{"id":3377,"date":"2015-10-29T20:33:10","date_gmt":"2015-10-30T00:33:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/futurpreneur.ca\/?p=3377"},"modified":"2024-02-13T11:51:48","modified_gmt":"2024-02-13T16:51:48","slug":"stop-marketing-start-selling","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/futurpreneur.ca\/en\/blog\/stop-marketing-start-selling\/","title":{"rendered":"Stop Marketing. Start Selling"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: center\"><a href=\"https:\/\/futurpreneur.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/shutterstock_159475310.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter  wp-image-38045\" title=\"shutterstock_159475310\" src=\"https:\/\/futurpreneur.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/shutterstock_159475310.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"560\" height=\"370\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>If we define \u201cmarketing\u201d as creating interest in your product or service, then \u201csales\u201d is the process you use to influence the customer to actually buy.\u00a0 Sales is the feedback to understand your market.<\/p>\n<p>So many start-ups are rushing to do a marketing campaign to a large audience. Simply put, today\u2019s consumer is swamped with marketing messages and very critical of any business that claims to be the best (without verification, usually in the form of customer reviews).<em> <\/em>\u00a0Remember the goal in a start-up is not to just reach a large audience &#8212; it\u2019s to reach the <em>right customer.<\/em> The best way to learn how to reach the right customer is through <strong>selling <\/strong>your product or service. It means selling to a <span style=\"text-decoration: underline\">small number of users<\/span> \u2013 but that can make all the difference for your business.<\/p>\n<p>Focusing on sales helps you:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Develop a one-on-one relationship and identify your target customer<\/li>\n<li>Confirm how your messaging is coming across and adjust accordingly<\/li>\n<li>Find out what the resistance is to your price and what\u2019s really important to the customer<\/li>\n<li>Fine tune your product or service and its features or benefits<\/li>\n<li>Evaluate the sales process and learn how the customer experiences the transaction<\/li>\n<li>Quickly understand why they will or won\u2019t buy from you<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The sales process will help you catch faulty assumptions, saving you thousands of dollars and effort later.\u00a0 Sales makes you go deep! This information can be used to build a more effective marketing strategy (go wide).<\/p>\n<p>If you don\u2019t have a product or service yet then please, please do your business a big favour and get a prototype. Get feedback before launching (that includes developing any kind of app).<\/p>\n<p>Beware of doing marketing too quickly because you\u2019re doing it at your own peril. Most marketing plans I read are vague, with grandiose statements and \u00a0little to no execution.\u00a0 Instead develop champions: customers who love your product\/service.<\/p>\n<p>So why don\u2019t most start-ups put enough effort in their sales process?\u00a0 Because selling is hard work. Marketing gets all the glory \u2013 nifty logos and cute tag lines and deciding how to design your website are so much more fun.\u00a0 Ultimately, you will need to plan out your marketing. But like anything in life, there are no short cuts. Sales is not an option for your business \u2013 it\u2019s your gateway to success.<\/p>\n<p><em><strong>Written By:<\/strong> Dominik Loncar, Futurpreneur Canada Entrepreneur-in-Residence, dloncar@futurpreneur.ca\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>If we define \u201cmarketing\u201d as creating interest in your product or service, then \u201csales\u201d is the process you use to influence the customer to actually buy.\u00a0 Sales is the feedback to understand your market. So many start-ups are rushing to do a marketing campaign to a large audience. Simply put, today\u2019s consumer is swamped with [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":3378,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3377","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entrepreneurship"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/futurpreneur.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3377","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/futurpreneur.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/futurpreneur.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/futurpreneur.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/futurpreneur.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3377"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/futurpreneur.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3377\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/futurpreneur.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3378"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/futurpreneur.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3377"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/futurpreneur.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3377"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/futurpreneur.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3377"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}