Whilst the vast majority of people who are setting out to start a new business can usually tell you about how their goods or services will be made or provided, what basic resources are needed, and roughly what each item will cost, their most common deficiency is a lack of marketing knowledge and sales skills. Unless they have worked in a marketing environment, they will often lack the knowledge of how to research their market and how to prepare a marketing plan. Similarly, without having worked in a sales capacity, they are likely to be unaware of the skills needed to identify potential customers, to investigate and match their needs, and to close the sale. In fact there are many who do not even realise that sales and marketing are two fundamentally different disciplines. Marketing is concerned with identifying the level of demand for the goods or services, where potential customers might be found, the competition which exists, and creating a mixture of product features and means of delivery that will ensure the goods or services will be desirable. Sales is about actually persuading the customer to buy the goods, to pay the right price for them, and then to come back to you for more at a later date. It is quite possible to make excellent goods for which there is a potentially high demand in a ready-made market, but without the sales skills to actually make the customer buy them they will just sit on the shelves.

The...