It is important for us to note that the fact that we are in the twenty-first century does not make all the earlier avenues of Sales and Marketing obsolete. Some companies marketing consumer goods continue to spend a significant proportion of their marketing budget on conventional mass media marketing. In some cases a seller’s marketplace continues to be the reality for certain commodities that have a limited number of producers, or where the production is highly regulated by the government or controlled by monopolies or duopolies.
Similarly, in some regions or countries, traditional marketplaces continue to flourish. Rather than viewing the changes as completely replacing the earlier practices, Sales and Marketing approaches should be viewed as a continuum where recent innovations can co-exist with earlier practices.
It is the responsibility of a company’s Sales and Marketing teams to make the strategic decisions that will work best to achieve the desired outcomes, given the reality of the markets and particular consumer preferences. Sales and Marketing students, who read material on the subject, often find it confusing because authors offer varied perspectives that may be difficult to assimilate and comprehend in the present day.
Each author’s perspective can also vary depending on when the material was written (i.e., where he or she was on the Sales and Marketing timeline), his or her individual or industry preferences and experiences, and other factors.
Conversely, the concepts covered in the SMstudy® Guide series are not limited to the perspective of any particular author or industry. The SMstudy® Guide was developed by VMEdu, Inc., a professional education provider which has educated over 400,000 students world-wide in more than 3,500 companies.
