Necessary Evil? Misconceptions about Sales and Marketing.

Necessary Evil? Misconceptions about Sales and Marketing.

What is marketing?

Marketing Misconceptions:

  1. It's about brand-building.
  2. It's about visibility.
  3. It's about standing out.

Reality:

  1. Marketing is building trust. Brand-building is a side-effect.
  2. Marketing is being visible to potential customers. Only those who should know about your product know about your product. Promoting tampons to young males would be a waste of marketing efforts.
  3. Marketing is educating customers about your product. The more you explain what you do and how you do it, the less you have to spend on support and sales calls.


What about Sales?

Sales Misconceptions:

  1. Everyone is trying to sell you something.
  2. It's about convincing people.
  3. It's about being confident and brutal.

Reality:

  1. Sales is about helping you make the right choice. That means telling folks who don't need the product or service, NOT to buy the product or service.
  2. Sales is about solving a customer's problems. If you feel like your product is useful to this customer, pitch it. Tell them how this product is useful to them. Don't convince them to do something, instead help them make a decision.
  3. Sales is listening keenly to a customer's problems. The last thing you want is an unhappy customer asking for a refund, or getting angry at your customer success team. Listen, engage, and advice.

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Maybe I'll should take recruitment misconceptions next :p

Also, if you are looking to prepare well for system design interviews, head to InterviewReady. All the best!

Ritwik G

Software Engineer at Unstract | College dropout - No degree

2 年

I cannot agree more about the second point regarding sales. Recently I was in the market to buy a water pump. Thinking more power will be better and get the water pumped faster, I asked shopkeeper for a 1 HP pump. Anyway he asked me my requirement and the height to which I was pumping water. He pointed out that 1HP is overkill and .5HP will be enough. Not just that if I use 1HP there were chances that the motor might get over heated and get damaged. I think that's good salesmanship.

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