This article was published in Colorado Business & Lifestyle magazine.
The Salesman and the Marketing Man: A Fable
By Phil Soreide, One Good Adguy
Once upon a time, there were two brothers, a salesman and a marketing man.
When their father died, be left them each a little money and the family secret for making floogles. He told them to go forth and make the most of it.
With his inheritance, the salesman bought a new car, loaded the trunk full of floogles and hit the road. From dawn to dusk he made sales calls, shook hands, networked, slapped backs and made deals.
Because his floogles were good and not too expensive, he also made money. Lots of money. With the money, he hired more salesmen, bought them new cars, filled their trunks with floogles and put them on the road.
"People don't buy – they need to be sold," he admonished his troops. "So get out there and sell something."
Meanwhile, the marketing man took his inheritance and opened a small floogle research laboratory. With the meager amount of money remaining, he bought an ad in the Floogle Journal.
Time passed.
The salesman continued to make money, which he spent on bonuses and lavish "sales meetings" at big resorts. "Keep the troops happy, I say," he said, dipping a big strawberry into a vat of chocolate.
The marketing man grew much more slowly, putting much of his profits into floogle research. He found out just what people wanted in a floogle and built that in. He invented the Hyperfloogle. His publicist got his picture on the cover of Floogles Today. Gradually, he built a network of distributors who specialized in premium floogles. He advertised to make sure people understood what was different and better about his floogles.
More time passed.
Chinese floogles began to flood the market, followed by Korean floogles, Malaysian floogles and Sri Lankan floogles. Some of them were good. Some of them were cheap. Some of them were both good and cheap.
The salesman found that in order to sell any floogles at all, he had to drop his price – and keep dropping it. The flood of money his company had once enjoyed slowed to a trickle, then dried up completely. In desperation, he called his brother.
"You gotta help me," he gasped. "I can't sell anything."
"Really?" his brother replied. "My Hyperfloogle sells like crazy – and at a premium. Can't keep ‘em in stock."
"I don't have a Hyperfloogle, and I'm getting beat up all over town. Everybody says, ‘Why should I buy from you?' I used to say, ‘Because I'm the cheapest, or I've got the only floogle for that application.' But I can't say that any more." He sobbed a heart-wrenching little sob. "I wish I'd invested more in my brand like you did."
But it was too late. The marketing man hired his dejected brother and gave him the Saskatoon Territory.
He did not live happily ever after.
#
(Author's note: Sales and marketing are complementary disciplines, and it's
difficult – but not impossible – to practice one to the exclusion
of the other. The most consistently successful organizations, however, realize
that marketing is about communications, while sales is about negotiations...and
the sales negotiations are always easier when the prospect is not only familiar
with the product but also has a positive perception of it.
When you're sure you have a product the public wants to buy, use advertising,
publicity, special events, packaging, point-of-purchase – all the
communications tools at your disposal to help raise awareness of it's unique
benefits and thereby make the job of selling that much easier.)