Any marketing is good marketing

How often have you heard the statement that ‘We need to sell ourselves to the customers’ and how often have you actually tried to find out what it means? One might find the statement bizarre and incongruous to its literal meaning. There is no profound meaning or rocket science involved in that statement for one to understand. It simply means that one has to create and communicate offerings to the clients and has to make them clued-up about what one does and what services one offers. In one word, it means that one has to‘market’ himself.

In business, marketing plays a key role quite literally. It opens the doors of the business and the services that are offered by them to the potential clients. One of the 4P’s of marketing is PROMOTION which acts as a communication link between the sellers and buyers for the purpose of informing and influencing people. All these people need not, or for that matter, will not be potential customers. However, if the services offered do make an impact on them, they can spread it through word of mouth to others who are potential buyers of the service. These days, even infants know about Apple and its products and there are minors who also know about Steve Jobs being the owner of Apple. They do not necessarily have or require an Apple product. But, if any of their relatives, friends or acquaintances come up with a sticky situation as to which cell phone to be bought or music device to be purchased then these kids’ answer would be instant. This isn’t something out of the clear blue sky. If someone were to ask the great man himself, the brains behind the iPods and iPhones and iPads, as to what is his big secret of kissing success, his obvious reply would be “iMarket”.

A US based marketing consultant Stuart Britt said ‘For an entrepreneur, not marketing is like winking a girl in the dark. You know what you are doing but no one else does’. As an entrepreneur, a person’s main objective apart from getting clients would be to make the world know about him and his company and what it does. A company should not market with the objective of converting everyone who comes to know about them into clients. Every person yearns for name, fame and money. Fame is a forerunner of money. If your company is famous, money will follow. And fame comes from effective marketing targeted not just towards those within the entrepreneur’s ken but also those who are beyond that. Consider yourself to own a hard disk manufacturing company. Few years ago, the domain for marketing the hard disks were the computer manufacturers and assemblers. But as the time progressed, the concept of external hard disks came up which were exactly the same hard disks that were contained in the computers but they came with a casing. Today, hard disk manufacturers have their domains not only in the form of computer manufacturers and assemblers but also the common man who directly goes for these products. Another example is the cell phone which used to be owned only by high class and aristocratic lot of people but if you consider the scenario as of today then you would find children having more advanced phones than people double their age.

You can have brilliant ideas but if you cannot get them across, your ideas won’t get you anywhere. At the same time, too many takers of your idea will lead to chaos. Everyone that a doctor knows is not his patient. Everyone who enters a Nike showroom does not come out with a Nike product in his hand. What is important is that they chose to enter that particular showroom and that is effective marketing.

My ‘Imcrede’ble Experience Part 2

Heavens Be Praised. The Almighty had spoken through Vimalesh. I was suddenly feeling at ease because I always wanted to see a real client meeting, but strictly SEE a meeting. During school days, when there was a beautiful girl in our class, my friends depended on me to talk to her first. In fact, when Vimalesh and I used to be in school and college, he used to be the stalker and I used to be the talker. He would push me in talking first which I never did have any problems doing. What I realised is that things were different from what they were in school or college. There I did not have to think of the consequences but here, the consequence could make or break our sequence. There I was undaunted by the girl’s slap but here I had to think about the client’s clap. There, every move was a childish thing but here, one childish move would make us lose everything. What if I go wrong in my words with the client? What if I slip off while shaking hands with him? What if I stutter while speaking? What if something angers the client especially because of me?

Many such ‘What If’s were running through my head churning my brain. My heart started pounding at the penultimate second as we pushed the door into the client’s office. We were directed towards the proprietor’s room. This man was tall and dark with a hefty physique. He was talking on the phone and, from what I could grasp, he was in a foul mood. We introduced ourselves to him and gave him our business cards. A very queer thing or rather, etiquette about giving your business card to a client or anyone, for that matter, is that you should give it with both the hands. Moreover, even while receiving a card you should receive it with both hands. Imagine a small 90mm X 55mm card being given and received with both hands as though we are giving our relative’s marriage invitation card. Though we gave our cards with both hands, he received it only with one hand which made me feel that my doubt was right about his foul mood or maybe he wasn’t aware of the etiquette at all.  

Vimalesh started by introducing himself and me, spoke at length about his company, the websites that they have developed, the logos and brochures that they have designed and so on. Though this man was hearing him, he was not listening to him. A small difference exists between ‘hearing’ and ’listening’ and that difference is the presence or absence of concentration which in turn depends on your level of interest. Harshly and honestly speaking, he was not interested. He was pre-occupied with something or rather, worried about something. We, then, let him speak about his requirement which is when we got to know that he wanted to design a brochure for his company and he had given this to a small printing agency and that guy had made a very simple design which didn’t even qualify to be called a ‘design’. The client wasn’t happy with the logo created nor was he happy with the content. He handed over the brochure to me to have a look. As I was going through the brochure I saw underlines in many of them. Without reading the underlined text, I opened my mouth for the first time.

“Sir, why is this underlining for?”

He burst out saying they were all mistakes committed in writing English by the other guy and he went on and on with his saga. I browsed through the brochure and found that the English was awful, to say the least. We assured him that we will give him the most creative logo and brochure designed and that he could ask us to go ahead with the work only after finalising the designs we have made. He was already too upset with his past experience and had a prejudiced notion about us. Our words of assurance gave him some confidence that, if nothing, he won’t lose his money again at the wrong place with the wrong person.

Then came the most emotional part, the costing. This is where I wanted to learn tackling clients. I was terrible in discussing money anywhere. I remember going to vegetable vendors with mom and she would buy vegetables with an amazing bargain whereas when I used to go alone, I used to buy them at whatever price they said, without a bat of an eyelid. Vimalesh put forth his proposal and his advance amount to the client. Any company works on the norm that they have to receive a certain advance amount as a start-up but this guy wasn’t in a mood for losing anymore of his money and so he refused straightaway. This is one of the tricky situations which I wanted to learn to tackle but I never thought that it would arise in the very first meet. I was eager to see Vimalesh’s presence of mind now. He gave the client a solution that the client could sign a post dated cheque which will serve as, both an assurance for us to start with the job and for the client to have an upper hand in the deal. The client, as expected, was happy with the deal.

As we shook hands with him, we assured him that his money is in safe and skilled hands and proceeded to leave the room. The moment we exited I started wondering that if this is the kind of people I’ll have to meet then I really will have a tough time and need to hone my skills of using my wit and presence of mind. My thoughts were interrupted by Vimalesh.

“Dude, tomorrow also you have a meeting. TWO GIRLS”.