Selling or Marketing?

I would say that selling is the result and marketing is the different ways we use to improve our result.

So, this would mean that people on the Warrior Forum are marketing their products with the expected result of selling more of them.

Alain,

In direct sales, MARKETING would be getting the leads, SELLING would be pitching the service to those leads.

So I view marketing as getting in front of potential customers, and selling to be the actual selling to them.

There is a bit of an overlap, and obviously "Internet Marketing" as a whole tends to cover a lot of things that include both marketing and selling.

I sell and I market through story telling

Both!

A salesletter would be an example of selling. The goal of a salesletter is to make a sale. If your goal is to make a sale, then you should be selling!

from the business dictionary...

"Marketing differs from selling because (in the words of Harvard Business School's emeritus professor of marketing Theodore C. Levitt) "Selling concerns itself with the tricks and techniques of getting people to exchange their cash for your product. It is not concerned with the values that the exchange is all about. And it does not, as marketing invariably does, view the entire business process as consisting of a tightly integrated effort to discover, create, arouse, and satisfy customer needs."

I'm satisfied with that response...

For reference and for the rest of the definition:

marketing definition

There's a third element: Branding.

People always have three "why" questions about any product.

Why ME? That's marketing.

Why NOW? That's sales.

Why YOU? That's branding.

The two work hand in hand. I've always been amazed at how the sales and marketing departments in many companies don't collaborate. Some even dislike each other!
Marketing - Getting interest
Sales - Getting a new customer
In a traditional sense, marketing spent money and sales made it. Those days 'should' be over. Sales and marketing should work together to educate the market on what problems your product/service will solve. Both are skilled at getting people to take action. Marketing wants people to contact the company. Sales wants people to make the purchase. When they work together, they both use their skills to increase sales and solve customer problems.

There are huge differences and subtle differences between selling and marketing. In college you learn that marketing involves the 4p's - planning, pricing, promotion, and packaging. Selling of a product or service is considered to be just a portion of what one does when marketing a product or service.

Anyone who has had experience as a marketer or salesperson understands that when one does marketing they are trying to get a message out to consumers or potential customers/clients/prospects about a particular product or service.

Selling can be all about the process of getting the message out to the consumer in hopes of drawing in those potential clients/prospects and customers.

As an Avon rep for many years I considered selling to be a more personal view of marketing because when I marketed my Avon business I was "fishing in a wide never-ending ocean and when I was selling door to door the fishing exhibition became just me and that big bass I was trying to wheel in on the other side of the door.

Selling to me is the last resort of someone trying to make it as a salesperson. Sales in any form should concentrate on providing a SERVICE, and that service is providing ways, means and methods of solving your contact's PROBLEMS.
It seems to me that too many people are jumping on the 'SALES' bandwagon without understanding the true reason behind the profession. People have problems, sometimes they understand what the problems are but not how to solve them. Other times, they may know something isn't quite 'right' but don't realize they have a problem. A 'True' Marketer is someone who can have a conversation with someone and determine from that conversation, what the person's 'problem(s) are and how they can be 'solved'. Marketing is the ART of providing these answers in such a way that the prospect understands that making the purchase is the actual answer to their problems.

Great posts! No doubt I'm gonna come back here many times to read your very interesting insights! Thanks!

I come across so many business owners who simply confuse marketing with sales and focus solely on "selling". Yes, I know that the end result is to make a sale but there's more to selling your product or service than making a sale.

Marketing is "A management activity that identifies, anticipates and satisfies customer requirements, efficiently and profitably".

>>> Note the words: "identifies" "anticipates"; "satisfies"; "efficiently"; and "profitably". <<<

Customers' needs are anticipated and identified by undertaking marketing research and segmentation and then a marketing mix is developed to satisfy customers - efficiently and profitably.

Businesses that adopt this marketing concept, centre its activities on the needs of its potential customers. Its financial success will depend on satisfying those needs.

A marketing orientated business will develop a structure designed to identify and interpret customer needs; to create goods and services appropriate to those needs; and to persuade potential customers to purchase those goods and services.

This involves integrated marketing, i.e., using different marketing variables in a balanced and co-ordinated manner.

Additionally, all parts of the business will need to appreciate that they have an impact on the customer, and are therefore an essential part of a marketing process.

Selling is simply one sub-process of the marketing process after you have worked out what you're selling and to whom and for what price.

I have written an article on this (the above is an extract) but I cannot give you the link as I am new to Warrior Forum.

Good luck.