The loop: experience, marketing and sales

In developing your business, consider the concept of the "loop", with the three elements of client experience (the service you actually provide), marketing and sales moving constantly, with clients, prospects, and "everyone else out there" alighting at some point or another on one part of the loop.

You can't live without each of the three components, and all three must be in harmony for marketing -- and business -- success, but if you are strong at one you can sometimes offset weaknesses in the others.

In other words, if you aren't very good at sales, but have great external marketing skills and create really incredible client experiences, you probably won't have too many problems; if you are really good at sales and marketing, but provide a crappy service, you can stay in business (consider some Tourist Traps as examples of this type of successful business), and if you are really good at sales and provide a great experience, your sales team will probably be able to extract enough referrals out of your current client base to keep things moving along.

But imagine, for a second, you have all three components in perfect harmony. Your marketing uncovers the right clients through systematic processes (you are not "relying" on referrals, your sales team is effective in encouraging them to try out your services, and then your clients find you deliver more than you promised.

Do you think you would have problems surviving even the most challenging recession if you have all three elements in place?