Getting the CEO to "Get" Marketing

This may seem like an exercise in frustration to marketing directors, sales managers and others, but it's a battle worth fighting

By John Graham, Contributing Editor -- Industrial Distribution, 5/1/2006

'What does it take to do good marketing?' This is the question a speaker asked of 50 seminar participants from financial services companies. No sooner had the question been asked when a woman said, 'Keep the CEO out of it.' Along with laughter, heads were nodding all over the room.

'How can I get my CEO into a marketing mode?' Many a company president would be surprised to learn that I've been asked this question more than any other over the years. It comes from entry-level employees and sophisticated sales executives—from engineers and frustrated marketing directors. The question is always serious, and the voice, more often than not, conveys signs of desperation and discouragement.

'The president can't see how we're slipping,' says a frustrated sales manager. 'He thinks the problems are only 'temporary.' He sees us like we were 30 years ago. But nobody knows us today. How can I get him to understand what's going on?'

Then there's the thoughtful and well-educated marketing person who reports that her job is 'churning out proposals.' This is her boss's uninformed view of marketing.

Perhaps the most common form of idiocy is a CEO's benighted belief that the role of marketing is to make sales. Instead of looking at the sales force to see if it is following up on the leads generated by marketing and actually closing sales, marketing gets the blame. Far fetched? Check it out by asking any marketing manager.

Marketing strategy is a source of conflict in many companies, but it's a concept worth fighting for.

Sales vs. marketing
It's not surprising that CEOs focus on sales. That's what gave them their starts and that's where they were successful, so that's what they see as the solution to the problem. 'Make more calls' is their mantra and magic solution to everything.

'I just can't understand how this guy can be so blind,' said a confused young marketer at a manufacturing company. 'He's on top of so many things, but marketing is certainly not one of them.'

Those CEOs who are blind when it comes to marketing tend to view themselves as entrepreneurs, and everyone knows that an entrepreneur is an 'expert on everything,' including marketing.

Marketing can be all but irrelevant to a CEO, other than providing 'glitzy' sales materials and puffed-up press releases filled with unsubstantiated claims and finessed figures. And under the guise of marketing, there are the countless vendor-funded 'events' specifically designed to showcase the CEO as the head duck in a not-too-large pond.

All that's not marketing; it's B.S., a technical term brilliantly articulated by Princeton professor Harry Frankfurt in his ground-breaking book, On Bullshit, and ably articulated by another academic, Laura Penny, in Your Call is Important to Us.

Ignorance is never bliss, and in the case of marketing it only leads to unsatisfactory results. As the art of attracting and holding customers, marketing is too important to be thwarted and dismissed by ignorance, misunderstanding and misinformation.

Aside from not having a clue how to move recalcitrant CEOs to see the light and embrace marketing, there are a couple of questions that may be worth discussing:

Where does growth come from? For many companies, it comes from acquisitions, increased prices and just plain luck.

Being able to say, 'We're the third-largest widget works in the world,' floats some boats, even though the achievement may be built on something other than growth in actual sales.

In the insurance industry, for example, luck plays a key role. Every insurance executive lives for what is called 'a hard market'—the increase in insurance rates by insurance companies or the regulators. Higher rates mean higher commissions, which translate into higher revenues, all without raising a finger. Every industry has such gimmicks for pseudo growth.

Getting new customers can be more of an exercise in customer replacement, rather than an activity of growing the customer base.

Why should anyone want to do business with us? A real estate broker showing an attractive condo regaled prospective buyers during an open house with the virtues of the property. Realizing that none of the visitors expressed an interest, an observer recognized that the salesperson made little or no attempt to discover what the prospective buyers were looking for in a home. Without understanding customer dreams and expectations, how can the salesperson make a sale?

Just because we want to make a sale doesn't mean someone wants to buy. The only reason anyone chooses to do business with a company is because of that company's ability to meet customer needs. It's not an accident that Apple Computer's incredible success has come at the moment when it has been rated as 'the most innovative company.' Apple is about marketing—understanding what the customer wants—not about technology.

Fighting the good fight

So, where does this leave us with attempting to help CEOs recognize the role marketing can play in growing the business? Here are a few thoughts for consideration:

1. Admit to marketing ignorance. No one is expected be an expert on everything; we all have our blind spots. And believe it or not, that goes for CEOs, particularly when it comes to marketing.
Marketing is not about personal preferences ('I don't like green'), or individual likes and dislikes ('Nobody reads mail today'). But it's sometimes shocking to hear a company president display what in other circles would be called ignorance.
There's nothing wrong with asking questions, and there's everything right about relying on those with specialized knowledge and experience for recommendations. One can certainly hope that the CEO finally sees the light and acknowledges that marketing isn't about the company, but about its customers. It's a difficult concept, but another worth fighting for.
2. Become brand conscious. As difficult as it is to grasp, marketing is about value to the customer. This is not the ever-popular 'value-added' idea, but something far more important and rare. We call it 'value-inherent,' and it's what sets one company apart from everyone else in the same business.
3. Stop chasing the competition. While they appear strong, CEOs are often vulnerable, particularly when it comes to following the competition. They jump around from one sure-to-fail initiative to the next, aping competitors. The truth is that competitors are doing the same thing. Just because they are advertising in a particular publication doesn't mean it's effective.
4. Figure out what's going on. Far too much money and time is wasted on fooling around with the CEO's 'great ideas.' Chances are, these almost other-worldly insights are 'borrowed' from a competitor or another company, but they instantly become the 'property' of the CEO. The tragedy is that the entire organization must stop in its tracks and make the useless and unproductive nonsense happen.

On the other hand, it's often difficult or impossible for CEOs to grasp the value of research. They are so committed to 'going with their gut' that facts are unnecessary, even irrelevant. If you know everything, then research is borderline ridiculous, right? It's far too easy to be exuberant, excited and totally committed to the brilliance of our own untested ideas.

Marketing myopia

Here's the point: today's General Motors is the poster company for enterprises where those in charge don't have a clue about marketing. The Big GM blinds them. The ideas of their executives are often far different from those in the heads of their customers.

More than 40 years ago, marketing guru Theodore Leavitt of the Harvard Business School labeled this CEO disease 'marketing myopia.' Unfortunately, his insight continues to stand the test of time.


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