James Mills is a web developer in the North East of England and founder of Refresh Teesside »
Mike Hughes is the Head of Business for the Evening Gazette. He will be blogging on all matters of importance to Teesside businesses - and some that are just worth knowing »
Jez Davison, business writer at the Evening Gazette, is a regular blogger on all things business - particularly finance, entrepreneurship and the state of the Teesside economy » 
Karen McLauchlan is the Evening Gazette's deputy business and features editor - with special interest in all things industry, property and arts related » 
Jeremy Middleton is a venture capitalist and the co-founder of FTSE-200 company HomeServe » 
Deloitte, which has 23 offices across the UK including Newcastle, is among the country's leading professional services firms » 
ClimateNE & Climate Change Schools Project support the move to a low-carbon, resilient economy and help businesses avoid risk and realise commercial opportunities. Posts by Jen Atkinson, Krista McKinzey and Harriet Thew »
What does a business need more - innovators or sales people?
This conundrum came to the fore in the recent series of The Apprentice where inventor Tom Pellereau beat consummate sales people to seize the prize of a £250,000 investment from Lord Sugar.
However, the answer actually is that businesses need a combination of the two.
Companies that rest on their past successes and fail to innovate and develop new products or services will stagnate and die as more dynamic competitors steal a lead.
Equally, you can have the best product in the world, but if you do not have a team with the ability to sell its qualities to potential customers then it will be doomed to fail.
Analyse most successful businesses and you will find that they employ a range of talented people in different disciplines to enable a new product or service to evolve from an idea to reality.
Inventors cannot work in isolation; they need to collaborate with smart sales professionals, astute financial advisers, experienced investors, and knowledgeable legal experts.
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