It goes like in the movie 300, when King Leonidas asks a bunch of people what they do. We could ask marketers what they do and the answers would be diverse:
- I prepare marketing campaigns
- I create brands
- I position brands
- I do Marketing strategy
- I create ads and follow up on those ads to understand the metrics so that I can create even better ad campaigns.
Now if we ask a salesman what he does, he just answers AHWUUU.
- I sell.
That is pretty much what a salesman does, he sells. You hire a marketing team and they don’t have to guarantee sales, at least not right away, it may take some time to position your brand, they may need to do some AB testing, or study the market and all other sciency things that make up marketing, because marketing is a science, and not a simple one, marketing is rocket science, it is complex and it covers many topics. If you want to be a master of marketing you should go to college, and study it there for 4 years, or 8 years, then you can say that you know marketing.
When you hire a salesman or a team of salesman they have to guarantee a certain number of sales, because that is what they do, they sell.
Of course I am downplaying things here, and selling is also a science, but it is not rocket science, people have been selling pretty much the same way for millennia, an 1875 man would know a modern day salesman by the time he would lay his eyes on him. It is the same art.
Selling is not marketing, selling is more like guiding someone to do something that will be good for that person. Like being an angel. For instance, you sell mattresses and someone with an horrible posture comes in your store and needs a mattress and you have the perfect matress that will help this person correct their posture. Then it is your duty to help this person, you will be doing them a huge favor. If you fail as a salesman, you fail this person, you fail God.