There's an old saying in aviation circles: "There are old pilots and there are bold pilots. But there are few old, bold pilots." The same might be said for sales pros and marketing pros. Despite the widespread perception that the two disciplines are similar, they're actually quite different. Finding the true hybrid, a "sales and marketing professional," is about as rare as finding a unicorn.

At my company, CRI, we work exclusively with sales and marketing professionals. Recently, we examined the two groups to determine how they're different, and sought to disprove some of the old myths about each. Our main objective? To find out how the two groups could better work together.

As part of our research, we examined 60 of our recent candidates; 30 were sales professionals, 30 were marketing professionals (and half of each group had 15 or more years of experience). Here's what we found.

Try this test. Run a grammar check on your resume. How many words do you average per sentence? A well written sentence is typically 15 words or less; if you're over 15 words, you're probably using unnecessary adverbs or adjectives. Either that, or you're mixing thoughts better split into separate sentences.

Finding #1: Sales professionals averaged approximately 18 words per sentence.

Finding #2: Marketing professionals averaged approximately 9 words per sentence.

Finding #3: Sales professionals with 15+ years experience averaged roughly 15 words per sentence.

Finding #4: Sales professionals with less than 15 years experience averaged a whopping 21 words per sentence!

Finding #5: Among marketing professionals, there was virtually no difference in word count based on years of experience. The more experienced group averaged 10 words per sentence, the less experienced group 8 words per sentence.

Lessons Learned:

If you're a sales pro, you are likely to notice the power of well-selected words to impact your sales performance. Gone are the days when it was considered acceptable to use rambling sentences while trying to develop a rapport with clients. These days, you are keenly aware that your customer is deluged with words all day long and that your message should be direct and clear. Which means, pick your words carefully!

If you're a marketing professional, listen carefully to sales reps, especially when you're in strategy and product development meetings. They may use more words than you do to express themselves, but there's often an emotional component to their language that could prove vital to your branding efforts. Strip away the adverbs and adjectives and you just might find the missing element that crystallizes the unique value of your product or service. So stick to the classic marketing tenet: less is more.

Are there any lessons to be learned from this survey, or is it time to bring in Dr. Phil?

One important take away from these findings is that the two groups are very different, much more so than most people realize. Despite these obvious differences, the two groups need each other. If there's one common assessment in both camps, it's that corporate America desperately needs leaders who can marry marketing strategy with sales tactics. That leads to common goals, which are essential to increasing market share and profits.

So how can groups of sales and marketing professionals achieve stronger communication and collaboration when striving toward common goals? Simple. They need to recognize their differences and exercise patience and mutual understanding.

And, no, it wasn't the famous book that led to this article.

Rather, it was the painting "Venus and Mars" by Sandro Botticelli. Mars was the Roman god of War and his love was Venus. And the name of their child? None other than Harmonia, from whom we get the word 'harmony.'