A Class with Drucker - Headway | Work on yourself

The assembly line, especially the moving assembly line, was important
as a tactic to enable low prices in supporting Ford’s strategy. As a result,
the famous Model T dominated the industry for several decades and was
arguably the most successful automobile of all time. Only later did Ford
go after other mid-priced and later high-priced market segments.
However, had Ford selected a different strategy to serve high-end customers,
as did Cadillac and Oldsmobile, an assembly-line tactic would
have been incongruent <strong>with</strong> this strategy. No matter how well implemented
his assembly line, the overproduction and lack of uniqueness and
exclusiveness would not have been attractive to wealthy prospects.
Clearly, strategy is more important than tactics. While it is desirable to
be on target <strong>with</strong> both, it is far better to be pursuing the right marketing
strategy <strong>with</strong> less than optimal selling than vice versa.
<strong>Drucker</strong> Lesson Summary
Here are some of the key aspects of <strong>Drucker</strong>’s theory on the relationship
between marketing and selling:
■ A poor marketing strategy cannot be overcome by good implementation
or marketing tactics; marketing strategy is the governing
aspect.
■ Marketing and selling are neither synonymous nor necessarily
complementary.
■ The objective of marketing (and therefore marketing strategy) is to
make selling superfluous.
■ Selling and marketing can be adversarial.
THE OBJECTIVE OF MARKETING ■ 107
<strong>Drucker</strong> did not intend to negate the importance of selling. Advertising,
distribution, and face-to-face selling are all critical functions.
<strong>Drucker</strong> wanted us to understand that marketing was the governing factor
of any business and was so central to all business that its goal was to
make selling unnecessary, even if this objective could never be attained in
the real world.