Confusing Entrepreneurship, Marketing, and Sales Is Hurting Your Business

Entrepreneurship, Marketing, and Sales: Understanding the Differences

People interested in [or new to business] use these three words interchangeably:

• entrepreneurship
• marketing
• sales

We naive business newbies kind of think they all mean the same thing: earning money.

While they are interconnected, each plays a distinct role in the success of a business. I want to use specific examples to break them down for you smarty pants whitecoats.

Entrepreneurship

Entrepreneurship is creating a new business venture or taking an existing business in a new direction. It involves identifying a need in the market, developing a product or service to meet that need, and building a sustainable business model around it.

The goal of entrepreneurship: solve problems.

For instance, let's consider the story of Devon, who saw a problem with medication use in his community: precision medicine didn't exist. So, he conducted market research and found a demand for help teaching why medications don't work the same for everyone. So, he set out to solve it by creating his precision medicine education program, complete with his unique, downloadable references and 1:1 help.

This is an example of entrepreneurship.

Solving a problem.

Marketing

Marketing is promoting a product or service to customers.

It is telling people about your business.

If nobody knows about your unique solution then you can't help them. The primary goal of marketing is to create awareness and interest in the product or service.

The goal of marketing: people know about your product/service

Continuing with the example of Devon's personalized medicine program; he used marketing strategies such as social media advertising, partnerships with his community leaders, and educational lectures to create awareness and interest in his products. He also conducted market research to understand the needs and preferences of potential customers. This helped him to create a unique brand identity and positioning in his community that resonated with his target audience.

This is an example of marketing.

Getting eyeballs on his solution.

Sales

Now, for my favorite part of this trifecta: Sales.

Sales involve the actual process of selling a product or service to customers. Here you are making sales pitches, negotiating deals, and closing sales.

The goal of sales is to generate revenue and increase profits.

Once Devon had created awareness and interest in his innovative program through marketing, he puts on his sales hat and began the process of selling the service to customers.

He identified potential customers he had attracted. Then, he used sales techniques such as personalized pitches, new product launches, and promotions to close deals and increase sales.

This is an example of sales.

Charging for your services.

Why do we confuse these 3 so commonly?

Easy.

Most new white coat business owners simply don't know the difference between these 3 roles. They truly feel that doing one thing is the same as all three.

*Wrong!*

Let me explain:

1. Entrepreneur-emphasis: Creating an amazing solution for a specific problem that the world has. Then, sitting on that solution and spend their time perfecting their website in case someone happens to search for them on Google, but never put themselves out there to talk about it.
2. Marketing-emphasis: They focus their efforts on just 'putting themselves generally out there.' They think that attention alone will make people stampede down the door to work with them without a crystal clear solution for a specific group of people or an easy way to work with their clients.
3. Sales-emphasis: These folks want the cash, and they want it now. They have an offer for the world and spend all of their time trying to hunt down people to buy from them. They haven't taken the time to do market research to find the exact group of people looking for them and create a compelling offer just for that group, based on the feedback of how that group wants to work with them.

The above 3-legged stool [your business] can't stand with only 1 functional leg.

How to Solve Your 1-Legged Stool

Easy: minimalist entrepreneurship.

If you're not familiar with this model it is simply to build in public, and validate your business idea quickly from the get-go and only build what people tell you they actually want from you.

Working in this way allows you to spend your time simultaneously marketing and creating a solution as you go, while gathering feedback for exactly how sales can be easy.

Shall we pull back our little entrepreneur Devon and put him through two examples?

Ok!

Broken, frustrated way of working:

Mr. Devon spends a year building a business in secret. He spends $5K building a website with all the features and links. He comes up with the perfect name and logo. He writes a blog every month for a year, but nobody but his Mom reads it. He gets some extra credentials and posts online a few times a month about booking a discovery call with him to talk about his personalized medicine service, but only 2 people do and only 1 moves forward. Devon is frustrated and tired. He has spent a year building, but nobody cares. Yet, he knows his solution is so helpful, he just needs people to catch on to what he is doing. People are vaguely interested, but nobody is throwing cash at him.

Yes, Devon nobody cares because nobody knows who you are and how you can help them!

Smart, streamlined way of working

Smart Mr. Devon is interested in building a personalized medicine practice. So, he starts scrappy by telling all his friends and family what he wants to build. He asks for referrals. He eagerly sees anyone and everyone who expresses interest in what he is doing free of charge, just for the experience. With that free experience, he sees what his guinea pig patients liked, what they didn't, and what they wanted more of. He also is presenting this month at three senior center events, one health fair, and two presentations to teen behavioral health clinics. He just wants to get comfortable talking about the value of personalized medicine, his unique solution, and collect the emails of anyone interested in the topic. He posts online daily on his social media account. He takes 15-30 minutes daily to engage with popular social media groups in his community and just answers any medication/health-related question he sees. He is gathering interest, getting a pulse for how people feel, and creating an easy solution to say yes to. He also schedules 5 visits a month to any clinics in the area that may be interested in partnering with him. Then, 6 months later, he finally launched his first paid solution and has a group of emails and contacts who know, like, and trust him and are excited about what he has been building in public. (Oh, and Devon still doesn't have a proper website or state-of-the-art logo. Just a landing page to help people take that single next step forward.)

Well done, Devon!

Work as a Trifecta from Day One

This is why I love minimalist entrepreneurship. Building in public from day one forces you to begin marketing on day 1. It helps you create a solution that people actually want, and gives you an excellent pulse for sales options that will convert.

Turns out, when you build relationships and an audience, people will tell you exactly what they want.

You get the fun job of giving it to them.

Hope this helps!

Jamie

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