Growing your business requires some form of energy. This energy is mostly provided through sales (less often, investment).
We tend to consider generating more sales with an internal focus. We believe that sales are a function of our marketing. Better and more marketing causes greater sales.
However, marketing is actually subservient and reliant on an external force: the ratio of supply to demand.
At it’s best, marketing amplifies supply and demand.
Several years ago, I attended a conference where a marketer presented a session on marketing SaaS. One of his key points was a complaint about developers. He said, “They build something and then they come to me and say, ‘do marketing so that we can get sales.’ But I can’t market software that no one wants.”
The intersection of supply and demand with your business is your offer.
The offer can be artfully wrought with marketing, but the underlying steel is your value proposition. It’s your thesis of the supply demand imbalance in a market. “I believe that there are x people looking for a y with z qualities and willing to pay $x.”
Which brings me to a working theory that I have:
One measure of supply and demand is making sales when you’re doing little marketing for your offer.
Is there natural pressure into business from an imbalance in supply and demand? Do people search for solutions? Do they ask each other for referrals?
Featured image is the fires of Chimera at Yanartaş, Çıralı, Turkey. The fires are escaping methane gas that have been burning for 2500 years. Ancient sailors used to use them as navigational beacons. I stayed near here a couple of years ago and didn’t go see them. Dumb. By Jyri Leskinen – Own work and used under CC 2.5. Cropped.