Marketing vs Sales – There is a difference

I see a lot of small businesses go big in the social media space to get their name out there.  This is a good thing, but does not necessarily pay the bills at the end of the month.  All you are achieving is that people are now aware of you.  They haven’t yet seen your offering, they just know you are in the market, and what kind of product or service you supply.

If they are at a stage where they’re looking for a replacement product/service to the one they are currently using, they may even make a decision to try your offering.  Building a client base this way is slow, because ultimately you’re only getting sales from the people who are in the right frame of mind at the time they see your marketing.

Sales is a different process, you target specific people or groups of people, and you get in their face with your offering, actively telling them of the benefits of it.  And not relenting until you have an answer, even if it is no.  This is a faster way of building your client base, even though it is twenty times scarier.  And the only reason it is scary, is because a larger percentage of people will say no than yes.  This is a fact of sales.  So accept it, and get out there and sell.

Marketing should be an extra effort, not the only effort.

Value vs Profit

It is sad to see the decline of value I’m getting as a client of many businesses.

This is happening in the endless pursuit (shortsighted) of profit, to maximise the ‘return’ for the shareholder.

The myth that a certain percentage of ‘return’ or growth on an investment is a minimum requirement, is being perpetuated by the countless MBA programs out there, run by professors, who in many cases have never built a successful business.

They see success as the amount of money the businessman gets back from the amount he initially invested.  They see only this, because they are outside observers, who can only see the objective and tangible things.

What has happened to the Brand, that tries to maximise value for the client?  The client is after all the one that makes it possible for a business to grow and make money.  And at some point the same client will vote with his feet, when the value he gets for his hard-earned cash becomes too diluted.

In my opinion, the customer experience has been ruined by an influx of MBAs, to maximise the investor’s experience.  This is not sustainable.