So selling and marketing what should be the priority of an entrepreneur? so before just
answering this we should first know what is selling and what is marketing and what is the
difference between them?
So talking about selling first ,selling is actually short term business planning focused on
sellers need, in selling the product gets manufactured first and after manufacturing of
product the customer is identified ,it is more oriented towards generation of sales in volume
and the needs of seller ,and we should understand that seller in itself is an integral part of
marketing and most importantly in selling customers satisfaction is not compulsory ,you only
have a compulsion of generating sales .
Now talking about marketing marketing is very different from selling as it is a long term
business planning that focuses on customer needs and in marketing identification of
customer takes place prior to finalising the product it is more oriented towards customer
satisfaction and profitability ,in marketing we focus more on the need of the buyer and unlike
selling marketing is not a single process but a important and balanced mix of processes like
product pricing ,selling ,promotion ,distribution etc.
So as above we have discussed selling and marketing now we must know and realise the
difference between product selling and marketing and what is suitable for us
So deciding what is best for a entrepreneur selling first or marketing depends on multiple
factors and an entrepreneur should deeply ponder upon all the factors deeply ,some of the
factors are
What is your business model :so it’s really really important to first identify the category in
which your business lies and what is your exact business model (like how you will reach your
customers ).
Talking about the category in which your business lies, like if your business is D2C ( direct to
consumer ) or B2C ( business to consumer) D2C(direct to consumer) C2C(consumer to
consumer) and social commerce .
Once you identify your business’s category then you should have the idea of your exact
business model how everything will go on in your venture and after identifying your exact
business model it will be slightly easy for you to identify your target audience and as you
identify your target audience you should also identify the needs of your target audience ,you
should know what your target audience needs and what is the market offering to the
consumer what is the the gap between the product offered by the market and what is that
the consumer need and what is that you are offering and how can it bridge the gap between
the market and consumer so actually you should know the product market fit ,and as you are
realising the product market fit you should also keep an eye on the market and competitors
that what is the competitor providing and how is that helpful to the consumer and how is
your product different from their product and what is that your competitor is lacking that you
can do .
So each of of those so many factors have to be considered before choosing to sell first or to
market first your product ,at each step of deciding you can easily find startups failing or
startups rising ,like finding a gap between market and and consumer needs you will see that
in the smartphone market how Xiaomi ,Realme ,Oppo ,Vivo etc rose by giving what the
consumer needs and in the same market Gionee ,HTC, Xolo ,spice ,Micromax etc fell down
because the prior startups first identified the consumers needs of cheap and feature loaded
smartphones where as the later startups were focused on manufacturing the phones
according to their ease and this is is the reason of their failure even though after time these
brands tried to make a come back but by giving cheap, reliable,feature loaded phones
maybe even better that the market leaders but could not gather customer trust due to lack of
marketing .
So you see we have just seen a single and very very short case study of the smartphone
market and realised that what is more important to an entrepreneur and we just judged the
businesses on two factors ie consumer needs and consumer’s trust (part of brand value)
,and realised that the startups that failed is because of the lack in product development
,pricing and advertising ,but this is not always the case there are a lot more different
possibilities at every step and a wise entrepreneur will analyse each and every step and the
will make a personalised plan for his product will maybe purely marketing or purely selling or
a mix of both in different proportions (as in case of most startups and ventures)
So after all this ciaos you must have at least realised that there is no sure shot answer to the
question and it totally depends on what your business is and how it works and after all this
you have to decide what goes well with your business.
Hope all this will help you create a great business that will impact lives for good and make
you a better version of yourself a better entrepreneur .
Signing of