"SALES is persuading the Customer to WANT what we HAVE. MARKETING is being sure we HAVE what the Customer NEEDS, (now and in the future)."
— Peter Hanley
Peter, who received SEMI’s award for excellence in sales and marketing in 2009, says this is from Buck Rodgers, and certainly part of it is. However, Peter has brilliantly integrated what Rodgers said into 2 of Bob Graham’s 4 principles of marketing: Wants, Needs, Features, and Benefits, while assuming the last to come as a result of solving the first two (which is what Bob would have said). But in going beyond Bob, Peter has created a bumper sticker definition of the difference between sales and marketing. Contrast that with what Robert L. Shook attributed to Francis G. “Buck” Rogers in The Greatest Salespersons… What They Say About Selling: “Selling is the art of persuasion where you utilize your individual talents to convince someone to buy the product or service you offer. Marketing, however, is a much more inclusive term which means understanding the customer’s business and putting together a solution to his problems, thereby increasing his productivity.” Combined they give about the best definition I have ever seen.
