One thing I want you to know is that business can survive when you don't put some things in place except sales. A business that lacks will definitely collapse in no time. The reason is that sales is what drives consistent positive cash flow into the business which enhance the growth. Marketing is important because it helps to create a system that enhance ability of businesses to generate sales consistently. Marketing is organizing different strategy into a system that helps to generate consistency even when the key aspect of the business is not working. There's no point in working hard to generate sales by talking to the people one-on-one when marketing can do the work once.