I’m often asked “what’s the difference between Marketing and Selling?” Isn’t it all the same thing?
The conventional answer to this is……
“Selling is part of marketing. Marketing is about seeing the ‘Big Picture’, the marketplace, the product etc… Selling is the part about finding the customers and introducing them to the product in a convincing way so that they are inclined to buy.”
Now, I’ve always considered this ‘Marketing the Hard Way!’ It’s the way most people seem to go about their business. They come up with what they think is a good idea for a product, produce the best version of it they can and then go out to find people to sell it to. Sometimes it works, some times it doesn’t and, in any event, it proves time consuming and costly. If you can afford high profile, continuous TV advertising or the high commissions expected by ‘High Closing’ salesmen, you can probably get the sales - but will you make a profit?
I look upon Marketing as ‘Selling the Easy Way!’. The trick is to turn the whole process on its head. Read the rest of this entry »