Organizations exist to enable ordinary people to do extraordinary things.
Theodore LevittRead
Selling concerns itself with the tricks and techniques of getting people to exchange their cash for your product. It is not concerned with the values that the exchange is all about. And it does not, as marketing invariable does, view the entire business process as consisting of a tightly integrated effort to discover, create, arouse and satisfy customer needs.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Selling focuses on the act of persuading customers to buy, rather than understanding their needs and values.
This quote by Theodore Levitt highlights the difference between selling and marketing. Selling is merely the technique of convincing customers to part with their money for a product, often overlooking the underlying values and customer needs involved in the transaction. In contrast, marketing encompasses a broader approach, integrating efforts to genuinely understand, create, and fulfill those needs, thereby forming a deeper relationship with customers.
Themes
SellingMarketingCustomer NeedsValuesBusiness
In practice
Example use cases
In a business seminar to emphasize the importance of understanding customer needs over just pushing products.
More from Theodore Levitt
All quotes →Kodak sells film, but they don't advertise film; they advertise memories.
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Ideas are useless unless used. The proof of their value is in their implementation. Until then, they are in limbo.
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A powerful force drives the world toward a converging commonality, and that force is technology. … Almost everyone everywhere wants all the things they have heard about, seen, or experienced via the new technologies.
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You want to dig your well where you have the best chance of finding water with the least amount of digging
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The purpose of a business is to get and keep a customer. Without customers, no amount of engineering wizardry, clever financing, or operations expertise can keep a company going.
Theodore LevittRead
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