Introspection, Revelation and Tenzing Norgay
So I knew something was wrong and I knew something radical needed to be done to start doing some real marketing. But what ? I remembered my very first pro mentor which I met while I was doing one of those internships during business school. He taught me one thing: look at the numbers. Seems obvious hey ? But how many of us do really use numbers accurately, consistently and appropriately ?
So I went hunting numbers. Any number: sales numbers, marketing numbers, industry numbers, analysts numbers ... you name them. And that's when I learned my first lesson: you're going to have to earn your numbers. Good numbers won't come to you, and by good numbers I mean those which give you real insight and actionable intelligence. Instead, you'll need to make serious efforts to get to them. Bad numbers are as easy to find as chicken nuggets in a McDonald, good numbers are as hard to find as gold nuggets in a mine.
I worked hard at getting my numbers, dumping entire database into Excel pivot tables and other business intelligence tools. I managed to get a fair amount of data about how we "had" been doing, and sure, it was great at first to analyze the past and draw some conclusions. But I also realized something else: number have a ephemeral lifetime. Actionable customer intelligence vanishes as fast as it comes. What good does it make to analyze 10 years worth of revenue, slicing and dicing your sales by every possible category if you don't know what your prospects or customers are doing today ?
That was my second lesson: for numbers to truly help you drive your marketing strategy and operations, you need to set your organization/department/group up in such a way that you get a consistent and accurate feedback loop in place between you and your audience.
At that point, I realized that even if I had been able to overcome the lack of numbers for the past by working the Excel machine, I did not have the feedback loop I needed. And as much as I could feel it was important to get to that data, I truly did not know for sure what to collect and how.
And that was my third lesson: marketing doesn't have to be a lonely path. The very problems you are encountering, other people have encountered as well. Look for a guide, look for someone that has walked this path before and can take you through it. Another reason why you want to look for a guide, is because it will likely give you insights and comparison points into what others in the industry are doing.
If you're not familiar with the name Tenzing Norgay, he was the Nepali Indian Sherpa Mountaineer who reached the summit of mount Everest along with Sir Edmund Hillary. The photo you see on that post is the one of Tenzing posing at the summit in May 29, 1953 and was taken by Sir Hillary. Tenzing Norgay is the impersonation of the ultimate mountain guide, the strong and knowledgeable aide without which there is no chance of achieving success.
I knew I needed my Tenzing Norgay and after some research on the web settled for a marketing community with a fitting name: marketingsherpa.
In the next post I'll talk about enlightenment and putting things in motion.
