If, on the remote possibility that this message has an ice-cube’s chance in hell of being seen by someone in firm management who is thinking about "replacing" a marketing director with a sales director, let me make one point very clear:
MARKETING AND SALES ARE DIFFERENT THINGS!
They are related, but then again so are marketing and finance. And marketing and ops. And marketing and your hiring practices, personnel policies, pricing, client satisfaction, etc.
Don’t get me wrong — I’m all for an increased attention to sales support in law firms. It’s actually a more logical first step than high-level marketing, since you can work with individuals (who sell) as opposed to the organization (which you market). In fact, a balanced marketing and sales program is the best way to make tons of money. In mature industries, sales and marketing are the two legs that drive revenue. You can’t get very far with just one… but when they work together… wooosh!
I guess scrapping marketing in favor of sales is a good thing for firms that are so self-knowledgeable they’ve thrown in the towel on behaving like a business instead of a collection of sole practitioners whose only reason for being in a "firm" is to share copiers, secretaries and letterhead.
But here’s my prediction: firms that fire marketing directors and hire sales directors will be firing them and hiring "personal coaching directors" or some-such in about 2-3 years.
And here’s another warning to firms that go to sales vs. marketing; sales skills are transferable. IE, all those lawyers you train can take those skills to another firm when they finally figure out that their current firm isn’t providing the necessary business environment (marketing, HR, ops) to succeed. Or when they discover that they, along with the other 10% of the attorneys that actually do the sales stuff, are supporting the 90% of the lawyers who "just want to practice law."
Marketing benefits acrue to the organization; sales benefits acrue to the individual. There’s a role for both functions in a firm that wants to increase profits.
Stumble it!