COACHING
Why Is Marketing Misunderstood ?
By Thrity Engineer-Mbuthia
Time and time again , I have written about my two passions and interests . The first is marketing and the second is coaching . Both are misunderstood professions , with marketing thought to be sales , advertising and promotion and coaching thought to be training , teaching or even tuition . Completely wrong !
There must be a reason why these professions are misunderstood , and there seems to be , in my opinion , something to do with the naming and the professionals who practice these professions .
There are plenty of definitions of what marketing is , but since I am biased , I will go with the definition from the Chartered Institute of Marketing UK which says , “ Marketing is the management process of identifying , anticipating and satisfying customer requirements profitably .”
Again , as a certified executive coach , having declared my bias , the International Coaching Federation based in the US defines coaching as “ partnering with clients in a creative and thought provoking process that inspires them to maximize their personal and professional potential .”
However , why are these professions not well understood . Most people seem to understand what a doctor does , or what a lawyer does . A chef ’ s role is also understood , a finance or accounting person or an HR professional or a marine biologist - no one seems to misunderstand these professions .
In primary school , you are taught that words ending in … ING are called verbs . They are “ doing words .” Now what is involved in marketing ? What is this doing that happens here ? Well - one markets in marketing . What is to market ?
A market or to market ? To market might mean to sell or to promote . A market - a place to sell things ? See where the confusion comes in ?
To coach or a coach ? That fellow standing on the side lines yelling at players and telling them what to do ? The one who trained them ? More confusion .
Now as far as marketing is concerned , I am here preaching to the converted . This write up is for a marketing magazine . The brand is Marketing Africa . The audience is predominantly professional marketers . So
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The marketing umbrella should incorporate all those involved in marketing outputs . What happens , however , is we have turfs being demarcated , with people spending time and energy to defend the turf , rather than working together to meet the objectives of the company . what ’ s the rant about ? We all understand what we proudly do . Or do we ?
Here is my theory . I believe marketers are partly to blame for the misconceptions of their profession . And this is for a number of reasons . The first is that marketers are not able to explain what they do aside from saying they sell or they advertise . This is because the general public understand these terms and also because colleagues at the office also seem to think so . Ask any student of a Bachelor of Commerce degree program if they have covered any marketing modules and they are guaranteed to say yes to at least having studied one . But ask them to explain what is involved in marketing and they are usually stumped .
The second piece of confusion comes in where organizations set up departments . Each sector is unique and so each sector has a particular focus . Marketing and sales , business development , advertising department , digital marketing , communications department and so on . The different terms simply highlight the different specialization areas that are needed to carry out marketing activities . Each of these specializations is unique but when put together they all fit under a marketing umbrella . Not the marketing department as such , don ’ t get me wrong , I am not saying they should be structured to report to a marketing department if it doesn ’ t suit the purpose of the organization . But they are all involved in marketing outputs , hence the marketing umbrella . What happens is we have turfs being demarcated , with people spending time and energy to defend the turf , rather than working together to meet the objectives of the company .
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