Marketing vs Selling - Why There's a Difference

Messages are moving at the speed of light and we are hardly even aware of what messages have been imprinted in our brains. Marketing is all around us - like the letters that appear in our mind when our stomach hurts. Yes, we know what spells relief!!
R-O-L-A-I-D-S. We have all done it - run into the store to buy something, and called it by the brand name and not by the actual product name (asking for Levis instead of jeans).

When was the last time you were thinking of something, as simple as coffee, and "Starbucks" appeared in your mind? This, my friend, is what they call "savvy marketing" and it's as old as the day is long. The reason that marketing has been around for so long is that it works. The fact is that the more they keep something in the forefront of our mind, the more we buy it.

Marketing is what people do to get us interested in the "brand name" of their product. Marketing is what causes us to dream and imagine and wish. When someone markets a product or service to us, they are helping us to get more familiar with it. They are building trust. They are asking us to be really comfortable with hearing the brand name, saying the brand name, asking about the brand. This eventually causes us to find a NEED for just that brand.

Marketing is the first step to building a long-term relationship with a client. Getting the client to be comfortable with your "brand" is the first step. Marketing is a vital component of any large selling campaign, because without it, no- one knows that we're even there. The idea is that, once they know us and like our message, potential clients will begin to trust us.

And that is when the second step - Selling - usually comes in. Selling is where we find the best solution for the client.

Selling is fine tuning the brand,  product or service to fit our client's needs exclusively. This is where some people start to shy away. Selling isn't always up close, but it is personal. So, we have to expect and accept some failures. Selling, if done with the utmost respect, trust and honour, can create a lifetime of client loyalty.

Selling, is what helps a client decide if the product is exactly what they need and if they are willing to invest. When selling is successful and you deliver what the client expects, you can graduate to that wonderful place called "referrals".

Our job when we market our product or service is to create for our client a reason to want to begin a relationship with us. They need to know, just by the sound of our brand, that we are worth pursuing. So, as we look at the way we are creating relationships with our future clients, we need to review the process we use to build trust. If we are skipping step one in relationship building (the marketing) then step two (selling), will be much more difficult - and step three (referrals & word of mouth) is then almost impossible.

We may have the greatest product out on the market today, and it may very well be the one thing that solves all of the world's problems, BUT, if we haven't figured out how to speak to people in a caring and comfortable way, they will never get the chance to know us, and people who don't know us will not buy from us!

Marketing has to be the FIRST thing we do to make our product stand out and Selling the SECOND thing we do to create succesful relationships withour clients.