Issue No. 49 of Your Weekly Staff Meeting is all about The Customer Bucket. Mark Twain once said, “What a good thing Adam had. When he said a good thing he knew nobody had said it before.” While much has been said about The Customer Bucket, this week’s book says it in a new and gut-grabbing way. And this old reminder: you can read the mini-reviews of now almost 50 books at my Buckets Blog at www.JohnPearsonAssociates.com.
When you read the first nine pages of a book, and you’ve underlined multiple insights on every page, you know you’ve made a good investment in a book and in your future. Click here and order The Marketing Mavens.
Author Noel Capon, professor of international marketing at Columbia Business School, believes that effective companies must be customer-centric and make marketing every employee’s business. “Let’s face it,” he writes, “if you don’t have customers, you don’t have anything.” He adds, “To put it bluntly, you need customers more than they need you. Hence caveat emptor (buyer beware) has become caveat venditor (seller beware)!”
While many wouldn’t disagree with his customer focus, Capon sheds new light on ways successful companies “put customers at the center of what you do on a daily basis.” He interviewed 57 executives from 40 organizations across the business and nonprofit spectrum. What these “Marketing mavens” shared is truly new and innovative. The book describes the five central imperatives of companies that don’t just have marketing departments—they are businesses that market. The imperatives: 1) Pick markets that matter; 2) Select segments to dominate; 3) Design the market offer to create customer value and secure differential advantage; 4) Integrate to serve the customer; and 5) Measure what matters. Remember, if you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it.
Your Weekly Staff Meeting Questions:
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1.Would we describe ourselves as customer-centric? Why or why not?
2. How effective are we at making our marketing principles operational on an organizational-wide basis? Does the marketing department do marketing—or do all of us own the marketing task?
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Insights from the Management Buckets Workshop Experience
Noel Capon asks, “How would you segment the dog-food market?” The traditional method is to focus on the dogs (who don’t buy anything!). Capon writes, “But think about how much greater insight you might gain from examining the relationship between owner and dog, and the emotional relationship embodied in the owner’s choice of dog-food: dog as grandchild (indulgence), dog as child (love), dog as best friend (health and nutrition), and dog as dog (cheap, convenient fuel.) Each segment requires a difference marketing approach.
Now…think about the marketing assumptions at your organization. How are you segmenting your customers, your volunteers or your donors? Are you using traditional approaches—or is it time for a marketing tune-up? If so, buy Noel Capon’s book today.
Your Weekly Staff Meeting Questions: The Customer Bucket
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1. In groups of three, focus on one of our customer segments and write down everything we know about our customer.
2. Now, write down everything we don’t know, but must find out about our customers, including how they are changing.
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The Customer Bucket is just one of 20 buckets we’ll dip into at the next two-day Management Buckets Workshop Experience, Oct. 31 and Nov. 1, 2007, in Orange County, Calif. Plus, there are two Nonprofit Board Governance Workshops planned this fall: Sept. 20 (Chicago) and Nov. 2 (Orange County, Calif.). There’s more information on our website. Join us.
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