The reading level for this article is All Levels
Ken Sundheim gives a career lecture at Pace University.
Good management
When it comes to the success of an organization, management is always the first variable of the equation. A company could either have managers or it could have leaders. The former sends a company to bankruptcy court; the latter is painstakingly hard to recruit and cultivate, but life is hard and making money is just as so.
For clarification, leaders are the individuals who make a difference in organizations by growing those under them, taking accountability for their success or failure and training their teams to become better than they.
Managers are the people who haven’t gotten a promotion in the last ten years, could care less about the people under them and who have ambition to keep their job with what could be described as award-winning minimal effort.
Poor management can slaughter a company. Strong leadership puts competitors out of business.
– Marketing vs. Accounting: Tyson fighting a 70-year-old
No company ever got rich because they had a blazingly good accountant who formulated the most pristine balance sheet in town. Firms like KPMG got where they are because of a combination of accounting prowess and marketing know-how.
Marketing is something that needs to be at the forefront of a company’s “To Do” list.
One could even make the argument that good marketing is more important than customer service. For example, examine the business plans of some of the more trendy restaurants in New York City.
When it comes to customer service and their product, there is little to no substance to most of them, yet they make money. Now, before you say that they all eventually go out of business, think to yourself as to how many millions of dollars the investors walk away with before that “For Rent” sign decorated the space and before they are getting their next loan to repeat step one.
Growing companies have two options when it comes to numbers: they can outsource it right to their desktop via Quicken or to an accountant. An organization needs to create an image; it needs to do this from day one.
After helping over 150 firms from all around the country and all around the world with sales and marketing, my assessment would be that the best businesses are those with good marketing. Just like anything else in life, exceptions to this rule do exist.
A good example of a company that did very minimal marketing / advertising, though saw strong success would be Craigslist, who did it generically, but they are few far between. Though, think of how successful Craigslist would be if they upgraded their site and learned how to accept a card credit with making pay posters jump through metaphorical fiery hoops.
The Best Firms Don’t Have Sales Teams
The best firms don’t have sales teams that are toying around with useless sales tactics such as “consultative selling” or whatever is being pushed by the consulting firms these days. Sales is simplistic to the point where it should be easy.
The best sales people simply bring ideas to the table, respond to client inquiries, are not pushy nor do they ever act desperate, and who understand their client’s perspective and thought process – no more, and sometimes even less will suffice.
