Marketing vs. Selling

In the advent of the Marketing Evolution there have been new concepts of marketing facilitated by technology and the internet. These innovations have differentiated marketing and sales/selling as compared to the past.

Today, marketing is the process where products and services are offered to a potential buyer for the buyer’s decision to purchase the product or service. The offering of the product or service is done thru hard copy advertising, and most importantly today, on the internet. Honest and ethical features and benefits of ownership are presented and explained to the consumer. This includes, what has been formerly known as, advertising. Furthermore, with the methods of communication capabilities available, word-of–mouth has become a major factor, whether it is verbal or on the internet. It basically involves one person telling another person about an available product or service.

The most important functions of marketing today, is to provide the 4 P’s of marketing:

                    Product –      What is the item

                    Price –          How much does it cost

                    Place –         Where can I get it

                    Promotion –  How is it advertised

It is important to recognize that all that has been said about Marketing, thus far, is a service or information provided to a customer to inform them and assist them. This may be extended to educating, training, coaching, teaching, and supporting the customer. It does not include SELLING!

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A more recent form of marketing has been Multi-Level-Marketing (MLM), which is a form of direct-marketing. Because word-of-mouth is primary in MLM, advertising expense is held to a minimum. Rather, the expense is distributed among participants associated with the direct marketing program in the form of cash payment. Notice that MLM is include with marketing, not SELLING. Yes, there have been previous programs identified as MLM selling, such as AmWay, Mary Kay Cosmetics, Tupperware, etc. that been more Selling, and not Marketing. Because these programs have been released to the unknowing and uneducated public, the true value of MLM/Marketing has been prostituted and violated by many using trickery to attend meetings under false pretenses, and false claims for the products or service. The inaccurate moniker, used by some uninformed individuals, regarding MLM is that it is a “pyramid.” These same individuals do not realize that the basic organizational structure of corporate America is made up of multi levels of management down to the last worker.  However, this organizational chart does have a triangular shape to the naked eye or uniformed person. Furthermore, the design of MLM and the income derived from it is a basic and well established mathematical matrix used for many applications involving mathematics.   

As a result, there have been many lawsuits regarding these tactics, and so-called pyramids. It is important to know the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) in Washington, DC has ruled what constitutes a “pyramid” , and what does not. If money is exchange through various levels of participants without any product or service exchanged,  it is a

“PYRAMID.”                               

However, when a product or service is exchanged through various levels of participants, “IT IS NOT A PYRAMID.” Those who reject a MLM program with uniformed facts are cheating themselves from income due to their ignorance. If they are lazy, or not interested, then that’s a different story. However, in any case let the truth be known.

SELLING, better referred to as Sales in a corporate structure,

Is the activity to convince a customer to purchase/buy a product or service that has been, or is being offered . Sales involves the consummation of a transaction between the buyer and seller. There are forms of selling where the sales person educates the buyer about the product or service before closing the sale. There are even sales transactions where the sales person solves a customer problem, and provides the product or service as a solution to the problem. Eventually, a transaction takes place, which is called a sale.

In the corporate world, sometimes the Marketing and Sales are combined under one leader/manager. When companies can afford two separate functions, they will be separated. The last possibility is for the sales function to be separate but part of the Marketing Organization.

Examples of SELLING would be a sales person in a retail store selling jewelry, or a car sales person selling new or used cars at a dealership. Their main objective is to SELL the product and close the deal.

Warren G. Rosendahl, BSME, MBA

University of Phoenix – Faculty Member

MBA Program