Marketing Management Personnel Series (1): What Marketing Management Concepts Should We Have?

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Marketing Management Personnel Series (1): What Marketing Management Concepts Should We Have?

Recently, I chatted with some friends and former colleagues about marketing management, entrepreneurship, and other issues. Since we are no longer "young" and it's time to "strive for a breakthrough," many people seem confused: what should we do, and what can we do? These are not very reliable things. But one thing is clear: we are dissatisfied with the status quo and want to change. Chinese society has undergone or is undergoing profound changes, and it seems everyone's thinking is somewhat chaotic. The most prominent manifestation is: being eager for quick success and instant benefits, with everything revolving around "making money."

Since the reform and opening-up, China has always emphasized changing "concepts." Now "concepts" have changed, but only from "waiting, relying, and requesting" to "money."

For Chinese marketing, marketers are not much better off, after all, the general environment is like this. Of course, it's easy to say, but when it comes to doing it, under pressure, everything falls into "shameful mediocrity."

In the history of marketing development, there have been many concepts, just like China's economic and social development, with new concepts constantly being proposed. But for marketers, or marketing management personnel, what marketing concepts should we have?

First, let's look at how many companies' marketing management personnel do things.

"Give me results, don't tell me the process"

"Give me results" - many grassroots salespeople must be very familiar with this phrase, but also very helpless. Is this phrase wrong? No. But is it very useful? Not really. In fact, this is a "false proposition." I have never seen a sales situation where "only results, no process" is very good. Why is this a "false proposition"? Because such leaders are indulging themselves, indulging their management, using "results" to replace their "process management."

This is very similar to traffic fines or other administrative fines. Regardless of traffic infrastructure, traffic guidance, whether road signs and markings are reasonable, etc., as long as you violate traffic regulations, you get heavily fined. Shenzhen is already a typical example of this, with the highest fine intensity in the country. "Give me results" is too easy to say. Do you think employees are immortals? Or do you think employees are "sesame cakes"? A team without support and guidance has no combat effectiveness. "Give me results" is fine for telling stories, but please don't "shirk" your management responsibilities to your team.

Let me give a simple example.

A regional medium-sized furniture manufacturing enterprise has strong influence in the South China market, and its brand is absolutely high-end among many "stragglers," standing out like a crane among chickens. This enterprise has been content with its corner for many years. Although it lives quite comfortably in the South China market in the short term, if it doesn't expand nationwide, in the long run, it will definitely be "more bad than good."

Many senior executives' understanding of sales and marketing often stays at the verbal level. When it comes to action, finance still takes the lead. You can see how arrogant the little financial staff in companies are, looking down on everyone. Expansion is the trend, but profits cannot be lost, so they focus on performance. Those who fail to complete tasks will find survival difficult, while those who complete them will see their income multiply several times. Originally, there was nothing wrong with incentivizing task completion, but this company's assessment only includes sales targets, nothing else. No expense support, no marketing guidance, no strategy, no methods, no marketing expenses to reimburse; everything is included in the sales target.

The result of this is: in the first year, everyone had a good time because they only needed to develop a few customers to achieve the marketing target, as many markets were blank; in the second year, most people did well too, just developing some customers in the surrounding areas; in the third year, some people barely completed their tasks. At this time, extensive cultivation with thin harvest could still sustain for a while. Strong customers had sales volume but demanded more and more, while the space for small customers was gradually squeezed. Small customers were unwilling to continue selling, and the evil consequences of slash-and-burn cultivation began to show. Then everyone failed to complete tasks, and after the illusion of false prosperity, the market was in a mess.

What's more worrying is: the black hole in the supporting marketing system means that difficult markets and blank markets never improve. Why? This is a matter of psychological expectations. Because the company doesn't manage sales expenses and requires self-investment first, marketing personnel will definitely invest their energy and resources in markets where they are most confident or can easily get returns.

So, the management concept of "give me results" is very frightening. Of course, if some "expert" tells you this during training, you can just take it as an opinion. Never think that this way you can manage a team well.

Strategic goals and interest orientation: "two skins"

First skin: The strategic goals and strategic positioning formulated by the enterprise have nothing to do with sales personnel. Everyone focuses on short-term goals, very realistic goals: how many products can be sold this month, and whether the money is collected? It can be said that the so-called long-term goals of the enterprise are deceptive, deceiving the market and themselves.

Second skin: Interests, promising rewards for completing sales volume. Sales personnel will naturally do anything to achieve short-term sales volume. Many people say that sales is about judging heroes by success or failure.

"Eating what's in the bowl, looking at what's in the pot, and there's still what's planted in the field." This is the salesperson's mentality. But as the company's sales pressure increases, non-performing sales management also regards performance as the only indicator. But "judging heroes by success or failure," even "judging heroes by one success or failure," causes sales personnel to have no time to consider "what's planted in the field."

If I don't achieve the sales target, I have to leave, and "what's planted in the field" will be left to my successor. So why should I care what he plants! So everyone sees whose "wheat is ripe" and quickly goes to cut it; if something is "cooked" and on the table, they go to grab it from the bowl. Malicious competition among salespeople is often very fierce, and no one truly cultivates their own "field."

No one cares whether customers are satisfied with them. If I can't survive, their satisfaction with me is useless; even fewer people care whether there will be good projects to continue next year. If I can't get through this year, how can I talk about next year? As long as the product doesn't have problems this year, I'll sell it to customers. When problems arise, I'll already be gone.

The most direct consequence of this is the short-term behavior of sales personnel, leading to the enterprise's short-term goals; similarly, the enterprise's short-term goal management leads to sales personnel's short-term thinking and behavior.

Making money is not wrong, but to ensure long-term profitability, repeating "reconstruction" every year and going in circles is not very meaningful.

What marketing management concepts should we have?

First, satisfy demand and control demand.

Marketing is the process by which an enterprise satisfies its own needs through exchange. The value of an enterprise's existence lies in the fact that the products it provides can satisfy others' needs, and both parties are willing to exchange. So "demand" is the foundation of marketing, and exchange is the means to satisfy demand. Both are indispensable. The process of marketing management is actually the process of "demand management."

It should be specially noted here: satisfying demand is not wrong and is the foundation, but demand needs to be "managed." What does that mean? It means that not all "demands" should be maximized and satisfied blindly. Many times, demand needs to be controlled.

Second, appropriately guide and create demand.

Consumer demand is not necessarily stronger or infinitely developed. Sometimes it needs appropriate guidance and gradual cultivation. Once malicious development occurs, it will shake the foundation. For example, some health products have already caused an industry crisis. Another example is current online hype, TV dating shows, TV direct sales, etc.

Creating demand needs no further explanation. The classic case is Sony's technological leadership in the Walkman, but now due to the "decline in creativity based on demand," Sony is no longer as formidable as before. However, the success of "Avatar" undoubtedly gives us a more shocking and intuitive feeling about "creating demand."

Third, look at "demand" with a competitive perspective.

Now is an era of competition. Market economy is a competitive economy, and everything will revolve around "opponents." This is also Kenichi Ohmae's "strategic view." In this master's view, without competition, all strategies would cease to exist. We can understand it this way: if there were no competitors, it would be meaningless to spend so much time researching and controlling demand, because we would no longer need to go all out.

On the other hand: we cannot talk about innovation without demand, because all innovation originates from the market and consumers.

Fourth, don't require "overall superiority" over competitors; just achieve "comparative competitive advantage."

Many people like to talk about comprehensive quality and comprehensive strength. I think this is "boss's personal thinking," at best "small farmer consciousness," not "company thinking." Small enterprises can have one person with multiple roles, but when a company grows larger, if it still needs many generalists, I think it's not so good. Because no one can do all jobs well.

Marketing management personnel need to know their strengths and weaknesses, and be able to use people wisely, placing those who excel in a certain field in the right position and using them well. That's enough. We often see many people dissatisfied with their own company and partner companies, thinking they will soon go bankrupt. But in reality, years have passed, and those companies are still doing well and developing quite well.

Why?

Because they demand that a company be perfect in every aspect, but in reality, it's impossible. It's not that they can't do it; basically, no company can. But as long as it does well in some key links, it has vitality. There's no need to require a company to be strong in every aspect.

This principle is almost the same for enterprise marketing management or marketing management personnel.

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