When entrepreneurs initially create and build b2b businesses, it is largely on the strength of their personal selling and networking skills. In the early years, a marketing department is often deemed as relevant as a HR department. Sales drives the business forward, support functions such as marketing are often regarded as necessary evils once the business reaches a certain size. Unlike b2c environments where marketing has to be a business driver from day one, the b2b entrepreneur often has a sceptical view as to how marketing can grow the bottom line. The entrepreneur's sales-led culture then permeates the business to the extent that when a marketing person finally gets on board, it is very difficult to sell internally the concept of growing the business as a brand.

A newly appointed marketing manager of a £30m T/O business services company recently shared a view on the problem - "I am the first ever marketing manager to be appointed by this company. I look around me and from a marketing perspective; this company should be struck off! Every branding and marcomms rule has been broken. No clear positioning strategy; sloppy and inconsistent messaging; poorly defined market segments and data - this company would be a horror case study for the CIM. Yet despite these problems, the business has been a phenomenal success - how can I possibly tell them that they have been getting it wrong for all these years and a radical marketing overhaul is necessary?"

A typical founder entrepreneur view is:

'We did OK without marketing why should we spend money on it now. We can recruit a few sales people for that budget; at least we know exactly what we are getting for our money.' A fair enough comment, but the problem is that a founder entrepreneur did not set up a business in 2006. Quite simply the world in which we sell into has changed.

Building a business purely through the hard work and grunt of cold calls and networking in 2006 is tough. Gaining access to stressed out, time-starved prospects who don't have the time for speculative meetings is more difficult now than it was even five years ago. Prospects work in busy 'down-sized' environments where they have to hide away from the sales people through voicemail and email. Thanks to the web they have the information about solving a business problem at their fingertips - they can dictate if, how and when they want to be sold to. Relying purely on direct sales activity to generate leads in 2006 is not an efficient or effective use of time and money.

If this is the reality of the b2b world then maybe it's time for a compelling business case that marketing should be the new business driver. Marketing that engages with prospects in a timely, relevant fashion that helps them initiate a sales dialogue.

It won't happen overnight, but are marketing budget battles about to be made a little easier? Back to bitesize chunks