The"Dead Horse" Theory—But Where’s Sales Hiding?
- Ray lang
- Feb 27
- 6 min read
Updated: Apr 1
Pt.8 | Beyond the Funnel: Sales vs. Marketing | The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly
The Brutal Truth About Business Growth
Let’s call it out—businesses keep making the same damn mistakes when it comes to growth.They throw more money at marketing, chase more leads, and convince themselves the next tactic will fix everything.
Here’s the truth: You don’t have a marketing problem—you have a sales performance problem.
🚨 More leads won’t fix poor conversions.
🚨 More traffic won’t save bad follow-ups.
🚨 More budget won’t make up for a broken sales process.
If your sales team isn’t closing, no amount of clever branding, social media buzz, or SEO tricks will save you.Yet businesses refuse to face this reality—they’d rather double down on the same bad decisions than accept the truth and fix the root cause.
And here’s the worst part… most of them KNOW it. They see the poor conversion rates, the missed follow-ups, the ghosted leads—but instead of fixing the actual issue, they keep throwing good money after bad, hoping that the next marketing campaign will be different.
🔥 This isn’t about doing more—it’s about doing the right things, better. 🔥 This entire series had one purpose: to help you stop the madness, take control, and scale the right way.
Which brings us nicely onto The Dead Horse Theory...
"The Dead Horse Theory"—Why Businesses Keep Wasting Time & Money
Ever heard the phrase “flogging a dead horse”? It’s an old saying, but one that’s painfully relevant in business. It describes the sheer absurdity of continuing to invest time, money, and energy into something that’s already failed.
And yet, that’s exactly what most businesses do when faced with a failing sales strategy.
Instead of fixing the core issue, they take ridiculous measures to justify the wasted effort. They dress up the problem, throw more money at it, shift blame, and hope for a different outcome.
🔴 Instead of admitting sales is the issue, they do this instead:
✔ Buy a new saddle. (Rebrand, update logos, or launch a new website—without fixing sales.)
✔ Improve the horse’s feed. (Increase the marketing budget, hoping more leads = more sales.)
✔ Change the rider. (Fire the sales manager instead of training the team properly.)
✔ Host meetings on ‘dead horse speed’ (Overanalyse lead flow, ignoring conversion rates.)
✔ Redefine ‘dead’ (Convince themselves engagement = success, even though revenue is flat.)
The reality? You can’t revive a dead horse. And you can’t fix sales problems by pretending they don’t exist.
Businesses fall into this trap because it’s easier to pretend the problem is something else than it is to face the truth head-on. This is how companies end up burning through cash, wasting time, and exhausting their teams without actually fixing the issue.
Let’s be blunt: if your sales team is failing to convert leads, it doesn’t matter how much you spend on marketing—you’re still riding a dead horse.
Stop looking for workarounds. Stop justifying the waste. Get off the damn horse and fix your sales performance.
Marketing Has Exploded, But Where's Sales Hiding?
Marketing is louder than ever. Every freelancer, agency, and LinkedIn guru claims to have the secret to business growth.
We’ve been living in a digital-first world for 25 years, but truly embedded in it for the last 10-15. Since 2020, e-commerce and digital marketing have absolutely exploded—accounting for 20-25% of all new businesses registered in the last five years, while the marketing industry has seen a 6% boom in growth year-on-year.
🚨 But where the hell is sales?
Sales is hiding, it's become a dirty word, buried under titles like Business Development, SDR, AE. But sales was never about tricking people—it was about showing value and converting curiosity into YES.
Instead, we now have self-proclaimed "sales experts" promising 10x growth, flashy clickbait YouTube ads, and pushing courses with zero real-world experience. At best, they’re order-takers. At worst, they’re con artists.
The real sales professionals know the truth: “Always Be Qualifying” not “Always Be Closing.”Sales has had its fair share of cowboys, but it’s time to bring the function back to where it belongs—front and centre in revenue growth. Marketing brings the leads. Sales converts them into cash. For years, weak sales teams have hidden behind marketing, relying on branding, automated funnels, and clever content to do the heavy lifting.
🚨 But sales isn’t a support function—it’s the sharp end of the business.
🚨 If your sales team isn’t closing, you’re bleeding revenue.This entire article series has exposed one simple truth: Sales drives revenue.
Marketing brings attention. Sales turns it into cash.
Marketing generates leads. Sales converts them.
Marketing builds trust. Sales makes it profitable.
Businesses that fail to master sales performance end up chasing more and more leads, believing that volume will magically fix poor execution.It won’t.
🔥 The businesses that scale don’t just generate leads—they close deals.
Missed an Article? Here’s the Full Series Recap
If you’ve just landed here, this is part 8 of a hard-hitting series breaking down the truth about sales and marketing. If you haven’t read the previous articles, here’s what you missed:
📌 Pt.1 | The Reality of Ineffective Marketing Efforts – Why most marketing campaigns fail to drive revenue, the common pitfalls businesses fall into, and how to make every pound count in your marketing strategy.
📌 Pt.2 | Due Diligence: How to Evaluate Marketing & Sales Investments – How to assess whether your marketing and sales investments are actually worthwhile, what red flags to look for, and how to make smarter spending decisions.
📌 Pt.3 | Sales and Marketing Alignment: Why It’s Non-Negotiable for Growth – Why sales and marketing can’t afford to work in silos, how misalignment kills revenue, and what businesses must do to bridge the gap for sustainable growth.
📌 Pt.4 | Sales Conversions: The Metric That Drives Real Revenue Growth – Why businesses obsess over lead volume but fail to convert, the power of focusing on conversion rates, and how to optimise sales for maximum impact.
📌 Pt.5 | Measuring the Real Impact of Sales and Marketing ROI – The key revenue-driving metrics that matter, how to separate real ROI from vanity metrics, and how to measure business impact properly.
📌 Pt.6 | Sales Improvement: The #1 Growth Lever Businesses Overlook – Why fixing sales execution is the fastest way to unlock revenue growth, where most businesses go wrong, and how to turn underperforming sales teams into high-converting powerhouses.
📌 Pt.7 | Where Businesses Should Focus Their Efforts for Maximum Growth Impact – How to stop chasing shiny objects and focus on the actions that truly drive revenue, efficiency, and long-term scalability.
Implementation & Execution - Real Action is the Only Way Forwards
This is it. You’ve either done things the right way and just worked through the entire series, breaking down the good, the bad, and the ugly of sales and marketing or you've tried to take the short cut and jumped right to the end... Either way, you now have a choice:
❌ Keep doing what’s comfortable. Keep doing what you've always done, keep throwing money at marketing, ignoring sales performance, and wondering why growth is stalling.
✅ Or take control. Stop wasting time, stop making excuses, and start fixing the real issue—your ability to convert leads into revenue.
📌 Ask yourself this
How much have you thrown at marketing? Now, how much have you actually invested in your sales performance?
Are you tracking the right metrics? Or are you still measuring success by likes, impressions, and ‘brand awareness’?
Are you scaling marketing before fixing sales? Because if your sales execution is weak, your marketing spend is worthless.
💡 Here’s the play-book:
✔ Get to grips with your numbers. Track what your current performance looks like, only then can you see the real picture
✔ Fix sales first. Improve follow-ups, qualify leads properly, and build a rock-solid closing process.
✔ Align sales and marketing. These aren’t separate functions—they either work together, or they both fail.
✔ Track real ROI. If a strategy isn’t driving revenue, cut it. Focus only on what moves the needle.
The businesses that take action, refine their sales engine, and align their marketing efforts are the ones that win.
📌 If you're ready to stop wasting money and start closing more deals, let’s talk.
SalDevo works with businesses who are serious about growth—not those looking for another quick-fix marketing gimmick. If that’s you, let’s build a strategy that actually delivers.
🔗 Get in touch today and let’s turn your leads into real revenue.
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