“The Power of Leadership”

Three Powerful Lessons for the Chief Marketing Officer

Lesson #1  - As I have ascended from frustrated business owner to successful business marketer and from pain to profits, there were three lessons which were of primary importance for me and they are equally important for you are not yet or don’t want to be CEO of a Fortune 500 Company.

I had been working for a very large company and had learned about advertising and marketing in the style of a very large company.  I had even been taught that any effort to differentiate our Marketing message in some even minutely controversial way was unacceptable.  No one was ever to be offended or challenged by any form of mass communication.  We were “brand building” and developing our “image” and anything else was unnecessary and probably dangerous.  The budget was large and results were not measured other than general perception via customer survey and of course net profit of the company.

These were the same principles by the way that I was taught in Business school and they are ineffective at best and destructively wasteful at worst for a small, private, company.

Very large companies Market for many reasons and answer to many groups which are simply not relevant to a small, privately owned, business.  The largest of these influencers are the company’s Board of Directors, their Stockholders, the Media, their own engine of Ad Agencies and Marketing Departments.  Of course they ultimately wish to sell something, and they do sell a lot, but they play in a much bigger pool of economic resources than the small/medium sized private company who has no capacity for the largess and waste that wins CLIO Awards for “exceptional” advertising.

Despite this inequity, most small business leaders model the Marketing efforts of the mega-Corporations.  My primary Marketing Mentor, Dan Kennedy said this and I cannot say it more clearly, “Be sure you get this life changing principle.  Be careful who you copy.  Be careful who you act like.  Be careful who you study.  If their purpose, objectives, agenda, and reasons for doing what they do, they way they do it, doesn’t match with your purpose, objectives, and agenda, then you should NOT study or emulate or copy them!”

I believe that 99% of small, private, companies are operating by this emulation strategy and I believe it is a massive impediment to their business momentum and cash flow.

Lesson #2 tomorrow…  “see” you then!

Isn’t 2011 gonna be awesome?!

Shawn

Performance Institute – A Global Leader in Business and Human Capital Development

Russ M. Miller, LLIF – Chairman and CEO

Shawn M. Miller – Managing Partner – USA

Sunny Hong Zhang – Managing Partner – China

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