Some companies have customer relationship managers – and go to great lengths to control the relationship with the customer.

They should understand that they don't own the relationship at all. It is, in fact the reverse. The customer owns the relationship with the company. And can choose to sever it at any tme. 

Companies talk about being market facing. Being market facing means that your ears and eyes should be tuned to what the market – and that means consumers – are saying, doing. Your sales and marketing people's real role is therefore to be tuned to the subtle and not so subtle changes in what consumers want. And to communicate that internally to management. Managagement needs to listen to what their 'market facing' people are saying.

How is it possible for marketing executives to understand what the market is doing or saying if they sit in their ivory towers at head office having constant meetings? Simply put, it isn't. Executives need to be at the edge as much time as they can. They need to be talking to their customers and taking the information gleaned back to head office to ensure that the natural tendency for the command and control mentality to bloom and take control.

And by the way – in doing this – good executives get on other companies' radar – and therefore become much more hirable. So the interesting thing is this: A good executive at a  company that talks “market” but doesn't live “market” will be eminently hirable by a third party. It gets back to relationships. You can only relate when you make an effort, get out on the road and get engaged.

This entry was posted on October 6, 2006 at 8:26 pm. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Posted in Main Page by Chris Gilbey No Comments Yet