tag:mbamarketing.blog.co.uk,2009-11-22:/Random thoughts about business and marketing, from MBA Consultants (www.mba-marketing.co.uk)MokoFeed2009-11-22T23:54:15+01:00tag:mbamarketing.blog.co.uk,2009-02-10:/2009/02/10/is-marketing-ageist-5547455/MBA-Marketing2009-02-10T19:44:50+01:002009-02-10T19:45:38+01:00 <p>The following article is taken from the current (February) edition of 'The Marketer', a magazine produced on behalf of the Chartered Institute of Marketing. It highlights the ageism which is endemic within the marketing and advertising industries. </p> <p><em>Geriatric gaming<br> Gaming grandparents could cut back on car insurance thanks to a scheme from Allstate insurance. More than 100,000 Pennsylvania pensioners are using brain-building video games to test the effects of cognitive training on driving safety. The games use InSight video software from Posit Science designed to reverse dodderiness and improve the visual skills needed for safe driving. Positive results will mean discounts from Allstate for older drivers who game to stay sharp.</em></p> <p>It is worth noting that the source for this piece (www.springwise.com) did not use the derogatory terms used by 'The Marketer', such as 'geriatric' or 'dodderiness'. Nor were stereotypes such as 'grandparents' or 'pensioners' used. In fact, the piece as originally written was about cognitive training for customers aged 50 to 75, which it was hoped would enable the company to identify the safest and most profitable customers. It is reasonable to assume, therefore, that it was the editorial judgement of 'The Marketer' to reduce the piece to a sniggering, puerile laugh at the expense of people aged over 50. </p> <p>'The Marketer', let's remember, is a publication representing the 'leading international professional marketing body', as the CIM describes itself. I very much doubt that the CIM or its members would wish to be associated with such a flippant and puerile article. It is a lapse of judgement of Carol Thatcher-esque proportions - except that it was actually published, not said in private. </p> <p>The main points of the argument relating to the ageism of the marketing and advertising industry run along these lines:</p> <p>- Apart from the moral dimension of treating people in the same way, regardless of age, sex, class or race, people aged over 50 are an important economic group. They account for an increasing percentage of the UK population (40%-plus) and control the majority of expenditure and savings in the UK economy. Ageism is therefore not in the best interests of the UK economy. </p> <p>- However, most advertising and marketing communications are not directed at this group, even when it would make economic sense to do so. For example, 70% of new cars are purchased by the over-50s, yet advertising persists in featuring young people and families. </p> <p>- When advertising and marketing communications are targeted at the over-fifties group, they usually resort to patronising and often insulting stereotypes. </p> <p>- Not surprisingly, 86% of consumers aged over 50 feel ignored by marketers.</p> <p>- The reasons for all of this are a whole set of incorrect assumptions and mis-perceptions by marketers and advertising agency people, most of whom are under 50 themselves. For example, the majority of agency staff are aged under thirty, while only one in ten marketing directors is aged over 50. In an industry with institutional ageism, age is something as irrelevant and amusing as, say, black people seem to be to Carol Thatcher. </p> <p>It is disappointing but not perhaps surprising that the youth cult of the the advertising and marketing industries has spread to the journalists writing about it. I have written to the editor of 'The Marketer' and to the Head of communications of the CIM and will publish their replies in due course. </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://MBAMarketing.blog.co.uk/2009/02/10/is-marketing-ageist-5547455/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>tag:mbamarketing.blog.co.uk,2009-01-08:/2009/01/08/can-marketing-save-us-5344257/MBA-Marketing2009-01-08T16:19:38+01:002009-01-11T22:21:00+01:00 <p><em>Blog entry #19 from <a href="http://www.mba-marketing.co.uk">www.mba-marketing.co.uk</a></em></p> <p>If business and the economy are broke, is marketing the solution?</p> <p>As we face the worst economic situation since the end of WW2, what has marketing got to offer? </p> <p>Was marketing no more than the froth on the surface of out-of-control capitalism, tolerated while the economy grew, and irrelevant now? </p> <p>To start with, let’s look at the current edition of ‘The Marketer’, the official magazine of the Chartered Institute of Marketing, the self-styled ‘leading international body for marketing and business development’. Can we expect incisive thought leadership, with marketing as the saviour of business and the global economy?</p> <p>Errr, no. The tone is set in the leader article, where the Editor suggests that we should offer something called ‘microfreebies’ in order to delight our customers, because ‘in the downturn businesses are going to need all the friends they can find.’ So far, so very unenlightening. </p> <p>Later in the same publication, David Haigh reminds us that banks have led the way to the devaluation of the whole brand concept, with their ‘cynical disregard for customers and staff’. Taking his argument further, one could argue that 'marketing' as practised by most companies has been little more than a diversionary tactic for business practices which have been at best incompetent and at worst immoral. </p> <p>So what exactly have marketers been doing while capitalism failed? The usual irrelevant fluff, apparently, as highlighted by one of the largest features in the magazine. Step forward Royal Sun Alliance, who decided to ‘re-brand’ themselves via an extensive process leading to a shortened brand name (‘RSA’) and a change of ‘logo livery’ (that's colour to you and me) to the ‘more modern’ magenta and purple. In the finest traditions of old-school marketing, numerous presentations were made to employees, telling them what management expected - ‘how we therefore wanted our workers to behave’, as marketing and customer director Claire Salmon elegantly put it, with all the finesse of a Victorian mill-owner. Needless to say, the success of all this can only be assessed in terms of our old friend ‘anecdotal evidence’. </p> <p>So does anyone in the magazine – which is after all the organ of the ‘leading international body for marketing’ - have any solutions?</p> <p>Well, the usual trivial, inaccurate and unintelligent observations continue to be peddled. For example, someone called Nik Margolis of an agency you haven’t heard of tells us that ‘there’s a three-second rule with DM – you’ve got that long to make them open it’. And you thought direct marketing helped build relationships, create dialogue, build engagement? No, it’s about making ‘them’ open mailing packs. </p> <p>Fortunately, Seth Godin, the ‘new marketing’ guru is on hand, in an interview on the back pages. In his current book, ‘Meatball Sundae’, he states that the question for any thriving 21st century business must be: 'How can we alter our business to become an organization that thrives on new marketing?' And in his new book, ‘Tribes’, he argues that ‘the new marketing is about leadership’ – creating a following for what an organisation does. </p> <p>Thanks, Seth. Thanks Chartered Institute of Marketing. You're not even asking the right questions yet, let alone giving us answers. </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://MBAMarketing.blog.co.uk/2009/01/08/can-marketing-save-us-5344257/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>tag:mbamarketing.blog.co.uk,2009-01-08:/2009/01/08/welcome-to-2009-charlie-brooker-5344227/MBA-Marketing2009-01-08T16:13:04+01:002009-01-08T16:14:40+01:00 <p><em>Blog entry #18 from <a href="http://www.mba-marketing.co.uk">www.mba-marketing.co.uk</a> </em></p> <p>Welcome to 2009. </p> <p>It’s not going to be a great year, although it threatens to be an interesting one. </p> <p>One of my resolutions is for my writing to be heavily influenced by Charlie Brooker. Here’s what the great man had to say about 2009 in his recent Guardian column. </p> <p><em>Dim your lights. Here's the highlights reel. The worst recession in 60 years. Broken windows and artless graffiti. Howling winds blowing empty cans past boarded-up shopfronts. Feral children eating sloppy handfuls of decomposed-pigeon-and-baked-bean mulch scraped from the bottom of dustbins in a desperate bid to survive. The pound worth less than the acorn. The City worth less than the pound. Your house worth so little it'll collapse out of shame, crushing you in your bed. Not that you'll die peacefully in your sleep - no, you'll be wide awake with fear, worrying about the situation in the Middle East at the precise moment a chunk of ceiling plaster the size of a flagstone tumbles from on high to flatten your skull like a biscuit under a shoe, sending your brain twizzling out of your earholes like pink-grey toothpaste squeezed from a tube. All those language skills and precious memories splattered over your pillows. It'll ruin the bedclothes. And instead of buying expensive new ones, your grieving, impoverished relatives will have to handwash those bedclothes in cold water for six hours to shift the most upsetting stains before passing them down to your orphaned offspring, who are fated to sleep on them in a disused underground station for the rest of their lives, shivering in the dark as they hear bombs dipped in bird flu dropping on the shattered remains of the desiccated city above.</em></p> <p>You’ll find more of Charlie Brooker’s work at <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/profile/charliebrooker">www.guardian.co.uk/profile/charliebrooker</a> . Watch his TV programmes and buy his books too. And I can do no better than repeat the ending to his article. </p> <p><em>All things considered, this may be a bleak year but at least it'll be more interesting than, say, 2006, during which nothing happened. So grit your teeth and meet 2009 head-on, because it's not going anywhere until 2010 at the very earliest. In summary: happy new year. </em></p> <p>Welcome to 2009. </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://MBAMarketing.blog.co.uk/2009/01/08/welcome-to-2009-charlie-brooker-5344227/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>tag:mbamarketing.blog.co.uk,2008-11-05:/2008/11/05/new-president-new-marketing-4991290/MBA-Marketing2008-11-05T22:44:08+01:002008-11-06T20:52:47+01:00 <p><em>Blog entry #17 from <a href="http://www.mba-marketing.co.uk">www.mba-marketing.co.uk</a></em></p> <p>There can be no doubt that web marketing has played a vital role in today’s election victory for President-Elect Obama. For the first time, proponents of ‘new’, digital’ or ‘web’ marketing have been vindicated on a massive scale. Consider these facts:</p> <p> Obama raised $600 million in campaign funds, 50% more than MCain – mainly because of his online network.<br>  Obama was able to engage and communicate with supporters in a variety of ways, including his own YouTube channel, and social networking sites like FaceBook, where he had more than 2.3 million ‘friends’.<br>  Blogs have made more information, news and opinions available, more quickly, to more people – and have become trusted sources for media and voters alike.<br>  YouTube has created a new way of accessing speeches and media interviews, very quickly – available in small, easily digestible, chunks.<br>  All this has meant less power for conventional media, and more for voters. And as soon as something happens, it’s available online. </p> <p>And as soon as it became clear that Obama had won, 3 million supporters received a text message thanking them for their support. </p> <p>So, has ‘new’ marketing replaced ‘old’ marketing? I have to conclude that it has complemented it, but not replaced it. First, where was nearly all of the money that was raised spent? That’s right, mainly on TV advertising! And why have the UK media given so much coverage to the US election over the past four weeks, almost to the exclusion of some massively important UK and European political and economic events? Because the traditionally highly professional all-powerful American political PR machines puts ‘news’ on a plate for any accredited journalist. </p> <p>And finally, what lessons can businesses learn from all this? Not a lot, in my opinion, What was really new about the Obama campaign was not so much the tehniques used, but the fact that they worked. And they worked because of the high level of involvement of voters with the election and the candidate. It mattered, hugely – to an extent that very few businesses or brands can begin to match. </p> <p>Now then, what’s Gordon Brown put on FaceBook today….</p> <p> <small> <a href="http://MBAMarketing.blog.co.uk/2008/11/05/new-president-new-marketing-4991290/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>tag:mbamarketing.blog.co.uk,2008-11-05:/2008/11/05/-4989299/MBA-Marketing2008-11-05T16:34:56+01:002008-11-05T22:48:49+01:00 <p><em>Blog entry #16 from <a href="http://www.mba-marketing.co.uk">www.mba-marketing.co.uk</a></em> </p> <p>The England cricket team have recently returned from the privately-oragnised and funded Sandford 20/20 cricket competition in Antigua. Despite having been on a 'win bonus' of $1,000,000 per player for winning a single three-hour cricket match, and despite facing a team with only four or five top internationals, they lost. Not only did they lose, they lost convincingly, scoring just 99 runs - the lowest total yet achieved in international 20/20 cricket, which the opposition knocked off win style, with ten wickets and many overs to spare. Furthermore, at no time did the 'England' team really give the impression of being that interested, let alone motivated. By contrast, the game clearly mattered enormously to the winning team (made up of West Indians), who not only gave their all, but performed to a high standard in all aspects of the game. </p> <p>This competition provided a unique and valuable experiment in motivation. I'm still thinking about the lessons learned, but the immediate and obvious conclusion is that economic man - whose performance is directly related to monetary remuneration - has his limits. Once our basic needs are taken care of, our motivation depends upon non-monetary factors - self-actualisation, for example. Watch those same England players take on Australia for the Ashes next year - they will need no motivation of any sort, let alone financial incentives. </p> <p>West Indian cricketers are notoriously badly-paid - $1,000,000 would really make a difference. By contrast, most England cricketers - and particularly Kevin Petersen and Andrew Flintoff - are already financially secure. Playing just for the money against a bogus team called the Sandford Superstars was never going to motivate them. And the whole event made for very poor viewing on television as well. </p> <p>Whether you are employing people, selling goods or providing a service, the most successful value propositions are rarely about price alone. The value that matters is often intangible and rooted in emotion. Most people want to be associated with businesses, organisations and brands which stand for something and which deliver emotional rewards. People are usually prepared to pay a premium for that reward. And it's where marketing comes in....</p> <p> <small> <a href="http://MBAMarketing.blog.co.uk/2008/11/05/-4989299/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>tag:mbamarketing.blog.co.uk,2008-09-24:/2008/09/24/why-marketing-for-services-businessess-is-different-4773535/MBA-Marketing2008-09-24T15:07:22+02:002008-09-25T10:43:57+02:00 <p><em>Blog entry #15 from <a href="http://www.mba-marketing.co.uk">www.mba-marketing.co.uk</a></em></p> <p>When I set up MBA, it may not surprise you to know that I gave some thought as to which potential clients to target, what they might need, and what they might be prepared to pay me for. </p> <p>One area I considered was service businesses and organisations, which have been poorly served by marketing for many years. Marketing for services businesses and organisations is fundamentally different to the traditional marketing thinking still employed by many agencies, consultants and practitioners. Yet even in today's service economy, service businesses are still expected to learn from marketing thinking rooted in the consumer goods boom of post-war America. </p> <p>1950's America was an era of increasing consumer prosperity and expanding industrial output. The balance of power had shifted. Selling was not enough. By 1960, the 'marketing concept' was accepted by most consumer goods companies. This was often in the form of a 'marketing mix', whereby a combination of product, price, place and promotion could be manipulated to direct a mass consumer market to mass produced consumer goods via mass market a vertising.</p> <p>This approach made economic sense at the time. However, marketing practice was slow to adapt to business and consumer change, and the 'mud at the wall' approach inherent in mass marketing became increasingly ineffective.<br> All of this meant that 'marketing' and 'marketers' were treated with increasing scepticism in the nineties: for example, a McKinsey report described marketing as a 'millstone around the neck' of a business, while some Cranfield research saw marketing directors described as 'unaccountable, untouchable, slippery and expensive' by their colleagues!</p> <p>The mass marketing approach was never suited to service businesses. This is because service businesses are fundamentally different to manufacturing businesses. What they sell is not a standardised physical object, but something which is intangible, inconsistent, and created on the spot by frontline staff and customers. That’s if they ‘sell’ anything at all - think of the public and voluntary sectors. </p> <p>For service businesses, ‘marketing’ is not about arms-length communications or superficial branding techniques. Neither is it the sole concern of a specialist marketing department. Instead, marketing is about an organisation-wide commitment to service quality, customer experiences and customer relationships. And because marketing is integral to the way the entire business thinks and acts, it may not even be called ‘marketing’ at all! Which is good news for the business, but not for career marketers! </p> <p>So what are the central concerns of marketing for service businesses and organisations?<br> - Organisation-wide market and customer orientation. Marketing – in the form of a customer and market orientation – must be central to business strategy, operation, culture and process.<br> - Internal marketing; Co-ordination, collaboration and communication with staff, partners and intermediaries.<br> - Customer experience management and service quality. All points of customer contact and service must be identified, evaluated and optimised, from the customer point of view.<br> - Customer relationship management. This looks at the customer experience from a business perspective, analysing ‘relationship economics’ and customer data to plan marketing activity. It is not simply about IT expenditure, although this may well help!</p> <p>Of course, the traditional marketing approach has also become increasingly inappropriate and outmoded for most manufacturing businesses. In a world where major product brands may not even own a single factory, service and relationships are increasingly important for most ‘manufacturing’ businesses. In other words, the difference between service and manufacturing businesses is, at best, one of degree. What's more, the principles behind the services marketing approach have become widely accepted and enshrined within such 'new' concepts as relationship marketing, CRM, new marketing, one-to-one marketing...the list goes on.</p> <p>So, in the end I decided not to target! And on this basis, MBA is now open for business. Come one, come all!</p> <p> <small> <a href="http://MBAMarketing.blog.co.uk/2008/09/24/why-marketing-for-services-businessess-is-different-4773535/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>tag:mbamarketing.blog.co.uk,2008-09-22:/2008/09/22/global-financial-meltdown-4762127/MBA-Marketing2008-09-22T13:16:09+02:002008-09-25T10:47:19+02:00 <p><em>Blog entry #14 from MBA - <a href="http://www.mba-marketing.co.uk">www.mba-marketing.co.uk</a></em></p> <p>Recent events - AIG, HBOS, Lehman Brothers, the possibility of global financial meltdown - prompted me to write something pithy about the financial markets. It then occurred to me that - despite studying economics at University, despite an MBA, and despite having been the owner of all manner of financial products over the years - I know very little about derivatives, hedge funds, and so on. I am just another ignorant end user. </p> <p>And that is the point, for financial markets have very little in common with any other 'market' or indeed with 'marketing'. Right up to last week, the financial markets exemplified the sort of free market economics and short-term profit maximisation that might surprise even Milton Friedman. In what other market would end users (people like you and me, with mortgages, say) be bundled up and traded from one financial organisation to another, as though we were pork belly futures? Bear this in mind if you ever hear a financial institution talk about 'customer relationship management'. </p> <p>It is highly unlikely that there is any sort of consultation or research carried out with the individuals who make up these groups of 'bundled assets', or even with intermediaries such as mortgage brokers. Which brings me to this recent report in the Birmingham Mail: 'A plan to respray every cab in Birmingham has been put on ice after it emerged that consultants, paid £24,000 to assess the scheme, failed to ask cab drivers what they thought.'</p> <p>This raises two points. The first is to say that in my experience, it has never been necessary to ask a cab driver what they think, as they'll tell you anyway. The second point is to say that this actually typifies a lot of marketing research programmes. Customers will be subjected to all manner of research techniques and methodologies, but often the actual frontline staff who live and breathe the subject (during working hours, anyway) are never consulted. It's importsnt to remember that frontline staff are important for (at least) two reasons: first, their own satisfaction is directly related to customer satisfaction; and second, they are valuable conduits of customer insight and intelligence. </p> <p>I try to involve frontline sales and service staff in any project I am involved with. Recruitment is usually straightforward and participation can usually be relied upon. Above all, it is frightening how accurate many of the outputs from these sessions turn out to be - certainly when compared with those of management! </p> <p>And in the case of financial markets, I have no doubt at all that London's cabbies have already solved most of the problems. </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://MBAMarketing.blog.co.uk/2008/09/22/global-financial-meltdown-4762127/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>tag:mbamarketing.blog.co.uk,2008-09-22:/2008/09/22/don-t-act-as-brand-leader-4762010/MBA-Marketing2008-09-22T12:56:18+02:002008-09-22T12:56:18+02:00 <p>Blog entry number 13 from MBA – <a href="http://www.mba-marketing.co.uk">www.mba-marketing.co.uk</a></p> <p>Traditional marketing thinking – both theoretical and practical – has always told us that the default mode for any brand or business is to ‘act like the brand leader’. Academic texts and trade magazines alike study the actions of leading brands, and generate theory and rules for the rest of us to follow. </p> <p>The reality is that acting like brand leader is an option best suited to - yes -- the brand leader. Brand leaders have the marketing metrics to ensure a disproportionately high return on marketing investment. For ‘follower’ and ‘challenger’ brands, acting like brand leader is simply unaffordable – even if ‘me too’ were a viable strategy (which is rarely is). </p> <p>Instead, it is necessary to sacrifice certain activities, to over-commit to others, and generally to do things differently to the brand leader. Adam Morgan, in his classic text ‘Eating the Big Fish’, makes these points extremely well, based on a study of around 100 ‘challenger brands’ – an early example being Avis (when you’re number two, you try harder – or else’). </p> <p>I was reminded of this on a recent trip to the Champagne region. Imagine you were planning to launch a new brand into the champagne market – a challenging assignment, n’est ce pas? As I know only too well from recent experience, it’s difficult enough launching any new wine product, let alone a late entrant to such an established market as champagne. So I was more than a little impressed to learn about the Mercier brand, which did just that – in the 19th century.<br> By the mid-19th century, the champagne market was well established and the leading brand, Moet, had been around for a century. When Eugene Mercier formed his own business – Mercier - at the age of 20, he had no advertising or marketing experts to help him. Instead, he trusted his own instincts and anticipated the lessons of Adam Morgan by a century. </p> <p>For the 1889 World Exhibition held in Paris, Mercier built a 20 tonne barrel, which was towed to Paris by 24 oxen and 18 horses, taking 8 days and requiring major construction work en route. For the 1900 World Exhibition, he not only commissioned the first-ever promotional film (from Lumiére), but also organised a branded hot air balloon to take people (10,000 in all) 300 feet above the city to sample the product. </p> <p>Call these publicity stunts, or (as Morgan does) ‘using publicity as a High-Leverage asset’ – either way, they worked, and Mercier became a successful business, fast. It’s hard to imagine a so-called ‘experiental marketing’ agency thinking of anything better today – although I shall otherwise avoid any obvious remarks along the lines of ‘plus ça change’. Instead, I shall act like a cheesy TV travel show host, and simply raise a glass in your general direction, accompanied by the word 'salut'. </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://MBAMarketing.blog.co.uk/2008/09/22/don-t-act-as-brand-leader-4762010/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>tag:mbamarketing.blog.co.uk,2008-09-22:/2008/09/22/wht-advertising-is-rubbish-sometimes-4761992/MBA-Marketing2008-09-22T12:53:00+02:002008-09-22T12:53:00+02:00 <p><em>Blog entry number 12 from MBA – <a href="http://www.mba-marketing.co.uk">www.mba-marketing.co.uk</a></em></p> <p>The normal deal with creatives in advertising agencies is that they take one aspect of a brand (preferably the bit highlighted in the creative brief) and dramatise it in some way. In the past, this has led to work which transcends the barrier of being just an 'ad' and becomes part of our culture. </p> <p>Here are three current examples of TV commercials where this approach has been taken to ludicrous extremes, resulting (in my view) in extremely poor ads. </p> <p>1. The Wild Bean Cafe. Rather unfeasibly, the 'hero' turns down the late-night offer of 'coffee' from an attractive girl in order to drive (alone) earest 'Wild Bean Cafe' (which is not really a cafe but coffee machines in BP service stations) to drink coffee. You can almost read the brief - 'coffee so good that...'. </p> <p>Is this the latest update of the famous 'You're never alone with a Strand' advertising disaster? Surely, only losers and Alan Partridge choose to hang around service stations at night drinking coffee on their own. </p> <p>2. Barclays Bank. A special offer of 'unexpectedly low interest rates' on loans means ads with lots of people walking around bumping their heads on low ceilings. Laugh? Me neither. </p> <p>3. Fosters - some new product variant or other is termed 'laid back lager'. So guess what, we get lots of studenty-types with whispy beards and surf dude clothes walking around a beach bar in a 'laid back' posture, with their bodies leaning backwards. Holding the new product, of course. </p> <p>What's gone wrong? Isn't advertising supposed to be (at least one of) funny, interesting, challenging and engaging? </p> <p>I shall stop here as I am in danger of sounding like my alter ego - Dickie Beasley, from VIZ magazine, the little boy who always wanted to be an advertising account executive. I may post some of his work for you if I can find it. </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://MBAMarketing.blog.co.uk/2008/09/22/wht-advertising-is-rubbish-sometimes-4761992/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>tag:mbamarketing.blog.co.uk,2008-09-22:/2008/09/22/beasley-s-business-nightmares-4761987/MBA-Marketing2008-09-22T12:50:23+02:002008-09-22T14:52:09+02:00 <p><em>Blog entry number 11 from MBA – <a href="http://www.mba-marketing.co.uk">www.mba-marketing.co.uk</a></em></p> <p>Here's a great idea for a new television series. It will feature as presenter someone new to television, but who oozes charisma, wit and wisdom - that is, me. I will go into badly run businesses, large and small, tell them where they're going wrong in an extremely confrontational and aggressive manner, and swear a lot. The people in the businesses will resist me at first, before realising that I am right and they are wrong. They will then roll over, do exactly as I say and treat me as a God forever. </p> <p>Those who know me will say that this is pretty much what I do already. The only differences are (a) the swearing, (b) the God-like status, and (c) the lack of cameras and a narrator as I go about my righteous duties. </p> <p>My main inspiration here is of course the great Gordon Ramsey, who in his 'Kitchen Nightmares' TV series focuses only on restaurants and pubs. Goodness knows there are enough badly-run catering establishments in the UK to keep this programme going for ever, so I will leave this sector to Gordon. </p> <p>For those not familiar with this series, here's how it works. Typically, Gordon arrives at an establishment which is owned and run by a pair of clueless incompetents with no discernible skill or experience, who somehow thought it a good idea to sink their life savings into a pretentious bistro called 'Cagneys' in a back street of Scunthorpe. Tumbleweed is blowing through their restaurant, the tables are covered in cobwebs, they are losing money and are close to bankruptcy. Enter Gordon, who - despite being the only person in the restaurant - receives slow service and (inevitably) revolting food. </p> <p>The kitchen is usually run by a tattooed thug with no teeth, who is apparently on day release from his normal job with the Big Issue. He has no training of any sort, least of all in personal or food hygiene, and has as his signature dish frozen prawns flash fried with chocolate, tonic wine and packet soup. He and Gordon hate each other on sight. With his bosses, he and others like him are responsible for the poor food, lousy service and rip-off prices that we all experience every week in restaurants and pubs the length and breadth of the United Kingdom. They all richly deserve as much invective, profanity, spittle and halitosis as Gordon is prepared to provide them with. </p> <p>So, back to me. I have much better skin tone than Gordon and I am sure I can work on the swearing. And I have extensive experience of working with businesses of all sizes which seem to have no idea why they are there, other than to do whatever they have to do to hit their next quarter's numbers, who have little interest in finding out what their customers really want or value, and no vision of where they are going long-term. This excludes current clients, of course. The rest of you - beware. Reality - in the form of me and my camera team - could strike soon. </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://MBAMarketing.blog.co.uk/2008/09/22/beasley-s-business-nightmares-4761987/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>tag:mbamarketing.blog.co.uk,2008-09-22:/2008/09/22/what-marketing-isn-t-4761964/MBA-Marketing2008-09-22T12:45:44+02:002008-09-22T14:59:33+02:00 <p><em>Blog entry number 10 from MBA - <a href="http://www.mba-marketing.co.uk">www.mba-marketing.co.uk</a>)</em></p> <p>I still come across a number of incorrect assumptions about marketing. These can be summarised as follows. </p> <p>1. Marketing equals advert sing. Or, marketing = advertising / PR / a website / and some brochures. Advertising is often the most visible and expensive marketing activity. Hence, it is often assumed that 'marketing' is concerned mainly with spending money, usually in an inefficient and profligate manner. It is this perception which has most adversely affected the image of marketing and marketers - according to research conducted at Cranfield, marketing directors are seen by their financial directors as 'unaccountable, untouchable, slippery and expensive'. </p> <p>The effectiveness and measurement of advertising continues to be a relatively inexact science. However, adve tising is but a sub-set of the marketing process - a process which should encompass all product, service, market and customer decisions. </p> <p>2. Marketing is what agencies do. This assumption is damaging to marketing, as not only does it tend to be accompanied with the opinion that agencies are charlatans, but it also suggests that marketing is something which can be outsourced. Even Sir Martin Sorrell - undeniably the most astute, successful and generally admirable businessman operating in the advertising, communications and marketing services sector - has stated that: 'agencies re-define every problem in terms of their proposed solution. Neither WPP nor our clients typically have processes to answer (or even to ask) the two critical questions: how much should we spend on marketing communications? And through which mix of channels can we most rewardingly spend it?' (FT). </p> <p>Agencies provide advertising and marketing services, sometimes very well, and can be valued business partners and suppliers. However, these services are likely to be of most value if they are informed by marketing-driven business decisions made and owned by the client business or organisation. Otherwise, it can be a little like asking a car salesman for transport advice. </p> <p>3. Marketing equals the marketing department. Often, the word 'marketing' is used to describe a group of people - 'marketing are doing this or that', 'marketing are useless', and so on. Hence, marketing as a disciplined approach to business becomes confused with a group of people, few if any of whom are senior within the organisation, and whose main concerns may seem to be peripheral to the core business. </p> <p>As David Hewlett of HP fame pointed out many years ago, marketing is way too important for the marketing department- it's what the entire organisation is all about. People - in the form of a marketing department - may be necessary to provide specialised skills and to champion the marketing philosophy. However, unless the entire organisation is marketing-led, the marketing department is doomed to a shadow world of brochure design and budget cuts. </p> <p>4. Marketing equals sales. This assumption is based upon the idea that a business doesn't need strategy, it needs sales, preferably this month. Marketing is seen as the way in which sales leads are generated. While this is ultimately true, the short-termism implicit in this assumption means that businesses thinking in this way rarely give marketing a chance - investment in the research and planning necessary for successful marketing is never made. </p> <p>Businesses of this type are likely to favour direct sales over marketing, despite all the evidence - for example, the increased cost and decreased effectiveness of salesforces, the ways in which customers make and enact buying decisions, and the lack of any systematic way of understanding and responding to change. </p> <p>So, what is marketing? Marketing is about alignment - identifying, planning and implementing the best way in which an organisation, business or brand can develop its strengths in order to best align itself with a changing business environment, hence generating value and profit. This requires an organisation-wide approach, whereby marketing is a business strategy, philosophy and process, as well as a specialised function and discipline with expert practitioners. </p> <p>Most senior business people already know this. The problem is that they are unsure how to actually do it in practice. On the one hand, marketing is the key driver of business strategy and therefore a board issue, on the other hand, marketing requires specialist skills which the board do not have. Which is where I come in.... </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://MBAMarketing.blog.co.uk/2008/09/22/what-marketing-isn-t-4761964/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>tag:mbamarketing.blog.co.uk,2008-09-22:/2008/09/22/the-feng-shu-of-business-4761391/MBA-Marketing2008-09-22T10:49:31+02:002008-09-22T10:49:31+02:00 <p><em>Blog entry number 9 from MBA – <a href="http://www.mba-marketing.co.uk">www.mba-marketing.co.uk</a></em></p> <p>In common with half of the Home Counties, we are currently having our house extended. This provided us with the opportunity to clear out several tons of accumulated junk and unnecessary material possessions - books, records, CDs, clothes, and so on. Mostly mine, as it happens (and I will play those old records again, one day). </p> <p>This was prompted by an excellent book called 'The Feng Shui of Clutter'. In essence, this says that you don't really need the back-up of an extensive display of classic literature, 500 vinyl albums from the 1970s, or 20 pairs of jeans, to impress other people. And you do feel very good after ridding yourself of all this clutter. </p> <p>The book goes on to make the point that 'clutter' is a term that also applies to people, to ideas and to beliefs. So, as I move onto a new job (details to follow), I am thinking seriously about who and what is important to me (so I can spend more time on them), and who and what is not actually important to me (so I can avoid them). 'They either drag you down or they lift you' as the great Graham Parker song has it. </p> <p>This also applies to business, which is where my idea for a book - 'The Feng Shui of Business' - comes in. Some of the ideas for chapters could include:</p> <p>- It's as important to know which customers to avoid, or to terminate, as it is to know which customers to target and to build relationships with<br> - Half your time is being wasted, every day. Trouble is, most of us don't know which half. How to get organised and manage your time<br> - Re-arrange your office every few months for fun and profit (private joke for those who know that this is one of my own bizarre habits)<br> - How to avoid timewasters - those people who steal your time and life trying to sell you goods and services you don't want - without feeling bad.</p> <p>Now, where are those old records again?</p> <p> <small> <a href="http://MBAMarketing.blog.co.uk/2008/09/22/the-feng-shu-of-business-4761391/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>tag:mbamarketing.blog.co.uk,2008-09-22:/2008/09/22/marketing-blink-and-you-ll-miss-it-4761368/MBA-Marketing2008-09-22T10:46:02+02:002008-09-22T10:46:02+02:00 <p><em>Blog entry number 8 from MBA – <a href="http://www.mba-marketing.co.uk">www.mba-marketing.co.uk</a></em></p> <p>Marketers have always believed that they hold the high ground when it comes to business ideas and innovation. After all, if marketing is indeed about helping business to ‘identify and meet human and social needs’, then it is clearly in the driving seat. However, there has been an increasing recognition that it is people who have ideas, not a discipline or a department. So who needs marketing, other than in the subsidiary role of a rather fluffy bunch of people who spend money on communications?</p> <p>Exactly how marketing actually generates ideas and innovation has always been unclear. Marketing has long been keen to stress its scientific credentials: partly to gain respectability, but also because it is much easier to articulate, codify and write about the hard skills of research, analysis and planning. The softer skills of creativity and innovation are barely documented at all in marketing literature and neither do they figure in marketing education. The key assumptions of marketing seem to be about structure, logic and evidence – an empirical process which inevitably leads to ideas and innovation.<br> Many successful business ideas have been the result of the intuitive, instinctive, entrepreneurial imagination, not marketing logic. As Henry Ford famously said, ‘If I’d listened to my customers, I’d have built a faster horse’. The speed of technological innovation has long overtaken the ability of consumers to articulate their needs. Who knew that they would want a Walkman, let alone an i-pod? What marketing process could have led to these ideas? </p> <p>The best-selling book ‘Blink’* (on sale in airport bookshops everywhere) develops the theory that decisions made very quickly can be every bit as good as decisions made cautiously and deliberately. This is because of the power and speed of the sub-conscious mind, which is able to analyse situations and sift information faster than more deliberate and protracted ways of thinking. The key assumption is that our brains hold more information, knowledge and experience than we can retrieve quickly or easily. </p> <p>The importance of people and their ideas is recognised by business. It is also recognised that ideas do not just happen but must be encouraged, often in bizarre ways. The success of businesses such as ‘What If?’ and ‘Mind Gym’ bear witness to this, as businesses seek to develop the creativity, imagination, intuition, and instinct of their people. </p> <p>So, is Marketing under threat? If ideas can come from employee workshops, then why bother with all this marketing analysis, research and planning nonsense? Perhaps the CEO knows best after all – he’s been around longer, so must have absorbed more experience and information. </p> <p>In response to this, let us first of all dismiss the idea that however good the facilitator, putting a group of ill-informed, inexperienced employees into a room will produce anything worthwhile beyond new ways to configure the desks or arrange the paperclips. People can only produce great business ideas if they first have access to some sort of mental repository of information, knowledge and experience. In an organisation of any size, it is the role of marketing (as a discipline and as a function) to discover and communicate the marketing intelligence – about customers, competitors, the marketplace, and even about the organisation itself - which can feed people's imaginations. The better the marketing intelligence, the more intelligent the business thinking. </p> <p>Second, let us consider that the ‘process’ of marketing planning should be one of consultation and collaboration. Marketing has failed if it thinks it can operate as a ‘black box’ function, presenting big ideas to the rest of the business (‘the troops’ as some marketers call them) like some sort of showbiz celebrity. Management – from the board down – and all staff (particularly front-line sales and service staff) – must be involved in the planning process. This is mainly because the customer and market experience of these people is too good to ignore, but also because implementation is more likely to be successful if the people expected to deliver are involved in the process. </p> <p>Marketing is better placed than any other discipline to ensure that this ‘process’ is one which is directly linked to planning, strategy, implementation and performance evaluation. It is counter-productive to involve employees in trendy workshops and idea generation sessions if they do not form part of a larger process of this type. Avoid this sort of quick fix – like most forms of instant gratification, they’re come and gone in the blink of an eye. </p> <p>* ‘Blink. The Power of Thinking Without Thinking’ – Malcolm Gladwell. </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://MBAMarketing.blog.co.uk/2008/09/22/marketing-blink-and-you-ll-miss-it-4761368/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>tag:mbamarketing.blog.co.uk,2008-09-22:/2008/09/22/beasts-cheese-fish-and-pirates-4761320/MBA-Marketing2008-09-22T10:38:10+02:002008-09-22T10:38:10+02:00 <p><em>Blog entry number 6 from MBA – <a href="http://www.mba-marketing.co.uk">www.mba-marketing.co.uk</a></em></p> <p>As part of the public service offered by this Blog, I’ve flicked through a few recent business books on your behalf. Too many are the literary equivalent of fast food – easy to digest, superficially enjoyable, but with little longer-term benefit. Why is this?</p> <p>Well, picture the scene. You’re a jaded middle-manager browsing the business section of the airport bookshop. You’d settle for the aimless thrills of the latest Lee Child, maybe Dan Brown. After all, we’re talking early starts, late nights and boring meetings here. However, a small voice inside tells you that a little learning is never a dangerous thing. Even better, you might pick up a new buzzword: David Brent had to start somewhere. </p> <p>So, are you going to choose a fat, impenetrable tome with a title like ‘Strategic Management Theory and Practice’? Of course not – life’s way too short to study a subject properly. This is the age of instant graitifcation. That’s why books like ‘Who Moved My Cheese’ and ‘Fish! A remarkable way to boost morale and improve results’ exist. Both are extended management parables, claiming to reveal important insights. Best of all, they’re only around 100 pages long. Learn about the inevitability of change, as a group of mice respond to the relocation of their cheese. Draw unexpected inspiration from Seattle fishmongers. With role models like these, who needs Jack Welch or Richard Branson? Personally, I just feel patronised by this sort of glib, facile stuff. </p> <p>But then, maybe we need this sort of help – after all, it’s a jungle out there. So, in ‘The Ape in the Corner Office’, Richard Conniff, a nature writer, sets out to understand ‘the workplace beast in all of us’. Comparisons to baboons, cheetahs, penguins and spiders are seen as useful metaphors for understanding corporate culture. In the office-as-jungle, survival depends upon overcoming the inherent ‘negativity bias’ concerning social interaction to build collaboration, relationships and trust. All very useful if you want to be top banana without being unpeeled, but otherwise, so what? </p> <p>Adam Morgan wrote ‘Eating the Big Fish’, the seminal book on ‘challenger brands’ (those brands which aren’t market leaders and have to behave differently in order to succeed). His latest book, ‘The Pirate Inside’, outlines the practical applications of ‘challenger brand’ thinking. ‘Pirates’ are those people who choose to reject the way their category, and perhaps their company, do things – and to adopt a new set of behaviours in order to create marketing-led change. Both books are based upon sound research, analysis and insight. Morgan is always interesting, and his work commands respect. However, am I alone in feeling slightly uncomfortable with the idea of styling myself as a ‘pirate’? Imagine the howls of richly-deserved derision at the sales conference as you announce your new piratical mission. Even the dimmest salesperson will be able to make jokes about parrots and wooden legs, whilst repeating ‘Jim Lad’ in a bad west country accent. </p> <p>However, better a pirate than a mouse, fishmonger or baboon, perhaps. But why the need for so many metaphors? Are we incapable of understanding business on its own terms? In the meantime, watch out for my new bestsellers – ‘Dog Eat Dog! How adopting canine behaviours can help you lick the competition’ and ‘Who Spilled My Pint? Drinking your way to the Top’.</p> <p> <small> <a href="http://MBAMarketing.blog.co.uk/2008/09/22/beasts-cheese-fish-and-pirates-4761320/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>tag:mbamarketing.blog.co.uk,2008-09-22:/2008/09/22/when-marketing-is-too-important-for-the-marketing-department-4761303/MBA-Marketing2008-09-22T10:35:15+02:002008-09-22T10:35:15+02:00 <p><span><em>Blog entry number 5 from MBA &ndash; </em><a href="http://www.mba-marketing.co.uk/"><u><em>www.mba-marketing.co.uk</em></u></a></span></p> <span><br>When I did my MBA, the title of my dissertation was 'Is Marketing Too Important for the Marketing Department?', a title stolen from David Packard of Hewlett-Packard. The general idea of this was that marketing, in the form of a customer & market orientation, is now integral to most businesses. In this situation, marketing is no longer a departmental function, but is a business strategy, philosophy & process. In service businesses, or businesses which do not own their own factories, how could it be otherwise - the whole business is based upon a customer value proposition. <br></span><span><br>In such cases, there may still be a specialist marketing department, but this will not always command a great deal of authority, resource or even respect. Marketing directors were famously described by their colleagues as 'unaccountable, untouchable, slippery & expensive' in some research by Cranfield, and the McKinsey report which described marketing departments as 'a millstone around an organisations neck' was massively influential. <br></span><span><br>So far, so bleeding obvious, I hear you say. Yet I continue to come across fundamental misunderstandings as to what marketing is and what it does. For example, when business people speak of 'marketing' they are usually referring to people - the function, not the discipline. Although business planning is driven by product and market decisions, and the assumption of customer value, it continues to precede marketing planning in all but the most enlightened organisations. </span><span>Only last year, our old friend Professor Kotler published a paper in which he argues that chief executives needed to grasp the nettle of the marketing department, which in many companies is 'disorganized, unable to use technology to gain competitive advantage, and wastes energy in internecine struggles with other departments'. Above all, he argues, marketing departments are deficient in the basic marketing skills they need if they are to be effective. Furthermore, they are not even very good at purchasing those skills from agencies and suppliers. <br></span><span><br>If any of this is true - and let me say straight away that none of it applies to any of my current or future clients - it is pretty damning. But hardly surprising perhaps if you consider that many marketers were brought up on the outdated marketing concepts of marketing textbooks (including earlier editions of Kotler). For example, the core idea that success came from managing the 'four Ps' (not a mention of 'customers' or 'relationships', you will note). Meanwhile, the IT-based CRM vendors pushed the marketing department into the shadows by bringing customer knowledge to their traditional enemies, the sales function...about which more another time, perhaps.</span><span> </span> </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://MBAMarketing.blog.co.uk/2008/09/22/when-marketing-is-too-important-for-the-marketing-department-4761303/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>tag:mbamarketing.blog.co.uk,2008-09-22:/2008/09/22/sales-and-marketing-still-crazy-after-all-these-years-4761278/MBA-Marketing2008-09-22T10:31:13+02:002008-09-22T10:32:21+02:00 <p><span><em>Blog entry number 4 from MBA &ndash; </em><a href="http://www.mba-marketing.co.uk/"><u><em>www.mba-marketing.co.uk</em></u></a><br></span><span><br>For many years, conflict between the sales and marketing departments has been standard practice in most businesses. </span><span>Some years ago, when he was a marketing manager, one well-known chief executive of my acquaintance regularly referred to his sales colleagues as &lsquo;the woodentops&rsquo;. This perpetuated the then popular stereotype of sales people as under-educated, back-slapping, functionaries, capable only of tactical, price-led thinking. They probably reeked of aftershave, specialised in firm handshakes, bullshit and looking dynamic, and were mysteriously unavailable on Friday afternoons, betrayed only by the rattling of golf clubs in the boots of their company cars. <br></span><span><br>By contrast, the marketer saw himself and his breed as strategic thinker, visionary and sage. Urbane sophisticates to a man (and in those days, they usually were men) their natural home was lunch with the agency in town, where the account team sycophantically laughed at their jokes and ordered more wine. This almost made up for the realities of  the marketer&rsquo;s life - his office and location - usually drab and provincial - and his wife (ditto). <br></span><span><br>In return, the sales department saw marketers as irrelevant, out of touch, wasteful and ultimately ineffective. (Thinks: they had a point!). Cut the marketing budget, increase the sales headcount and increase bonuses, commissions and incentives and all would be well. The McKinsey report which famously described the marketing department as &lsquo;a millstone around an organisations neck&rsquo; was not exactly a lone voice in the wilderness and was followed by Cranfield research which saw marketing directors described by their colleagues as &lsquo;unaccountable, untouchable, slippery and expensive&rsquo;. <br></span><span><br>Many would say that this sort of oppositional approach has changed. Marketing is now accepted as a core component of business strategy, culture and process. Sales is much more sophisticated, as are the people working within it. Business has changed in just about every respect &ndash; technology, geography, and so on. There is a blurred boundary between &lsquo;sales&rsquo; and &lsquo;marketing&rsquo;, populated by customer management, trade and category marketing - in fact, the whole business these days is about a customers and market orientation. <br></span><span><br>But hold on &ndash; just when we all thought it was safe to get back in the water, along comes Professor Philip Kotler. That Godfather of all marketers crops up in the current edition of the Harvard Business Review* to tell us that disconnects and a lack of alignment between sales and marketing are still very much facts of business life. He and his colleagues have carried out in depth research to understand the nature of the relationship between sales and marketing. As a result, they have created a diagnostic tool which can help companies assess the quality of the marketing/sales relationship, leading to practical and productive improvements. Needless to say, this article is worth reading, if only to remind us how to spell and pronounce &lsquo;plus ca change&hellip;&rsquo; </p> <p></span><span>* &lsquo;Ending the War between Sales and Marketing&rsquo;, by Philip Kotler, Neil Rackham and Suj Krishnaswamy. Harvard Business Review, July-August 2006</span><span> </span> </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://MBAMarketing.blog.co.uk/2008/09/22/sales-and-marketing-still-crazy-after-all-these-years-4761278/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>tag:mbamarketing.blog.co.uk,2008-09-22:/2008/09/22/scambaiting-4761263/MBA-Marketing2008-09-22T10:28:22+02:002008-09-22T10:28:22+02:00 <p><em>Blog entry number 3 from MBA – <a href="http://www.mba-marketing.co.uk">www.mba-marketing.co.uk</a></em></p> <p>Greetings my friend. With warm hearts I offer you my friendship and hope this letter finds you in abundant and fertile tumescence. You do not have Gods good fortune to know me personally, but I am sincerely seek your confidence in this transaction, which I propose with my free mind and as a person of integrity. I have $30 million – the proceeds of my dear late Father’s bribery and corruption whilst working as an honest and devoted Government minister – which I need your esteemed good self to bank for me in the UK. In return, I am offering you 10% of the sum. </p> <p>If you have you ever received an email like this, then you have been exposed to a ‘419’ or ‘advance fee’ fraud. Before becoming fabulously wealthy, you will undoubtedly be required to make a modest outlay of some sort, like a bank transfer fee. This money will then disappear, and you will never see the promised millions. </p> <p>Most of us just use the delete button. However, others choose to take their revenge! This is known as ‘scambaiting’, defined as: ‘the process by which net vigilantes enter into a dialogue with scammers, simply to waste their precious time and resources.’<br> The leading scambaiter is probably Michael Berry. Berry has spent the past five years replying to ‘419’ emails, and then spending weeks and months in dialogue with the scammers. The revenge he exacts is often ingenious, elaborate and very funny. For example, one scammer records himself reading an entire book, in the belief he will be paid for this, another is persuaded to carve a computer keyboard out of wood. Others pose for photographs holding fish, or spend hours in pointless correspondence and emails with Berry, who uses a range of absurd aliases. </p> <p>You can read many of Berry’s exchanges at <a href="http://www.419eater.com">www.419eater.com</a> or in his book, ‘Greetings in Jesus Name! – The Scambaiter Letters’. What he does could be seen as particularly cruel and unusual punishment, verging on the racist, as many of his victims are clearly uneducated Africans (‘419’ is a reference to the Nigerian legal system). In his defence, it should be noted that around 5,000 people in the UK alone fell for scams of this type in 2006, losing a total of £150 million.</p> <p>No wonder so many commercial emails are sent from a ‘do not reply’ address! In any case, if we all replied to every commercial email we received – even just those we have ‘opted in’ to, and even without any sort of ‘scambaiting’ – most businesses could not afford to handle the response. Instead, we are referred to websites or held in queues by call centres. What this says about the much vaunted ‘interactivity’ of the interweb, or ‘one to one’ marketing, or even the basics of 'customer relationships' I’m not sure! However, I am sure that for most businesses, the most important word in the phrase 'customer relationship management' is 'management'. </p> <p>Peace be with you, my brothers and sisters. </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://MBAMarketing.blog.co.uk/2008/09/22/scambaiting-4761263/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>tag:mbamarketing.blog.co.uk,2008-09-22:/2008/09/22/why-business-and-sport-don-t-mix-4761237/MBA-Marketing2008-09-22T10:24:42+02:002008-09-22T10:24:42+02:00 <p><em>Blog entry number 2 from MBA – <a href="http://www.mba-marketing.co.uk">www.mba-marketing.co.uk</a></em></p> <p>Can business learn from sport? Successful retired sportspeople from just about every sport except soccer - where they are too wealthy and too thick - are queuing up to tell us how to apply the lessons of sport to our business and personal lives. They write books, make presentations - and some of them even set-up coaching, training and marketing businesses.<br> The most honest of these was former England rugby captain, Will Carling, who when interviewed about his book admitted that he hadn't actually got round to reading it yet. At least he could read. </p> <p>Most of would accept that the sort of things that get you to the top in sport – like commitment, energy, hard work, motivation, organisation, planning and team-building - are generally good things to have in life and in business. For essentially tactical business activities, like selling, these things will make a big difference. Wheel on a motivational lunk-head in a tracksuit, bask in the reflected fading glory, and sell, sell, sell.<br> However, business is not all about the short-term and that is my issue with these sporting snake-oil salesmen. Sure, they can train and motivate themselves to a peak for a season, or for a major event, and maybe even maintain that peak performance for a few years. But the key words in business are ‘sustainable competitive advantage’. Shareholders want their shares to continue to increase in value, customers want continuity of supply, employees want some sort of job security. </p> <p>Take the England rugby union team, World Cup winners in 2003. Soon after that famous triumph, Sir Clive Woodward, the England coach, resigned and climbed on the business bandwagon. He published a book and took on lucrative speaking engagements. True, he had done an amazing job getting the best out of an ageing England team, most of whom were too old or too knackered to carry on playing rugby after that famous victory. But what Woodward left behind was an organisation on its knees, its dreadful post-World Cup record of seven consecutive defeats redeemed only by a narrow victory over a weakened South African team. There are no signs of serious improvement on the horizon. Is this really how we want businesses to be run?</p> <p>Ian Thorpe has just retired at the age of 25. The Australian swimmer - who has won more Olympic medals and holds more world records than any other swimmer, ever – says that he now has other priorities. I am not yet sure what business lessons we should draw from this. But we can't all be gold medal winners in life and while burning brightly for a few brief moments must be fantastic, for others, life involves keeping a damp match alight for as long as possible. </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://MBAMarketing.blog.co.uk/2008/09/22/why-business-and-sport-don-t-mix-4761237/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>tag:mbamarketing.blog.co.uk,2008-09-22:/2008/09/22/when-good-service-is-built-in-4761222/MBA-Marketing2008-09-22T10:22:12+02:002008-09-22T10:22:12+02:00 <p><em>Blog entry number 1 from MBA – <a href="http://www.mba-marketing.co.uk">www.mba-marketing.co.uk</a></em></p> <p>It’s time to be nice – which makes a change for this Blog! </p> <p>How often do service businesses tell us how important we are as customers, how much they value our business, or how they are going out of their way to help us? Perhaps like me you feel that this should be taken as read, and is something we should conclude for ourselves as the result of our experience, rather than be told about in advance. </p> <p>So it was heartening to see the results of the recent annual Consumer Satisfaction Index, conducted amongst 6,000 shoppers by Verdict Research. Top of the list was John Lewis, followed at number two by Waitrose (owned by John Lewis). Why is this heartening? Well, for two reasons. </p> <p>First, John Lewis never insult our intelligence by telling us how important we are, they just treat us like that. Staff are usually polite, helpful and knowledgeable. In fact, the only claim John Lewis makes is about price - 'never knowingly undersold'. Second is the reason for this. As Neil Saunders of Verdict said, 'The idea of good service isn't simply a fad dreamed up by management for short-term gain, it's an integral part of the business, supported by an ownership structure which reduces staff turnover and gives partners, at all levels, a real incentive to perform well.' </p> <p>Further evidence that staff satisfaction leads to customer satisfaction, and that service quality is not a promotional tactic but an effective business strategy. </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://MBAMarketing.blog.co.uk/2008/09/22/when-good-service-is-built-in-4761222/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>