The Difference Between Sales and Marketing

You can find life lessons and analogies in the most unexpected places sometimes.

I have this daily love-hate routine with my two-year-old daughter. Each evening when I get home, she is busy with whatever it is that’s urgent for a girl of her age, and I come in looking for some welcoming. She’s too busy for me, or maybe she now knows how the routine will end up and is just playing the part. She spurns my doting affection, protesting “Don’t TISS (kiss) me, dada! I don’t WIKE (like) it!” Of course, this only makes me persist all the more. And she resists, sometimes to the point of tantrum, and I keep on keeping on while my wife rolls her eyes. I must admit, I come on a bit strong. Eventually, I give up, and we go our separate ways. She lets me know she doesn’t like it, and I chuckle inside at how silly this daily tease is. As the evening wears on, however, she warms to me, and I become her hero and the object of her undying affection by bedtime.

The next day, the cycle starts all over again.

But not tonight. I was warned that she was under the weather and crabby, so I kept my distance upon arriving home. I could see from the “stink-eye” cast my way that she was fully prepared to mount fierce resistance when I entered the room, but I walked right past and gave her reprieve. I went upon my business and let her have her distance. After dinner, as she sit in a chair with her favorite blanket and her favorite scowl, I brushed by her and gave her a gentle squeeze on the foot before leaving the room.

But I didn’t get five feet before she stopped me. “Dada! I love….I love….I love when you touch gentle on my foot. And I love tisses. And I love when dada sit by me.”

As I sat next to my sick daughter, consoling a sick child and basking in the glory of what I had achieved, it dawned on me:

That, my friends, is the perfect illustration of the difference between sales and marketing.

SALES: Sometimes smothering, necessarily persistent…potentially off-putting.

MARKETING: “Hey. I’m here. And I’ll be here when you need me.”

___________________________________________________________________________________________

BONUS ANALOGIES

ADVERTISING: “Hey! Everyone needs me! If you’re reading this, you need me too!”

SOCIAL NETWORKING: “Hey. I’m here; you’re here. I might need you; you might need me. I might need someone you know, you might need someone I know. Let’s stay in touch.”