Marketing and Sales
Entrepreneurs create. Marketing promotes. Sales validate. These are the respective responsibilities of each. But how do marketing and sales best promote and validate an entrepreneur’s product. Is it the responsibility of marketing to assess market needs first? How do you validate a products value? Is the ultimate objective of both marketing and sales to acquire maximum wealth by maximizing market share? These are the questions these essays will address for the Objectivist Entrepreneur.
“It is in regard to a free market that the distinction between an intrinsic, subjective, and objective view of values is particularly important to understand. The market value of a product is not an intrinsic value, not a “value in itself” hanging in a vacuum. A free market never loses sight of the question: Of value to whom?”Ayn Rand
Ayn Rand
1 – Marketing
Marketing research is often viewed as essential for finding a market need and assessing what customers want. Marketing is also responsible for promoting the enterprise’s products to acquire market share. While these are common ways of thinking about marketing, are they in fact correct? Should marketing be responsible for finding and assessing the needs and wants of customers? Does a customer’s needs even define a market? Is acquiring market share a proper way of thinking about producing wealth? These are the questions this essay will address from an Objectivist perspective. While the efforts of both marketing and sales represent the…
2 – Sales
While marketing efforts promote the value of a product or service, it is the responsibility of sales to seek out customers who will benefit from it and thereby validate its value in the market through sales. But what principles should guide a salesman’s efforts? What are a salesman’s incentives and motivations? Are they the same as the entrepreneur’s? Are sales based on subjective or objective values? Do negotiations with customers entail an element of compromise? These are the questions this essay will address. Of all the employees in a company, ideally the salesman’s incentives and motivations are most closely aligned with those…
3 – Profit
While many startup enterprises begin unprofitable, an enterprise that does not eventually become profitable will find it difficult to grow and impossible to attract investors. As obvious as this is, seeking profitability is often deemed an amoral if not in fact an immoral pursuit. It is claimed money is the root of all evil in general and thus profits in business are in particular. Greed is claimed to motivate entrepreneurs who seek to maximize profits, with minimizing profits to maximize benefits to meet the needs of society being more virtuous. But why? “So you think that money is the root…
4 – Competition
When markets are viewed as being produced rather than acquired (Marketing) an Objectivist entrepreneur’s view of competition changes dramatically from the norm. Competitors are not viewed as enterprises one attempts to destroy but rather surpass and potentially replace. This may or may not result in another enterprise failing. This is sometimes referred to as “creative destruction”, a phrase coined by Joseph A Schumpeter in reference to Capitalism. “At the heart of Capitalism is creative destruction. “ Joseph A. Schumpeter However, destroying competitors is not the Objectivist entrepreneur’s goal. Even the phrase “creative destruction” isn’t entirely correct. Creative indifference would be…