If you’ve never read Another Day, Another Ten Cents, please do yourself a favor and check it out. Andrew (pictured above), is a fascinating blogger with a unique style and a wry perspective on business. He was nice enough to write this guest post, a non-sales & marketer’s look at sales & marketing. Thanks, Andrew!
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Sales and Marketing – a part of all of our lives
Dear Word Sell Inc. Readers,
I would like to thank Brad for the opportunity to submit a guest post to this site.
I do not have a sales and marketing background. Nevertheless, I often find that I am interested in and stimulated by discussions relating to S&M, particularly those on this blog.
Not everybody is inspired by sales and marketing discussions. But the screening of one’s favorite/least favorite advertisements on television, receiving a cold call during dinner or promotions which are particularly effective or ineffective will often prompt discussion on why the advertisement is particularly likeable or otherwise, why sales calls during dinner are frustrating or why the promotion was effective or otherwise.
This has prompted me to ask a question – why? Why would sales and marketing discussions interest people with little or no connection to the profession?
This is what I would like to discuss with you today.
The answer, I believe, is that most people, even those with little no connection to the profession, can at least relate to discussions about S&M to some degree. I think the reasons for this are threefold:
(1) Sales and marketing activity forms part of all of our lives.
Almost every adult experiences some form of S&M activity on a regular basis. This can take many forms, including annoying cold calls during dinner, in store promotions, or media advertisements and promotion or many other forms. Promotional activity, from a consumer viewpoint, forms part of our everyday living experience.
In addition, many people, particularly business owners, senior managers or those who work in procurement, are exposed to promotional activity at work.
It is part of our lives. Accordingly, I think many people can relate to and identify with issues related to promotional activity to some extent.
(2) We all ‘participate’ in some form of promotional activity.
Few adults go through life without the need to participate in some form of promotional activity. Business owners need to promote their products or services, bloggers need to promote their blogs and build readership, and employees need to promote themselves effectively at job interviews, networking functions or performance reviews.
Outside of professional life, people involved in sporting clubs, charities, community clubs or religious institutions often have to promote their organization to attract members, donors or sponsorships.
Naturally, those with little or no connection to the profession will have considerably less involvement S&M activity than sales and marketing professionals
Nevertheless, I believe that even a small degree of engagement in promotional activity helps to stimulate an interest in the topic to some degree.
(3) Discussions about sales and marketing deal with human behavior.
Sales and marketing activities affect perceptions, opinions and/or actions, particularly those relating to purchasing. As a consequence, discussions about S&M often touch on issues relating to basic human behavior.
Human behavior, in my opinion, is a topic many can relate to. We are all human. None of us are cold, mechanical robots. We all carry around with us beliefs, thoughts, emotions, needs, desires, attitudes and many other instinctive human qualities.
When discussions about S&M touch on these topics, I feel that many ordinary people can identify with the discussion to some extent.
In conclusion, S&M activity is part of all of our lives, we all participate in it and discussions about S&M touch on issues which many of us can relate to.
I look forward to reading about many more sales and marketing issues on this blog in 2008.
Cheers
Andrew
Andrew, I think you’re right, part of what interests us it that we’re all one way or another (and like it or not) on the receiving end of this stuff.
And like you I wouldn’t normally bother to read about sales, but do enjoy reading Brad’s blog because he keeps his feet on the ground, explains some of the things that go into the work of the salesperson, and makes sales people seem human… which is quite an achievement!
Joanna
Hi Joanna, LOL. Many sales people are human.
It’s the customers I wonder about sometimes!
Hi Joanna/Brad
Although not always liked, sales people are at least somewhat human.
At least sales people usually have a degree of personality. I can’t always say the same for accountants and lawyers.
Cheers
Andrew
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