Tuesday, November 28, 2006

Why We Need Holistic Marketing

If you need evidence that we need a holistic approach to marketing, and business in general, you don't have to look any further than the Big Picture feature (Up Front) in the October 2, 2006 edition of Business Week.

The feature pointed out the sad disconnect between what business leaders say and what they do. For those who didn't see it, a new survey revealed that managers tend to ignore their lower-grade workers when it comes to seeking their advice. According to the survey managers tend to want to collaborate more with their employees the more educated they are.

Only 24% of those with a high school diploma or less say their bosses asked them for advice compared to 54% for college graduates. I wonder if there is a Bill Gates or Michael Dell somewhere in the 76% without a college degree who might be able to help?

As the feature points out, we tend to treat the folks who work hands-on with customers as if they are functionaries with little or no added value. It is astounding to me that the very ones we trust to work one-on-one with our customers are the same ones that we pay the very least and obviously, from this survey, don't bother to ask for help, advice or input either.

The usual mantra is either, "We're here to serve our customers" or "Our employees are our greatest asset". Both seem to be more words than meaning. If customers are so important why do we delegate our lowest paid folks to work with them, or those we only want to pay by commission? If employees are our greatest asset then why do we value them so little that we don't ask for their advice?

So how do we change this attitude? That's the thrust of Holistic Marketing. We have to start believing that everyone in the organization can and should create value. Everyone, from the janitor to the CEO can add value and we as managers have the responsibility to develop that value, not ignore it. It's our job as managers to help the team achieve the most it can and that means involving the team beyond just telling them what to do.

If everyone in the organization started seeing themselves as part of marketing, started thinking about how they can create and communicate value to the customer then we would be a lot closer to maximizing the human potential available to us. Many of the solutions we are searching in vain for are locked up inside folks up and down the organization if we would only ask them. A lot of managers say they are willing to listen, but how many are willing to ask their employees what they think? By the sounds of it, not many.

Monday, November 20, 2006

An Ode to ERP

The hair lies strewn around the computer lab buried in the depths of the Communications Facility. All colors of hair, streaked with gray and with roots still attached, sway gently in the breeze created by the industrial HVAC system. A faint burning smell hung in the air explaining the haze hanging over the labs' denizen's.

The sound of shuffling papers, tapping toes and what resembles the chanting of a shaman fills the quiet of the smallish room filled with PCs. A gentle moan comes from the Grad Student slumped over the computer in the back of the lab. ERP...ERP...ERP, he mumbles. A thin trail of smoke trails from his ears as he thumbs through the configuration data for the Marshall Muffler project.

"Enterprise Resource Planning", he thinks, "more like a Plan for Ruining the Enterprise". The student across from him is mouthing the words, "Undocumented Features", over and over again while staring blankly at her screen. Another student suddenly screams with terror, "where's my inventory? I know I issued the purchase order...Oh God...where is it?"

Humor? No...it's real life in the subterranean world of an MBA student struggling to understand that which is inherently beyond understanding. Pray for us...please.

The Elixir of Optimism

I am continually stunned by how much frame of mind can impact performance. The more optimistic you are, the more it seems you can do. When you're optimistic you don't feel limited by your own thoughts but are liberated instead.

We, as individuals, teams and organizations, are capable of so much more than we show, mostly because of what we believe about ourselves. Oftentimes we believe the worst in ourselves, our abilities and our situations. When we have a negative perspective on any one area of our lives it can affect the outlook on our entire life.

When we choose to view life as full of possibilities rather than as full of barriers we begin to see what can be rather than what is. It is important not to discount the barriers though, for they are real, rather we should look over the top of the barriers to what can be.

Being optimistic takes effort to be sure but at the end of the day it's the closest thing to a magic elixir that I've ever seen.

Friday, November 17, 2006

I Love It When A Plan Comes Together

The Western MBA program had a great night last night at the Fall Open House. We filled every chair in the room, with nearly three times more guests than we have had in previous years. The speakers were wonderfully enlightening and entertaining.

There was such strong interest in Westerns MBA program that several people didn't enter because there weren't enough chairs for them all. Luckily I have already been contacted by several of these folks hoping to get the information available at the Open House.

The interest was driven by an Integrated Marketing Communications (IMC) plan featuring small doses of traditional print and radio advertising and large doses of relatively inexpensive direct mail, email and word-of-mouth (WOM), with a dash of public relations and guerrilla marketing thrown in for good measure.

We couldn't have done any of it without our incredible speakers. Much thanks to Dr. Mottner, Simon, Christine and Traci, all gave generously of their time. The theme, "How An MBA Can Change Your Life", was driven home articulately and passionately and received with enthusiasm.

So as I sat there last night enjoying the full room, hopeful faces and great speakers I recalled the immortal words of Colonel Smith from the A-Team, "I love it when a plan comes together".

Sometimes It's All Worth It

There are some days when everything your doing seems worth it. When you feel like you're able to reach out and touch someones life for the better. A couple of days ago I had one of those days.

In my role as marketing coordinator for the MBA program at Western I have the privilege of coaching folks who are interested in an MBA in the right direction. I try to help them find out if Westerns MBA program is the right fit for them. The process isn't always easy for them, or for me. It's a process of discovery and like all such endeavors it can be painful.

A wonderful young student came to my office in response to a presentation I gave in his class earlier in the week. He was interested in an MBA and wanted to know his chances of getting into the program.

After talking a little while it became clear that he was interested in an MBA for all the wrong reasons, noble reasons, but wrong nonetheless. He really wanted to be a basketball coach not an MBA.

We talked through the idea that if he was ever going to be able to take an entry-level, sleep on the floor, work-for-next-to-nothing coaching job, now was it. Once he got a family and a mortgage it would be impossible to take a work-for-peanuts job just for the love and education.

The time to take a chance is when you're young and can afford to do something that you love, just for the experience, even if you have to do it for free. If you don't you'll always wonder whether you could have made it. If you give it your best shot, regardless of how it turns out, you won't have any regrets, and no regrets makes for serenity in the quiet of the night.

I don't know how it will work out for him but when he left my office it seemed that he had let go of a burden. That he felt free to pursue a real dream, a real passion, a real future. An MBA isn't for everyone. Being great is more about having passion than a secret formula or a fancy degree. I hope he tries on his passion for size...if he does I think he might find the serenity so many are searching for.

Monday, November 13, 2006

Mind Flash

It struck me tonight after I finished my last speaking engagement that I've been doing presentations in the same locations, sometimes up to the three presentations in the same classroom but to several different classes.

It hit me, like a dummy, that I should put some of the 11x17 posters I had made for the MBA program Open House up in those classrooms. Duh...

What better than to have my target market sitting there staring at an MBA Program poster when they got bored listening to lecture...not that the lecture is boring mind you...er...eh...um...sorry to all those in Professordom but sometimes those lectures are a little boring. Maybe a little music...

This little mind flash just goes to illustrate that you can't make marketing completely formulaic. If you do you'll miss out on significant opportunity to create value where none exists. And remember, if your not creating value it's being destroyed so toss out the formula and try to figure out how you can create your own value.

All Talked Out

In the run up to our Open House this Thursday for the Western MBA Program I have been visiting undergraduate classes throughout the College of Business and Economics as well as in the Journalism and Communications Departments.

In less than a week I have visited 15 classes and talked with over 150 students on this Road Show of sorts. With several more classes to speak to in the next couple of days I hope to be able to personally reach over 200 students in my travels.

So far the reception has been great by both the students and professors. It is amazing how many students don't even know about the MBA program at Western. The goal is, as you can imagine, to increase awareness of the program among the undergraduate target market.

Some classes have been less than enthusiastic about a business guy visiting them. The students in a Senior level Journalism Seminar I visited looked at me like I was a very ugly toad who had crashed their enchanted ball.

It was a pretty humorous setting with me staring at those poor journalism students like Clint Eastwood in a Fist Full of Dollars and them staring at me like I was an escapee from Alcatraz. To make matters worse my visit was on the day after the recent mid-term elections so you can imagine the reception an MBA was in for. Needless to say as I'm writing this today I made it of there alive...but just barely.

With a passion for speaking and a love for the MBA program at Western it's a pretty fun part of my job. I hope in a small way that we have planted a seed in some minds that a graduate degree is within reach. My thanks goes out to the Professors who let me come and speak to their classes.

Of course my hope is that we get a good turnout at the Open House to hear our speakers. But the real goal is to get those students sitting out there in the classrooms interested enough in the program to not just come to the Open House but to actually apply to the program. Only time will tell.

What's Holistic Marketing?

As only an audacious young MBA can do I'm going to create a new idea in business - and name my own little net-fiefdom after it, Holistic Marketing. I know, I know I'm going to upset all those folks who already think MBAs are "know-it-alls" but I don't care. You and I, well at least I, already know that I don't know everything.

You have heard of the marketing concept, a market orientation and integrated marketing communications but you haven't heard of Holistic Marketing...well now you have. So what is Holistic Marketing?

Holistic Marketing is the idea that marketing is everything. It is the idea that to truly be successful an organization must have a holistic approach to marketing where each facet of the organization is focused on how to add value to the customer and communicate that value.

Holistic Marketing is not just thinking about the customer strategically as in having a market orientation or achieving consistency of message, look and feel across all platforms as in integrated marketing communications but rather focusing on the principle that if value is not being created it is being destroyed.

The challenge is to focus on building value in everything that the organization does. Too often creating value is left to the innovators and strategists while marketers are tasked with communicating that value. This old paradigm is broken because it leaves out the folks in between who really drive value for any organization, the folks on the line who execute.

A business can have the best strategy and marketing communications in the world but if the people who deliver the product or service aren't interested in creating value for the customer then the entire equation will be undermined. The great challenge then is to get everyone within the organization pulling in the same direction.

One of the pillars of this new philosophy of business is the seminal work, Built to Last by Jim Collins and Jerry Porras. Collins and Porras postulate that one of the driving forces behind great organizations is a shared sense of purpose and a culture so strong it is almost cult-like. These two elements combine to give people within the organization something to believe in which results in them all pulling in the same direction.

When everyone in an organization feels empowered to create the next customer solution then you get value being added up and down the organization, even by those folks at the bottom of the pyramid. Holistic marketing is this concept; that value is not created in the corner office but by those on the line delivering the product or service to the customer. The folks on the line will only continue to add value if they are engaged in the process and empowered to do so, if not then your out of luck.

Remember, if value isn't being created it's being destroyed. The question you have to ask is...Are your people creating value or destroying it?