Rainmaking: Guy Kawasaki or Charles?

Guy Kawasaki has a  post titled "The Art of Rainmaking."  His basic premise is simple: "Sales fix everything."  In other words, if you have sales, you have cash flow and when the cash is flowing, lots of things can be fixed, ignored, or forgiven. 

Guy then goes on to a list of eight things to do to make it rain.  While there are good and valid points in the post, I do not totally agree with the premise.  Instead, I find that agree with one of Guy's commenters, a fellow named Charles.  So, see Charles' comments below then read Guy's post and decide for yourself:

"Guy, you have obviously never worked directly in Sales. There is a huge difference between evangelism and sales. I learned the difference by working my way up the chain from evangelism, working in a dinky Apple dealer in Dubuque, Iowa during the early days of microcomputers when the most common question was "why would I ever want to buy a computer?" up to being a top sales rep at a Los Angeles store which was the largest computer store in the world. I learned a few things along the way. Such as:

1. Sales does NOT equal profit. Just because cash is flowing does not mean you are making a profit. The big LA store I worked at was only able to make a profit by continually increasing sales volume. This is a vicious circle, and it crashes the moment sales are flat and profit goes into the red. If you cannot make a profit when sales are flat, your company has a broken business model. It is not difficult to sell yourself right into bankruptcy.

2. Anyone can find customers. The problem is finding GOOD customers. Sales is not the art of selling, it is the art of finding profitable customers.

3. Finding buyers is better than seeking sales prospects and giving a sales pitch. Evangelism is a huge waste of time if your goal is sales. There are plenty of customers predisposed to purchasing your product. Help them buy by eliminating obstacles to their purchase decisions.

4. Nobody buys a product because your company has the best product or the fastest delivery or the best price, or any of the traditional selling points. Customers buy because you make them feel good for making their purchase decision. The way to make that happen is to make them feel good for buying from YOU rather than some other guy.

Sales is an underappreciated art and there is no formula, only artists.

-- Charles"  (emphasis mine)

PS ... Note to Guy: yes, while it's good to be the VP of Marketing,  it's even better to be the SVP of Marketing.   :-)

Comments

[Charles]

Thanks for your kind remarks about my remarks. It is not often I find someone agreeing with me when I am disagreeing with someone else.

I had to laugh when I read Guy's story. Guy was a prime example of what was wrong with Apple during the era of their worst loss of market share. Talking to customers about buying your product (evangelism) does not equal making sales.