The Biggest Mistake in Business for the Last 100 years?
February 24, 2020
The 21st Century’s Most Costly Business Mistake?
Probably the most expensive mistake of the 21st century is perceiving marketing as meaning advertising and promotion.
How the business-world came to close itself off from the science of marketing strategy, the vast and rich knowledge base that makes profitable businesses spark and explode, is a matter of debate…
What has created a world that doesn’t understand the meaning of the word, Marketing?
Is it tertiary marketing education devoid of real world worth, now that academics have significantly displaced practitioners in teaching?
Is it because the efficiency of the medium that is the internet is so profound that the aggressive snake-oil hawking of digital promoters, describing themselves as marketers, without understanding anything beyond rudimentary marketing communications tactics?
Is it because the leaders of sophisticated marketing organisations are hording the knowledge because it represents such potent and potentially sustainable competitive advantage for them if they keep it to themselves?
Is it because the marketing professional has fought off mandatory accreditation and control… so that anyone can say they are a marketer without challenge?
Or could it be that middle management and senior executives who have lobbied so hard to rise above their peers in corporate organisations, shout down anyone with knowledge that might interfere with their planned career progression?
Is this due to the fact that over 50% of business executives working in marketing lack ANY tertiary qualifications in the discipline?
Where Did Marketing Go Off the Tracks?
Perhaps, in the ‘80s, if the marketing professional has screamed “wrong” when the term, “direct marketing” was incorrectly coined to describe direct response advertising, the nonsensical term, “content marketing” may not have be adopted and a more accurate phrase to describe “online publicity promotion” might have formed? The same goes for “search engine marketing” which really is “prioritization of search engine ranking”. (At least somebody tried when they coined the phrase “Search Engine Optimization”.)
Poor lay people are left in a soup of confusion daily when terms sprout such as “Influencer Marketing” which is simply utilization of group opinion leaders to disperse information utilization in context with the multi-stage mass communication model.
Whatever the causes, the cost is incalculable!
How much damage is done when people are unaware that they must balance the 8P’s of marketing scientifically if they are to protect their companies from sub-optimal profits?
How destructive is it when quality executives are appointed to roles they THINK they can handle when they are simply ill-equipped with inadequate training and knowledge to make strategic marketing decisions?
How profound are the losses as the commercial world graciously accepts the dominoes that are retail chains collapsing world-wide, without even questioning that these occurrences might be a clue that the leadership models in business are faulty?
How corrosive is it when employees simply leave their jobs in frustration because their corporate guidelines are soiled by silos, blurred by secret agenda, eroded by office politics, undermined by poor morale?
How much worse does this make frustrated middle management as they vent on their own staff because they are fighting a losing battle with the same demons they are creating because of complacent leadership and corporate governance?
Even though Gartner, Inc, have made $4B a year reminding us that employee engagement has been consistently around 25% of all employees since they began surveying it in 2002, where is evidence of quality internal marketing?
History will tell a sorry tale.
How they will giggle in decades to come when the historians recall the anecdotes of 21st century business people ignoring the lessons of history only to repeat the mistakes.
Students of Marketing in the future may shake their heads in disbelief when they discover that the body of real knowledge was not in universities, but secreted away in the coffers of just a few large companies and consultancies, remaining virtually known except to only to a few outsiders.
Incidentally, on the topic of academia worth and value to the business world…
Is Academia Failing Society BIG-TIME?
For years I’ve have complained that the focus of Universities on “publish or perish” instead of “teach well and share knowledge” is a big mistake.
So, I couldn’t help capturing this post when I found it on the web recently…
Who cares about your PhD thesis?
Colin Riegels, Doctoral candidate: Law, University of Oxford
There is an old joke about this: only five people will ever read your doctoral thesis.
- You
- Your supervisor
- Your two examiners
- Your unlucky spouse/boyfriend/girlfriend who has to act as unpaid proof-reader for you
In 99.9% of cases, nobody else will ever read it or care what it says.
When I arrived at Oxford I went to the archives and checked out a number of completed doctoral theses in my field so I could read them and get a flavour of what they are meant to be like. In every single case except for one, I was the first person ever to check them out. And, in each case, they weren’t randos – I picked those ones because they were names that I recognised as people who went on to enjoy success in the field.
By the time I read this post, it had 203,900 views and been liked or shared over 6,100 times! Academia KNOWS its failings yet academia are ignoring (laughing at!) what most certainly will be its downfall!
I imagine historians of the future will share my disdain of unoriginal, regurgitated marketing theory being submitted as justification for their existence by the incumbent pure academics in power now, representing a fake body of knowledge, thrown up as a smoke screen to disguise it profound absence of advancement; too crammed with irrelevant and unusable findings that the “publish or perish” mandate has forced them to create.
What Factors Make Sales People Successful?
I recently shared a Linked In comment, and in my keynote presentations and workshops discuss, a large & intense formal commercial study of selling skills, that showed only two significantly important factors determine a sales person’s success…
- How hard salespeople work (calls, preparation, & face-to-face time in front of a prospect or customer, no ‘brass-plating’, procrastination, or poor time-management), and…
- The distribution of speaking time between seller & buyer (the greater the percentage of time the buyer spends speaking, the greater the salesperson’s sales success, relative to team peers’ success).
As a throw-away I mentioned that increased average productivity across the whole team of salespeople occurs if they have access to, and understand, properly identified market segments but I probably DDN’T emphasize the point enough that If a company really understands its market segments and responds accordingly, then all the salesperson really has to do is take orders… the selling is already done before the sales meeting.
What Factors Interfere with Sales People being Successful?
Multi-national corporations, in the main, already know a about the world-wide crisis in employee engagement: With only 24% of Australian workers engaged, and with 202% productivity gains to be had from the 76% unengaged, employee engagement & organisational alignment has become TOP priority, particularly in the wake of Millennials displaying even greater need for engagement, than generations past.
An issue that doesn’t receive enough attention is that 18% of any workforce is made up of “disengaged” employees – ones that deliberately want to “sink the ship”. and THAT is seriously lose sales and detrimental to future opportunity!
If silos are known to exist, any decent leader should be tearing them down, YESTERDAY!
But how often do we hear about disconnects between Sales & Marketing teams?
I’m betting silos between research and other departments even interfere with distribution of segment identification and recognition… that information isn’t shared, synergy is lost, and sales results end up being suboptimal across hundreds of industries.
It is an easy bet for me, I have uncovered plenty of situations just like this over my consulting career, from doing marketing audits, deficiency analysis and even in competition analysis… through to ‘war-stories’ from delegates to my workshops who confess this goes on far too often.
Often the problem stems from CEO’s who are too busy with distractions… too complacent towards improving productivity, too cynical to believe that a small investment in correction will deliver a significant ROI, or just fearful that they might be “exposed” as less than 100% competent.
How Badly Do YOU think Silos Interfere with Sales People being Successful?
I’d be interested in any comments, observations, cases in hand, or thoughts readers have as to silos, sales productivity and leadership, relevant to these thoughts.
By the way, I use an approach that has helped FMCG, transport & big pharma grow corporate profits by as much as $250M p.a. that can be used to help all sorts of businesses… If you want to have a peek, check out: http://bit.ly/OpAudit
The modern “Marketing Concept” is “using the resources of your organization that can be competitively utilized to satisfy the needs or wants of an identifiable and reachable target audience.
So, EXPERT marketers that understand their job is, “The holistic, integrated management of exchange” are equipped with the understanding to self-determine if a business should be closing for a lock down, staying open despite a lock down, of actually redeploying resources and responding to a lock down to satisfy new and unsatisfied needs in the market place.
Think!
Can you do something for those in need?
Can you deliver new things that a group of people of organisations now want?
Can you reorganize your resources that satisfy new markets? Increased demand? Can you develop new products that people NOW want?
Can you develop new products for new markets?
Internal Marketing Comes First
Remember, you’ll get no-where fast if you don’t have support, engagement and alignment within your organization.
Does your response of effort to adapt fit with the organizations’ MEVPIV?
If not then leadership has to be called into question. and if your leader’s cant embrace change before its too late, get out early.
If leaders are onside, remind them that internal marketing is necessary and leadership has to be overt. Call for enthusiasm, alignment and encouragement from everyone and ask for (and respect) contributions.
And don’t forget…
Act, don’t react: Plan strategically – don’t just embrace reactive tactics
Those who fail to plan, plan to fail.
Think through your strategy. Consider all the implications. Determine contingencies and prepare for them.
YOu marketing plan should not be more than 20 pages, and consider ALL aspects of the marketing mix, and make sure your market research, analsysis, and information is right!
Transitioning to a Remote Workforce?
March 20, 2020
How to Maintain or Improve Productivity
If you’re transitioning to a virtual office, opting to have your employees work from home, you need to accept the innovation also demands change in management accent.
When you employ, recruit and manage workers who tele-commute or operate from remote offices… regardless of the reason, you must ensure they are engaged and productive.
Many businesses employ workers who aren’t ready to accept going remote
Remote work is a matter of culture. Experience tells us that emergency change to working remotely in response to a crisis doesn’t always work out. You need nurture a buoyant attitude and positive disposition to help them be truly productive.
That’s why “transition to remote” needs to address the very core of your business.
A remote work force needs to be aligned. The team must be tune with their core contribution to the organization, its mission, its vision, it’s very identity and ethos.
The Fast-track path to Leading this Transition
Leaders must be diligent and sensitive to their workers’ needs. The team must be committed to, and included in, your organization’s values, ethics, intent.
They must both be aware of, and connected with, your objectives, the strategy you believe will achieve those objectives, the tactics they’ll use or are using and the tasks you need them to complete.
More than ever before, kinetic leadership will stimulate employee engagement. Now is the time, as you ask your workers to adopt a more independent work environment and adapt to the accompanying self-discipline and independent motivation needed to be productive.
How trustworthy they are will reply on how their leaders to inspire motivation, enthusiasm, and dedication to work.
Learn More or Get Help
As with any organization, sometimes the operational demands of everyday business have let the strategic sheen fade on engaging MEVPIV.
For other organizations the employee engagement issue has been top of mind and in the things to do list of priorities.
If you need to prioritize this component of your leadership, be it strategic input, implementation or anything in between, feel free to drop me a line and I’ll see if I can help you find an answer or at least a sensible direction.
Huge Influencer Marketing Webinar Might be “the ticket”.
February 4, 2020
What is “Influencer Marketing”?
It only took Forbes 3500 years after the activity was first employed to discover “Influencer Marketing”… or so you might assume if you read a recent Forbes article published that insinuated the concept is radical, breakthrough and new.
It is such an awkward and silly expression, but curiously adopted by the masses. A range of people, from those who are non-discriminating and tolerant of lay-person interpretations, to opportunists who don’t know any better, have coined the phrase to attract their audiences to consider their opinion.
Those that “know” are aware that “Influencer marketing” is a means of describing promotional communication messages through celebrities and opinion leaders to deliver awareness, create interest, distribute knowledge, inspire liking and preference to coerce the recipient of that information to buy. This is done because it is human nature to follow and to trust those to who you believe you rely upon for that opinion.
A lay-person definition of the expression, “Influencer marketing”, being the means of describing the dynamic between a Group Opinion leader (GOP) and how they work within the context of the Multi-Stage Mass Communication model, has been extensively taught in Marketing courses around the world for the past 50 years.
Infamous snake-oil salespeople, political leaders and political institutions, throughout history, and recent and modern operational marketing communications specialists, have all utilized “Influencer Marketing” to help achieve their goals.
A Digital Expression?
The immature or forgetful among us who perceive the world didn’t exist before the internet and social media, may limit their thinking of Influencer Marketing to highly followed and liked, online, group opinion leaders:
Does it work?
Yes, I think many people, including me, have bowed to some authoritative opinion at some time in our buyer-decision-making lives. 🙂
Having survived the test of time, the tactic, that being using the influencer of a GOP to “bend” their followers’ behaviour, is proven.
How to Embrace, Apply and Implement “Influencer marketing”
I am joining forces with Entrepnr for their upcoming Influencer Marketing Asia virtual summit taking place on February 25-26, 2020.
I’ll be one of an array of their speakers sharing ideas, inspiration, and some tips on influencer marketing in Asia.
There will be in-depth presentations, case studies and extensive discussions from top influencer marketing practitioners, see https://www.influences.asia for more details.
The summit is only a matter of a few weeks away. There are still tickets available, and if you are interested in attending this great event, I have a discount code that will give you a 30% off discount.
A Lighter Side Look at Management Terms*
January 23, 2020
Delegate: Pass the buck
Pending: What the hell do we do with this?
Delayed: Forgotten
Urgent: Panic
Extreme Urgency: Blind Panic
Frank and open discussion: Flaming row
Analytical projection: Guess
Forecast: Guess
Long Range Forecast: Wild guess
Scheduled: Hoped for
Deficiency Analysis: Pointing the finger
Ambitious: Ruthless
Strategy: Low cunning
Shrewd: Devious
Profit: Profit
Profit before tax: Loss
Deficit: Staggering Loss
Industrial by-product: Our waste
Environmental pollution: Other people’s waste
Pilfering: Theft by employee
Fringe benefit: Theft by executive
Terminal payment: Golden handshake
Supplementary statistical information: Padding
- Source Unknown
What are corporate marketing strategies?
January 19, 2020
By Leigh Cowan, CEO of Leadership Empowerment
I was recently asked, “What are corporate marketing strategies?” so thought I’d share a summarial answer my own blog.
A properly led company starts and grows because it has a defined focused and clear PURPOSE. It embraces a VISION and undertakes a MISSION to strive for the achievement of that VISION. As it grows, it ensures it stays true to core VALUES by maintaining clarity regarding its IDENTITY and sets OBJECTIVES that satisfy these guidelines.
Marketing is the management of exchange and marketing strategies are the overriding approaches that the organisation will adopt as the means by which the OBJECTIVES will be achieved.
These strategies set the parameters for TACTICS that are employed to get the job done.
These TACTICS can be broken down into indivisible tasks that need to be completed to satisfy the above.
When strategic corporate guidelines are in place, diligently (if not fanatically) endorsed by the Board and all c-level executives, the following outcomes occur:
- Higher levels of employee engagement
- High levels of employee productivity
- Less internal politics, silos, hidden agenda, and disengaged employees leading to lower staff turnover, less sick leave, lower stock shrinkage, higher customer satisfaction and better user experience from customer to trade partner.
- Less “friction” exists between supervisors and their subordinates because everyone has a clever understanding of what is expected of them, what they should be doing, what decisions are the most appropriate… this means people can take control of themselves, self-manage, use their intuitive abilities and work more constructively and collaboratively.
Corporate Marketing strategies deal with Product, Price, Channels of distribution (Logistics and Communications), Promotion (advertising, sales promotion, PR and Personal Selling), Pricing Processes (including manufacturing, procurement), People (staff and service providers), Positioning (branding, image, corporate social responsibility, organisational reputation management) and Politics (external lobbying, industry, and internal politics).
If your corporate objectives are comprehensive, and your corporate marketing strategies are implementable, then you have a successful, sturdy and secure corporation.
Why You Cannot Afford Silos between Sales & Marketing
December 29, 2019
The latest figures infer a 202% increase in productivity and 16-25% increase in bottom-line profits… too important to ignore!
What Factors Make Sales People Successful?
I recently shared a Linked In comment, and in my keynote presentations and workshops discuss, a large & intense formal commercial study of selling skills, that showed only two significantly important factors determine a sales person’s success…
- How hard salespeople work (calls, preparation, & face-to-face time in front of a prospect or customer, no ‘brass-plating’, procrastination, or poor time-management), and…
- The distribution of speaking time between seller & buyer (the greater the percentage of time the buyer spends speaking, the greater the salesperson’s sales success, relative to team peers’ success).
As a throw-away I mentioned that increased average productivity across the whole team of salespeople occurs if they have access to, and understand, properly identified market segments but I probably DDN’T emphasize the point enough that If a company really understands its market segments and responds accordingly, then all the salesperson really has to…
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