The Sale That Never Had a Chance

Competence Is the Completion of the Process

A central component of competence, whether in marketing or sales, is the complete execution of each step of the process. When even one step is skipped, rushed, or poorly done, every step that follows becomes partially wasted effort. Instead of progressing forward with power and certainty, the team is forced into compensations, work-arounds, and improvisation.

In other words, process in-completion compounds.

The Marketing Process: Laying the Foundation

The marketing process exists for one purpose:
to produce a lead that can be competently handed off to sales and converted into a real opportunity.

When marketing is properly completed, the result is not just a name, phone number, or email address, it is a prospect who is interested, informed, and already oriented toward how your product or service could help them.

When marketing falls short, however, the “lead” that reaches sales is only a lead in name. It lacks understanding, trust, or relevance. At that point, sales is no longer starting at the beginning of their process, they are being forced to go backward and redo marketing’s work.

A Short (and Painfully Familiar) Story

Picture a salesperson getting a “hot lead” and calling with confidence, only to hear:

“Wait… who are you again? How did you get my number?”

That salesperson is now in damage control. Instead of advancing the sale, they are explaining basics, rebuilding interest, and justifying the call itself. What should have been a productive sales conversation has turned into a defensive exercise.

When leads are poor, salespeople must practically be geniuses to close deals. They resort to unusual discounts, favors, extended trials, and creative concessions—not because these are good sales strategies, but because they are trying to compensate for incomplete marketing.

This is why marketing process completion is the foundation of sales competence.

Marketing’s First Responsibility: Creating Trust

At SELLability, we place enormous emphasis on trust, because without it, no sales process works for long.

While trust must certainly be strengthened during the sales process, it must first be established by marketing. Salespeople rely on a database of prospects they have never met before, yet those prospects must already have a degree of confidence, familiarity, and credibility attached to the company.

That trust is not created by the salesperson’s first sentence.
It is created long before the call ever happens.

When marketing successfully builds trust, the salesperson’s first interaction starts several steps ahead. When it doesn’t, the salesperson must begin from zero, attempting to rebuild credibility, legitimacy, and interest all at once.

Another Real-World Example

Think about meeting someone who was recommended by a close friend versus a complete stranger who stops you on the street.

Same message. Same offer.
Completely different level of trust.

That is the difference competent marketing makes.

Enter the Sales Process

Competence does not stop with marketing, it continues through every step of the sales process itself.

Just as in marketing, each stage of the sales process must be fully completed before moving on. When steps are rushed or skipped, the salesperson ends up trying to “sell harder” later to make up for what wasn’t properly done earlier.

This is where training becomes critical.

For a salesperson to competently complete a sales process, they must:

• Learn the process cold

• Drill it regularly

• Understand the exact result of each step

• Verify that the result is achieved before advancing

Skipping this discipline is like trying to play jazz before learning scales, it might sound creative for a moment, but it quickly falls apart.

Competence Is Not Talent—It’s Completion

True competence is not personality, charm, or natural ability.
It is the consistent completion of defined processes.

First in marketing.
Then in sales.

Organizations that want predictable growth must:

• Clearly define both marketing and sales processes

• Train teams thoroughly on each step

• Measure completion, not just activity

• Insist that processes are done—done, done, done

Because when processes are completed, competence follows.
And when competence is present, results are no longer a mystery, they are inevitable.