“People like to buy, not to be sold.”

I heard that recently and it’s so true. Imagine walking into Ann Taylor and seeing a red pencil skirt that looks adorable on the mannequin. You’re interested in buying it, meaning you want to touch it, check the price, and try it on. You want to think about where you can wear it, what top would go well with it, do you have the right shoes for it…and of course you want to make sure it doesn’t make you look fat. Those are all questions you can pretty much answer for yourself if you’re thinking about buying the skirt.

Compare that to seeing the skirt and walking towards it and boom, a salesperson is right there telling you, how cute it is, how there’s only one left in your size, about the fabric it’s made from, cross selling you sweaters and shoes, guiding you into the dressing room with the skirt and an arm full of tops and accessories...you’d feel forced, and that skirt wouldn’t have nearly the same appeal.

I think of the first as marketing, the second as selling. In the first case, the customer is coming to the product, and that’s the job of marketing communications, right? To make the introduction, to be the skirt on the mannequin that gets the prospect’s attention and makes her want to learn more.

Yet time and again, I see companies--especially small businesses--going straight for the sale without the marketing warm up, meaning they have no or shoddy marketing materials. That’s like sending your sales people out to catch fish but without a pole.

So whether you’re in charge of marketing a big business or a small one, make sure your marketing and messaging are up-to-date, effective, and as appealing as that cute red skirt before you send your salespeople out onto the floor.

As for the skirt, well, by the time I got back to Ann Taylor without kids in tow, it was gone. Sigh…