What Do People Misunderstand About Marketing?

My controversial statement is that marketing is the only function a business has. Making a great product is marketing; getting the buyer to want it, on time, at the right price, is also marketing.

There are 3 misconceptions about it:

1. Finance and consulting people often think marketing is irrelevant, pointless, and back-office. I fundamentally disagree.

Finance has a legitimate role in business, but it shouldn’t lead strategic decisions about the future of business in the way it currently does.

If you’ve ever been on an airline and had a terrible customer experience, that’s probably because someone is making a short-term financial decision rather than thinking long-term about how to actually serve the client, get them to keep coming back, and tell others about it.

Finance’s role is to capture value to sustain the enterprise — it’s the score keeper, not the captain.

1. People think we just sit around putting sticky notes on the wall and taking three martini lunch breaks.

There's a lot of craft and sweat that goes into being creative. People think it's just dreamed up, and you either have it or you don't.

Creativity is a skill that you can hone and make better over time. 

1. The idea is not king.

Selling the idea is almost as important, if not more important, than actually coming up with it.