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The Seven Deadly Sins of Marketing
by John Graham
Bad things should not be allowed to happen on Friday, particularly late
Friday afternoon. Yet, they do––and far too often. As you
might guess, it was late on a Friday when the email arrived from a client
asking me to comment on the attachment.
Opening it was a mistake. Some salesperson had spent hours preparing a
PowerPoint presentation for prospects. The format of the presentation
was quite good. The problem was the content. It was all about the company
he worked for. He included everything he could do for his clients. It
was also completely off base.
Without even knowing it, he had fallen into the trap of the first of the
seven deadly sins of marketing.
1. Starting at the end instead of the beginning. A sales manager
sat across the conference room table and said to the marketing consultant,
“Our job is to sell something.” Such words may have an appealing
ring and impress the company president, but they are total nonsense.
Starting with trying to make the sale is the wrong place to begin. Writing
about the role of brain mapping in furthering the understanding why we
buy, Los Angeles Times writer Robert Lee Hotz makes this succinct
comment: “The creation of belief is the essence of marketing.”
With belief comes sales. Customer dissatisfaction and lack of loyalty
come from buying without belief.
General Motors continues to decline in market share because buyers believe
other brands are better. Ford came out with the “500” as the
Taurus replacement. Sales didn’t take off and almost instantly changes
were being planned for the vehicle. The same is true for the Buick LeCrosse,
the car touted to solve the company’s “age” problem.
What’s the problem? A lack of belief.
A major food processing company announces that all its cereal products
are made with “whole grain” and even though they cost more,
they fly off the shelves. Why? Because we believe “whole grain”
means healthy.
When there is belief, sales follow.
2. Spending time thinking about what you want. The salesperson
who filled his sales presentation with countless facts fell victim to
the second deadly sin of marketing. While he talked about “building
relationships” with customers, he sent a different message: all
he was interested was getting the order.
If it’s true that 80 percent of sales come from 20 percent of the
customers, it may also be appropriate to spend 80 percent of time letting
customers do the talking, and perhaps more. Marketing is about connecting
with customers, getting inside their heads, not trying to get something
into their heads.
Why are most newsletters tossed before they’re read? The answer
should be obvious; yet, more often than not it isn’t. These publications
have little or no reader interest. They’re filled to the brim with
“stuff” about the company, how wonderful it is, what it sells
and how long it has been in business. In effect, most newsletters
ignore the reader.
Drilling down in an effort to understand what the customer wants to accomplish
is the key. It takes time, expertise and effort to get what’s going
on inside the customer’s head. One company expressed pride in being
open on Saturday, when its competitors were closed. Yet, a survey of its
customers revealed that they would prefer having evening hours during
the week.
The second deadly sin of marketing is thinking we know what’s good
for the customer.
3. Confusing being busy with purposeful action. The late
Dr. Sumantra Ghoshal, the brilliant management guru, said only 10% of
managers take purposeful action. The rest of the time, they’re just
“busy.”
Most marketing fails because too many ideas interfere with action.
Successful marketing is thwarted by ideas popping like kernels of corn
over the fire. They fly in every direction and soon burn out––leaving
only an unpleasant smell.
Doing more becomes a substitute for doing well. And simply lengthening
the marketing agenda only guarantees sure-fire failure. When the marketing
laundry list is long, a paralysis of action sets in.
As Dr. Ghoshal suggests, “Purposeful action requires active management
of demands, constraints and choices.” To test this thesis, make
a list of every possible marketing initiative discussed, presented and
initiated by your company over the last year or so. Then make a second
list of those initiatives that were actually accomplished. These will
undoubtedly be the ones that had a history of being successful, met specific
objectives, were carefully developed and methodically implemented. That’s
purposeful action and that’s what counts.
What you may also discover is that even the proven initiatives were derailed
by all those other ideas that took time and effort away from adequate
follow through. Being busy is not doing business.
4. Being seduced by our own objectives. The major threat
to a business is being blinded by its own objectives.
Marketers know the task is far different, and it’s true for firms
of all sizes and in all industries. Wal-Mart, Coca-Cola, JetBlue, H-P
printers, Dell computers, Volvo and Toyota, as well as others, are all
good examples. Wal-Mart has long prided itself on spending as little as
possible on marketing. But the company’s employee problems and good
neighbor difficulties have caused it to invest vast sums in advertising
in an effort to better align itself with consumer values.
In the same way, perhaps it would benefit H-P to spin off its highly successful
printer division to protect being perceived as the brand of choice and
to avoid contamination from problematic corporate issues. Meanwhile, anything
that might damage Volvo’s safety or JetBlue’s low-cost image
could spell trouble.
While there are exceptions, of course, large companies seem to understand
the importance of shaping and preserving the way they are perceived. Others
seem to view perception far less seriously, seemingly taking the position
that it isn’t important. It’s the perception that the strong
drive out the weak that allows consumers to embrace a Bank of America,
an iPod, or a Cingular, for example.
5. Focusing on the short-term. “Our problem is that we
need sales now.” Marketers constantly hear this refrain. Unfortunately,
most fail to confront wrong-headed thinking head-on. It’s easy to
shout about needing more sales. It sounds so gutsy, macho and tough. Actually,
it’s none of these.
A lack of sales is never the problem, ever! While this may seem
somewhat harsh, it’s absolutely true. The “what we need is
sales” mantra is raising the red flag that there is a serious problem
to be sure––but the problem is not a lack of sales.
There’s a fundamental issue lurking beneath the sales complaint
and it’s this: the company lacks marketing. The business is
either failing to market or doing a poor job of it. It may also be acting
in self-serving ways such as talking about it’s superior “customer
commitment,” but failing to recognize it isn’t delivering
on its promises. And quite possibly, it may not be meeting customer expectations.
In a word, the business has its eye only on the immediate issues and lacks
what it needs to solve the sales problem––a consistent, long-term
marketing strategy, one that is constantly identifying and cultivating
prospects and fostering customer loyalty.
The “we need sales now” strategy inevitably is dependent upon
gimmicks, extra commissions and higher discounts. And what is worse, it
feeds on itself by producing a constant need for more sales.
6. Sending the wrong message. PowerPoint-bashing is popular
today and it’s an easy target. We find ourselves forced to sit through
dull and boring programs brought to us by painfully inept speakers. Since
the common denominator is almost always a PowerPoint presentation, it’s
easy to conclude that the problem is PowerPoint.
It isn’t. Why would anyone believe PowerPoint can transform a poor
speaker into a brilliant presenter or a dull presentation into one that
captivates the audience? The PowerPoint critics have fallen into the trap
of blaming the messenger for sending the wrong message.
It’s the same with companies. Without exception companies develop
a picture or view of themselves that becomes their “message.”
Polaroid went out of business carrying the banner of instant photography,
while Kodak dodged the same bullet by proclaiming itself “the imaging
company.”
Figuring out the right message is the marketing mission. Without it, there’s
trouble ahead.
7. Being seduced by the new. The new and different is
always appealing in business. Salespeople pant and plead for new products.
They complain they can’t make sales without them, thereby revealing
they are more dependent on having something new to sell than they are
on selling expertise.
Marketers can fall into this same “latest and greatest” trap.
Racing through the orchard picking off the ripe fruit is the common sales
strategy. It’s much easier than taking time and effort to uncover
new applications and markets for existing products.
Companies without a strong marketing component are addicted to always
having what’s new. While those with marketing support focus on ways
to more fully penetrate markets and find new applications for their products.
Cutting-edge thinking is more valuable than having a cutting-edge product.
Becoming dependent on a company’s ingenuity, knowledge and expertise
may be more beneficial in creating a sales culture over the longer term
than chasing the latest widget. And that’s what marketing brings
to the table.
A good example is Oreck, the vacuum company. It’s the same vacuum
and the same message, year after year, only the add-on items change. That’s
marketing.
The seven sins of marketing are indeed deadly. They drain the strength
out of good companies and send them down a destructive path. And those
who lead the way are the ones who feel they are the exception to the rule.
© 2005 Graham Communications
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John R. Graham is president of Graham Communications,
a marketing services and sales consulting firm. Mr. Graham is the
author of four books on marketing and sales, including Break the Rules
Selling: Success Strategies that Beat the Competition (Superior Books).
Mr. Graham writes for a variety of marketing and sales columns for
business and trade publications and he presents his Magnet Power presentations
at company and association meetings. He can be contacted at 40 Oval
Rd., Quincy, MA 02170; by telephone at 617-328-0069; by fax at 617-471-1504;
or by email at j_graham@grahamcomm.com. The web site is grahamcomm.com. |
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