The distinction between marketing and sales is clear: sales is responsible for selling, while marketing is responsible for promotion.

In fishing terms, the marketing department is responsible for chumming the water—luring the fish—while sales handles the actual act of reeling them in, and R&D is responsible for crafting the fishing gear. Take a bar that hires beautiful women to create a lively atmosphere—that’s chumming. How can a bar hostess reel in wealthy clients if there’s no crowd gathered to begin with?

So the work of strategic planning departments or research institutes primarily supports marketing in chumming the waters.

Chumming can be either high-end or low-end.

Low-end chumming is what you see at product launch events, roadshows, and trade exhibitions hosted by product teams.

But what if your target is leadership or massive potential clients? Don’t you need a marketer who doesn’t look like a typical marketer? That’s high-end chumming.

Large enterprises must cultivate their own team of so-called experts who, under the guise of neutrality and professionalism, go around sharing their views while secretly pushing agendas that favor their corporate group.

When the boss of a large corporation wants to persuade a decision-maker, he needs expert opinions as corroboration—and that’s when high-end chumming comes into play. These “experts” are actually employees cultivated by the corporation itself.