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.
Friday, November 17, 2006
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.
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.
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?
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?
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