time for a revolution in marketing. It’s time for marketing managers and senior managers at companies small and large to change their approach.
The world of sales and marketing faces a crisis of confidence. Senior management of large corporations, as well as many who finance small and medium-sized businesses, has lost faith in the abilities of sales and marketing to grow top-line sales. Instead, management is turning to the more disciplined purchasing, production, and manufacturing groups as they are reliably delivering lower costs and finding new ways to improve bottom-line profits.
The only way we are going to change this negative momentum—and yes, I’m a ZEALOT for the HONORABLE CRAFTS of SALES & MARKETING—is by changing our THINKING SYSTEMS. It’s through changing our systems of thinking that we can achieve meaningful, measurable top-line growth and rightfully restore the confidence of senior management and those who finance small and mediumsized enterprises.
Even the biggest of the big need to change their approach. A study by Emergence in 2003 found that of twenty-two advertisers in the “$100 million advertising spending club,” only six had marketing slogans recognized by more than 10 percent of the adult population! And I thought that “stupid” marketing ended with the thankful death of the “dot-con” marketers at the turn of the century. Apparently not.
Since this book was first published, thousands of executives from Singapore to New York to London have taken the Marketing Brain IQ Test on the previous pages. The results have been EMBARRASSING!
When given the multiple-choice test, marketing HOT SHOTS get an average of 30 percent correct. Heck, given that there are only two options for most of the questions, flipping a coin should get them a 50 percent success rate. Marketing Managers laugh when they get basic questions wrong. I cry.
Tom Peters is a kindred spirit. He was kind enough to write the foreword to the first book in the Jump Start series, Jump Start Your BUSINESS Brain. An e-mail from him, written from his New Delhi hotel room in the fall of 2004, gave me a wake-up call. Here’s an excerpt:
Tom Peters’s Re-Imagine Manifesto
They say I’m extreme.
I say I’m a realist.
They say “We need an Initiative.”
I say “We need a Dream, and Dreamers.
They say “We can’t handle this much change.”
I say “Your job and career are in jeopardy; what other options do you have?”
They say “Take a deep breath. Be calm.”
I say “Tell it to Wal-Mart. Tell it to China. Tell it to India.
Tell it to Dell. Tell it to Microsoft.”
They say, “Sure we need ‘Change.’”
I say we need “REVOLUTION NOW.”
They say “Conglomerate & Imitate!”
I say “Create & Innovate!”
They say “Market share.”
I say “Market CREATION.”
They say “Globalization is a bumpy road.”
I say India and China and Asia in general are within two decades of running the show: Get ready or get trounced.
They say “It’s a fright.”
I say “It’s a Helluva Ride.”
They say it’s “daunting.”
I say it’s “a hoot.”
They say “Install cost controls with teeth.”
I say “Grow the Top Line.”
They say “Wait your turn, honor those who have marched these corridors before you.”
I say Get Off Your Butt & Go for the Gold … TODAY … or sign the transfer papers
willing your job in perpetuity to a Chinese or Indian who
Gives a Shit and Gets Up
(VERY) Early and works Saturdays & Sundays.
They say I “overplay” the “women’s thing.”
I say the share of Women in Senior Leadership Positions is a Waste and a Disgrace and a
Strategic Marketing Error.
They say we need a “project” to exploit the women-boomergeezer market.
I say we need Total Strategic Realignment to exploit the
Women-Boomer-Geezer
Opportunity.
They say “We can’t all be Revolutionaries.”
I say “Why not?”
They say this is just a Rant.
I say this is just Reality.
They say “The man is not nice.”
I say “The times are not forgiving.”
HELPING TO STOP THE MADNESS
Jump Start Your MARKETING Brain is my small contribution to stopping the marketing madness. It’s 50,000 volts of ideas and advice designed to guide business owners and managers toward smarter systems of marketing thinking.
This book was originally published as Meaningful Marketing. It was a proper book. An adult book. A mature book. The result was impressive reviews from such lofty publications as Marketing Research Magazine, Midwest Book Review, and Soundview Executive Book Summaries and from the longtime “sage” of business book reviews himself, Jack Covert, founder of 800-CEO-READ.
The problem was that while the academics and reviewers loved the book’s rich amount of data, the real-world folks weren’t getting it. Therefore, I decided to “blow up the book.” As Picasso once said, “Sometimes the first act of creation is one of destruction.”
This revised edition has greater urgency—higher energy—and more bluntness than the first because, as Tom Peters says, “These times are not forgiving.”
