The Sea: rogue waves - heaving tumultuous water - howling winds - black menacing clouds - deafening thunder - crackling lightning - violent and frightening.
Competition: burgeoning - hungry - desperate.
The environment: random - unpredictable - uncertain - anxious - chaotic - hysterical – angry.
Customers: fickle – demanding - intelligent – powerful - vocal, who speak their truth about how organizations serve them - socially connected - environmentally concerned - socially responsible - technology-savvy - opinionated - price conscious - value-driven.
Welcome to The Storm; the landscape facing entrepreneurs and business people today.
What’s the path to succeed and survive The Storm?
There is no simple answer, but there are some navigation buoys to observe in the maelstrom:
Stay close to your customers. Open yourself to them. “Attach” yourself to them as they experience a fast moving and uncertain world.
- Move with them. Respond to how they deal with their reality. It’s like riding a bucking bronco. Hang on. Go with the forces that drive you.
- Pick a course of action based on the best information you have available to you at the time. ‘Head West’.
- Move from that course FAST, when things change.
Stay focused. Be nimble.
The Storm dictates that customer-obsessed MARKETING is vital to the success and survival of any business these days.
If you can’t market in The Storm you’re either dead or soon will be.
The Storm dictates that traditional marketing practices, on their way to irrelevance, must change.
It’s over. The old marketing pedagogy that guided marketers is done.
The Tipping Point signaling its demise is in the rear view mirror.
Not enough marketers are waking up to The Storm.
And the business schools aren’t doing students any favors in terms of preparing them for it.
They are not actively facilitating the move away from the old marketing ways to the marketing tools that will give organizations a shot at weathering The Storm.
Business students don’t learn Storm Marketing competencies so how can they contribute to business survival when they get out in the real world?
Much marketing these days is BORING in my view.
It’s lazy. It’s forgettable. It’s unimaginative. It’s unremarkable. It’s deadly in The Storm.
Today it seems to be all about pushing products and services with a features and benefits bent.
It’s all about price.
It’s “communications to the masses” approach invades one’s privacy; it’s obtrusive.
It’s about copying what others are doing; infatuation with Best in Class and Best of Breed.
And there is confusion.
▪️Some talk about marketing but what they really mean is sales.
▪️Some talk about marketing but what they really mean is advertising and communications.
▪️Some talk about marketing but what they really mean is brand management.
Hell, even same-old marketing is misunderstood.
What a challenge to start a conversation about morphing to Storm Marketing.
Related: 4 Absolutely Critical Moves an Entrepreneur Must Make To Stay Alive