If you ever want to slow down or disrupt a board meeting or a strategy session, just ask this question...
⋅ Definitions will overflow the room ranging from lofty academic statements, which no one will really understand, to acronyms from well-meaning analytics mechanics who have never been responsible for a sales quota.
⋅ Various people will then take control of whiteboards and easels sketching out graphics, complex diagrams and bubble charts since words alone will not be able to suffice the enormity of all of these definitions.
...and at the end, no one will totally agree, and six or ten months later, there will be a similar discussion, but this time the question will be… “So, explain to me, what do you mean when you say “qualified lead”?
Asking these questions about marketing is something like asking..."Do I sound good when I'm singing in the shower?"
Everyone thinks they sound pretty good, or that they do marketing reasonably well, when in fact, there's only a tiny fraction of really great artists and experts, and those people are, in fact, constantly experimenting with change themselves. To be an expert in marketing today in this rapidly cascading world of rapid change, even faster innovation and new technologies plus a long list of metrics requires a mix of both curiosity and discipline.
Since marketing is a blend of both art and science, and the last time I looked, I have the privilege of teaching this stuff as a professor at Tufts and a lecturer at MIT, (but still regard myself as only a student of marketing) I would love to get your interpretations, definitions or even diagrams and bubble charts to the very simple question of…“What the heck is Marketing?”
What I do know is that you don't need to be an expert or even a student of marketing to join in this discussion, since in your own "signing in the shower" on this subject, you already have your own interpretation, and it's that which I'm looking for in reaching out to the Tribe.
Join me at Tufts this fall for a Sales or Marketing Project
I have the privilege of being a professor at Tufts where I teach a course in "The Art & Science of Sales", and another in "Inbound Marketing". If you're Interested, just email me at jack@derbymanagement.com, and I will send you a one pager detailing the arrangement.
Good Selling, Good Marketing...and Good Planning !
The time is now, not tomorrow !
Derby Management...for 25 years
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Jack's Cell: 617-504-4222
jack@derbymanagement.com