What Porsche, The Autobahn, and a Business Card Taught Me About Sales vs. Marketing

As a longtime creative and technical writer with over 25 years in advertising, marketing, branding, and filmmaking, I still get a little heartburn when someone hands me a business card that reads “VP of Sales & Marketing.” It’s not that I don’t respect both disciplines—quite the opposite. But sales and marketing are not the same thing, and when they’re treated as interchangeable, both tend to suffer.

As Theodore Levitt, author of the famous 1960 Harvard Business Review article Marketing Myopia, stated: “The difference between marketing and selling is more than semantic. Selling focuses on the needs of the seller, marketing on the needs of the buyer.”

Marketing is the spark—it builds desire, tells a compelling story, and creates an emotional connection. Sales is the bridge—it fulfills that desire, earns trust, and converts interest into action. When these roles are aligned but distinct, the outcome is powerful. When they’re mashed together, the story gets muddy.

One of the best examples I can share comes from my lifelong obsession with Porsche. Like a lot of people, I grew up idolizing the brand. Posters on the wall. Stats memorized. And yeah, maybe I was influenced by Risky Business—“Porsche… there is no substitute.”

Eventually, I owned a few. And one glorious day on the autobahn, I hit 276 kilometers per hour (172 mph) in a 911 during a film shoot. Riding shotgun was my friend and mentor Peter Sontag—former chairman of a major medical device company and founder of Fast Lane Travel, the oldest and finest Porsche Treffen driving tour company in the world. When we pulled off the highway, still buzzing from the rush, Peter looked at me and said, “Do you remember what you said?” I didn’t. He smiled: “You said, ‘This feels so right.’ Porsche did this to me.”

He was right. That’s what great branding does. It gets under your skin. It becomes part of your identity. It creates desire long before a salesperson ever enters the picture.

Peter also had a way of dropping marketing wisdom when you least expected it. I once asked him to explain the German approach to branding, and he replied dryly, “You don’t want any of this, do you?” Positioning, embodied.

So yes, I get a little uneasy when I see “Sales & Marketing” on the same line. Because if you respect what each does uniquely—and how they can work in concert—the results are far more powerful. Sales closes. Marketing opens. One fulfills the promise. The other makes you believe in it.

And when it all clicks?
It doesn’t just work.
It feels so right.

If your business needs sharper messaging, smarter storytelling, or a fresh perspective on how to position your brand, we would love to help. After 25 years of building brands that move people and markets, we know how to make the spark—and the connection.

Let’s talk!