Sales and marketing are a little like the chicken and egg dilemma. Which comes first?
Peter Drucker wrote, “There will always, one can assume, be the need for some selling. But the aim of marketing is to make selling superfluous. The aim of marketing is to know and understand the customer so well that the product or service fits him and sells itself.”
I wholeheartedly agree with Peter Drucker’s assertion, but I find many businesses lose sight of what drives their marketing. If you don’t sell, you can’t market.
It starts with a pitch
Every great marketing idea starts with a pitch.
If you want to get your brand featured in the media, you’re going to pitch the editors. If you want to host an event, you’re going to pitch people to attend. If you want budget to run a campaign, you’re going to pitch the management team.
No matter the marketing, someone has to pick up the idea and sell it first.
Great marketing is proactive
I’m using the term “sales” loosely. We’re not necessarily talking about selling your products and services to buying customers. We’re talking about taking a proactive stance on your marketing.
If you don’t sell it, no one will.
The phone doesn’t ring if you don’t put in the leg work first. It’s a question of output. Invest the time and effort to get your ideas off the ground and give them flight. Pick up the phone. Send an email. Get in front of people, and make sure they understand the value you’re presenting and why they should be involved too.
Sell it like a startup
As companies grow their marketing budgets grow. Big budgets are nice, because you can do so much more. But they’re also easy to hide behind.
Take your strategies, and put the zeal of an entrepreneur behind them. Sell like your company depends on it.
Entrepreneurs know the success or failure of their company is directly linked to their ability to sell. They sell people to work for them. They sell people to invest in them. They sell customers to buy from them. And they sell their marketing too.
Stop waiting for the phone to ring
Follow Drucker’s advice. Make your products and services so remarkable they sell themselves.
But don’t get caught up in the marketing trap. Give your ideas flight. Sell them.
