Do you Know the Difference Between Marketing and Sales?

As I have worked with business owners and sales people for the past ten years, I realized that few people understand the difference between marketing and sales. We all talk about needing to increase sales and increase revenue but few of us realize that in order to do that, we have to get better at our marketing in order to attract more of the clients who are interested in buying from us. We are spending too much time, money and energy trying to sell to everyone instead of focusing on the people who are already looking for what we are offering.

Marketing is everything we do to attract the right people to our business, not all people! One of the biggest mistakes business owners make is to think that everyone is a good prospect. For example, I own a magazine that is all about kids and families. A health care company that offers nursing assistance to the elderly would not be a client for me, so why would I spend time and money marketing to ALL healthcare companies in Dallas when I can only help the ones who serve children?

I don’t see marketing as me pushing myself into prospects’ lives. I see it as putting myself out there in a way that people are attracted towards me because of what I offer them. In essence, I develop marketing that is attraction-based marketing, not what I sometimes call push-based marketing: where I’m pushing myself out, desperately trying to sell, taking a stereotypical used care salesman approach. I don’t like that. I want people to come to me when they’re ready to work with me. I want people lining up and saying, “Minette, I want to do business with you.” The key is to define exactly what your prospects need and want from you. You combine that with what your great at and you find your “sweet spot.” Most businesses owners are trying to convince everyone that they are the best by focusing on themselves. Great sales people know that it’s never about you, it’s always about what the client wants and needs.

I don’t know if you’ve ever heard this quote, but I think it’s very important and valuable to think about: people prefer to buy, not to be sold. I suspect you’re the same. You like to purchase things, but you don’t often like a salesperson to work their way around you and push you into a sale. It made my life dramatically different when I realized I don’t have to sell, I just have to keep people moving towards me who want to do business with me.

Let me clearly identify the difference between marketing and sales. Marketing is everything I do to attract and persuade people to move towards using my service. Sales is what I do to ensure that they sign the dotted line and pay their bill. Sales is taking them from being a prospect to being a paying client.

Sales is the interaction to make sure we understand the negotiated terms of the agreement, what the agreement means to them, what a contract will look like, etc. Selling is not about closing the deal. If you have done a good job of marketing and ensuring that the prospect is already interested in your services, then they will close the deal on their own.

So, if marketing is making sure the right people are attracted to your business, here are a couple of questions to ask yourself:

• Are you clear about who your target market is? You cannot market to everyone!
• What tools or marketing avenues are you currently using? Are you sure you are getting your name in front of the right clients, the ones who already want what you are selling?
• Are you spending too much time, money and effort trying to sell to everyone instead of selling to the people who want what you have to buy?

Why North Texas Kids has been successful for 10 years:

1. We understand the difference between marketing and sales. We want our clients to work with us because they see the benefits of partnering with us, not because we have aggressive sales people who are trying to sell you what you don’t need.
2. We know exactly who our target client is and who our average reader is.
3. We excel at matching clients with prospects. If you are trying to reach families in DFW, we can help, we know where they are, how they spend their time and what information they want.
4. We are not afraid to tell a client that they are not a good fit for NTK.

North Texas Kids can offer you marketing that is working for you 24/7. We guarantee that if you are trying to reach Moms in DFW, we can get your name in front of them at a reasonable cost. Stop wasting money on marketing to everyone and start marketing to the audience who already wants what you have to sell.

Click here to find out how, for as little as $50 a month, we can get your business in front of over 200,000 Moms around DFW.

Want to know more? Call our office at 972-516-9070 or email us atinfo@northtexaskids.com