycle repeats.
Marketing investment ahead of sales investment creates the conditions for sales success. It doesn't guarantee success—plenty of things can still go wrong—but it removes one significant barrier.
Why Personal Relationships Are a Destination, Not a Starting Point, in New Markets
In established markets where you have brand recognition and customer relationships, sales can rely on those relationships to open doors. The salesperson knows people. Those people know and trust the company. Conversations happen more easily.
In new markets, you have no relationships to leverage. The personal interaction that might be your starting point in established markets becomes your destination in new ones. You have to earn the right to that conversation, and earning that right increasingly requires digital presence and content that buyers encounter during their research.
When Product Line Initiatives Aren't Supported by Marketing Programs
Another version of this sequencing problem: the company launches a strategic initiative around a product line or capability, but marketing programs don't shift to support it.
Sales is told to focus on the new priority. Marketing continues doing what they were doing before. The two aren't aligned. Salespeople have no content to support their conversations. No campaigns are generating awareness of the priority. No thought leadership is establishing expertise.
Strategic initiatives require coordinated effort across functions. Sales pushing while marketing isn't supporting creates friction and extends timelines.
What Happens When Marketing Has to Catch Up to Sales Efforts?
Sometimes the sequencing problem becomes clear only after sales efforts are struggling. Marketing is then asked to catch up—create content, build awareness, generate leads—while sales is already in the market and expecting support.
This is possible but suboptimal. The catch-up period is painful. Sales struggles while marketing ramps up. Expectations versus reality creates frustration.
Better to get the sequencing right from the beginning. Marketing should be doing its work this year so sales can succeed next year. Hiring salespeople for new markets before building brand awareness extends timelines and makes everyone's job harder.
Your best salespeople can't succeed in markets where no one has heard of you. Give them the foundation they need to succeed by investing in market presence before expecting them to generate results.
Topics: Sales, Marketing, Manufacturing, Content, Leadership
