Episode 901 – Focusing on the 5 A-Holes of Marketing

A salesman and a marketing guy walk into a bar…

This really happened. Well, the bar was at a country club. I had the pleasure of spending a Fore-Hour Nature Meeting with Larry Long Jr 🎤 where we spent hours trying to hit a little white ball into a hole.

If you're wondering, sales beat marketing. This is not only true with that golf round, but I think it's also part of the small to mid-sized business culture. After all, sales are directly tied to income, and marketing is there to support sales. However, marketing can be a second-class citizen and viewed as an expense.

But I want to make the case that marketing can be an income-generating activity when approached as a sales support system.

Why do many B2b businesses falter with marketing? It is because sales have a greater business impact, and marketing becomes an afterthought rather than an integral business system.

The issue here is business-to-consumer marketing focuses on transactional relationships, while business-to-business focuses on more synergistic long-term relationships.

“The first step in exceeding your customer's expectations is to know those expectations.”
– Roy H. Williams

In this episode, we will explore the holes (which all begin with “A”) that happen when you try to use business-to-consumer tactics for B2b marketing.