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Jan 24, 2023
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It’s true. Real marketers don’t have to sell. I know this sounds crazy, but hear me out. This isn’t me making something up… marketing done the right way makes selling obsolete.
Now you might be rolling your eyes, mumbling, “What’s Bobby on about this time? Of course, you have to sell. Don’t be ridiculous. How else are you going to make money in your business?”
Wait! Before you start throwing things at me, let’s take a step back and break this down. If you’re still not convinced at the end of this post, I’d be interested to hear your thinking.
What Is Marketing?
Let’s start with a definition. What is marketing?
The American Marketing Association defines it this way:
Marketing is the activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large.
American Marketing Association
Notice anything about this definition of marketing? Like there’s a lot more to marketing than selling stuff. And there’s sure as hell no mention of tactics and gimmicks to get people to buy your stuff.
Hmm… That’s interesting… cause most of the marketing advice in the online business space focuses on how to sell.
So why does this gap exist? Is the AMA behind the times?
Nope. It’s actually internet marketers who are behind the times.
Most online marketers are using a marketing concept popularized in the 1950s that was called the “selling concept” of marketing. While the rest of the marketing world has moved on (save those pesky infomercial pitchmen), internet marketers are stuck in the time warp.
They think that you have to create a demand for your product and pressure people to buy now because we’ve been sold the notion that our job is to get people to make a decision.
Newsflash… professional marketers long ago recognized that trying to CREATE demand is a fools’ errand. They also discovered that we need to tap into EXISTING demand by creating products tailored to what our customers actually want and need.
If you have to rely on sales gimmicks (like the commonly used fake urgency and false scarcity), you’re doing it wrong! Seriously, if you need those gimmicks, it’s a sure sign you aren’t doing your job as a marketer. #SorryNotSorry
Real marketers don’t need that crap.
Selling Is Selfish… Marketing Is Selfless
Now, if you’re serious about being a real marketer, you should start by listening to this podcast episode. It’s where I lay out the difference between marketing and selling.
Yes, they’re different.
Theodore Levitt, the famous economist and Harvard Business School professor, put the two in stark contrast:
Selling focuses on the needs of the seller; marketing on the needs of the buyer. Selling is preoccupied with the seller’s need to convert his product into cash; marketing with the idea of satisfying the needs of the customer by means of the product and the whole cluster of things associated with creating, delivering, and finally consuming it.
Theodore Levitt
To put it way less eloquently… selling is a “me-first” approach, marketing a “serve-first” approach.
The stark reality is that the VAST majority of what we are being taught as “online marketing” isn’t marketing at all… it’s selling. It’s about putting our needs over our customers. It’s about being selfish instead of selfless. This needs to stop.
How To Be A Real Marketer
Maybe you’re grumbling, “Alright, Bobby, I get what you’re saying, but how does this actually work?”
Well, marketing makes selling obsolete because you don’t have to sell
- when you’re focused on the needs of your audience…
- when you’re creating products and services that are tailored to them…
- when you aren’t focused on your short-term needs…
But don’t take my word for it… I’m just some guy on the internet. Listen to Peter Drucker, who was among the most respected business thinkers. Here’s what he had to say:
“There will always, one can assume, be 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 of service fits him and sells itself. Ideally, marketing should result in a customer who is ready to buy. All that should be needed then is to make the product or service available.”
Peter Drucker
You don’t have to sound like the WORST of the infomercial pitchmen to sell products online… in fact, you should strive to not sound like them. When you take the time to market, selling becomes effortless.
If you’re ready to take a deeper dive on this topic I did a whole podcast series on this very topic. It’s called The Serve-First Way, and it highlights the different mindset shifts you should make if you’re serious about ditching the gimmick and tactics and becoming a real marketer.
But I wanted to do more than just record a podcast series about this concept. My team and I live it every day. That’s why we’ve centered my business around creating a whole online training program to teach people what they need to know in order to be a marketer instead of a salesperson. And why we give it away for FREE. No strings attached. Seriously.
BADA$$ Online Marketing University is the ultimate in meta marketing. It teaches you how to be an effective marketer while embodying the values that you need to adopt to show you the way!
If you want to move out of the role of salesperson and into the role of online marketer, then BADA$$ Online Marketing University is for you.
Besides, you don’t really have much to lose since it’s FREE. But don’t let the price fool you. The material is cutting edge—it’s better than most of the stuff in paid programs. So what are you waiting for? Sign up now!
