When companies face economic hardship, they rightly obsess on reducing costs and finding new sources of revenue. The knee-jerk reaction of cutting marketing and putting more “feet on the street” to increase sales would seem to make sense.

However, those who understand the power of marketing know that marketing creates sales leverage. Although marketing will never replace sales, it can replace certain steps in the sales process, thus freeing sales to be more productive.

The sales process is labor intensive. The sales relationship is one to one, and therefore the coverage model is thin. Sales resources are expensive. Marketing, on the other hand, is more highly leveraged. Even with the newer, more effective targeted marketing strategies, marketing is one to many or one to few.