6 BEHAVIOURS OF HIGHLY

SUCCESSFUL MARKETERS
1. Passion for marketing

Without passion you have nothing. If you don't believe in your craft, then it is
impossible to ever be successful. By having passion for marketing, you will always be
the first person to learn a new marketing technology, technique or way in which to do
something better. Education is paramount to marketing success as the marketing
game changes every single day and a good marketer knows when to change with it, or
stay true to the current game plan.

2. Creativity

Creativity isn't just about art. It is about thinking outside the box, and delivering
upon business goals in the most innovative and creative way possible. If you have
zero dollars to play with, a creative marketer can still executive a multimillion dollar
marketing campaign. They know that there is more than one way in which to execute
a successful marketing campaign and more creative they are, the more impactual the
result.

3.  Technology-savvy

No marketer can get by without understanding how technology supports

and powers marketing campaigns. If you are not using technology to its
utmost, then it is impossible for any marketing campaign to be successful. Knowing
about influencer scraping, marketing automation, big data and the internet of things
is just part of the equation. There is literally thousands of options out there. A good
marketer knows their stuff and is aware of what marketing technologies are must-
haves and which ones to leave by the wayside.

4.  Goal setting

Not only do successful marketers know how to set goals, they also are acutely aware
of the power of communicating those goals to the people around them. Without
exception, strong marketers have a goal in mind and adjust the plan when it
needs to be adjusted to ensure that those goals are met. You won't find a successful
marketer without this mindset.

5.  Exceptional communication skills

 An exceptional marketer has communication skills that every other
marketer envies. They know that in order to achieve their goals, they need to be
able to get 100% buy-in from everyone around them and be able to communicate
what they are doing and the successes that they achieve. They set clear goals,
communicate them and make other accountable for their role in achieving the
desired outcomes. All successful marketers know how to write an email that gets
results, and verbally communicate to people across the entire organisation in an
empowering way.

6.  Surround themselves with people that are more capable than

themselves

Highly successful marketers, and I am talking HIGHLY successful marketers

are smart. They use their intelligence and know-how to source the right people for
their team. They always select people that are more capable of doing their part in the
equation better than they can do themselves. They work collaboratively and reward
the team along the way for small wins. Every team member has their back and is
doing their utmost to make the "highly successful marketer" proud of their
contribution to the team.

A highly successful marketer stands out from the crowd. They are disruptive by
nature. They self-promote in a way that makes everyone around them feel like it
isn't personal. They have 6 behaviours that make other marketers stand back and
wish they were more like them. They deliver upon promises and always pick people
to work on their team that will make them look good. 

They respond to situations with a level-head and adapt and evolve when need be.

A highly successful marketer always reaches their goals, no matter how many times
they have to intuitively make hard decisions along the way. It's their game plan that
sets them apart!

10 common marketing
challenges
These are some of them and if you work or manage your own business, you will surely feel
identified with most of these issues:
 1.- Not knowing how to explain the product or
service you want to sell
Often, being an expert on a product doesn’t make you the best person to sell it.
You know the features of your product, the manufacturing steps, the materials used, the
best applications, but you don’t know how to explain your product to the possible buyer,
for whom all these hundreds of product features matter little because he is just looking
for one of them.
Any item or service should be explained from the customer’s
perspective. What is the customer looking for when evaluating this
service or product?
Price, quality, reliability, for something that will solve a problem, that will make his life
more comfortable, or elevate his social status.
The business owner, a freelancer, a merchant, a liberal professional, someone in
charge of selling your products or services; or vendors and clerks, waiters at bars and
restaurants, all of them should receive training to learn how to sell your products, with
instructions on how the product can help potential customers.
“Your product or service is not good because it’s yours, it’s good because your
customers want to buy it.
This brings us to the next problem, especially at the beginning of any business:

2.- Not finding your market segment

Opening a business and think that all the inhabitants of the planet will love it is a very
common mistake many entrepreneurs make.
But if this entrepreneur has a little idea about social networks or simply has many
friends on his personal Facebook.
Let’s see some examples:
1.  A single person will not be interested in becoming a customer of
a lawyer dedicated to Family Law (divorces).
2.  If a seller goes to a nursing home to sell articles for
mountaineering, he will not be able to find potential customers.
3.  Distributing pamphlets in a high school with the Rolls Royce’s
latest model is not a good strategy as it will not generate any sale.

Do you understand what I mean?

We all sell something to someone. The problem of small businesses and, above all, of
the entrepreneurs who are starting, is that they don’t have much data to determine who
is the ideal buyer for their product?
It is vital to pre-define your ideal buyer and your market segment.
By doing this, you will have a much clearer idea of the potential of your new business. If
you find that there are only a few customers interested in your articles or services, you
will know that you will have to create a targeted sales strategy to attract more
customers. Perhaps you could think and act as a local business, or if your product has a
larger audience, you could create an international sales strategy.
Also, you’ll know why your potential customers are looking for your
product or service.
They may be attracted to the novelty (especially in technological products), they may be
interested in price, quality, social status, in a temporary solution, etc.
Once you know what your ideal clients are looking for, you can explain better your
product, and you will have more sales and more advantages.

3.- Lack of commercial department

The commercial department is one of the most relevant parts of any successful
business. In times of financial crisis, a good commercial department can save your
company.
So imagine what you can do during the good times. The problem is that we believe that
only the commercial department can sell and that other departments don’t have to worry
about it.
If you have a restaurant, all waiters should be good salespeople; your store employees
should be good salespeople, if you are a lawyer, you must learn to become a successful
seller.
Organize your small or medium business so that everyone can learn
how to sell your products or services.
 Unfortunately, many companies don’t work hard enough to train all the collaborators to
become vendors, people able to offer their products or services for potential customers.
If you have a sales section and you have created a sales department, let them do their
work.
If someone stands out for his accomplishments, reward him, encourage other
collaborators to learn from him. You should be the first to learn from him and try to
improve.
A good salesperson can quickly identify what he will need to do to sell (he will work with
his boss asked him to sell). A good seller knows how to approach potential customers,
building customer loyalty, how to generate cross-selling (increasing revenue per
customer and the company’s profits)

4.- Invisibility of your business

Promoting your business should be one of your main tasks if you want to become a
businessperson. The problem arises when choosing the medium and the resources that
will be used.
Advertising a company is very simple and can be very cheap.
But if you use a medium that is not appropriate and you address people who are not
interested in your product or service, you will only have lost time and money.
Some of the platforms you can use to advertise your business are:
– Press releases, radio, and television (locally, regionally, nationally, internationally) or
ads on different platforms on the Internet.
 Leaflets on car windshields, in mailboxes, in the hands of people
passing by your store. Does it sound like “vintage”? But why not?
 Create a corporate blog, position it for your professional sector
and start showing the advantages of your company and all the
solutions you offer to improve the lives of your potential customers.
 Profiles and pages on social networks. Also, you can create paid
ads on these social networks, as the latest changes on many
algorithms don’t allow you to reach many people.
 Organize an event that also helps the community, so that the
media will spread the word about the event and therefore help spread
the word about your business.
 Even messages in WhatsApp can be a great way to publicize your
business and more since the arrival of the new “WhatsApp Business. “
But each of these forms of advertising is more efficient for a type of business than to
another.
Paying for an advertisement on a regional television channel if you run a small local
business will not help you much.
If you have a blog, but don’t update it, to talk directly to your readers about the
advantages of your business by posting articles, talking about your services, you are
missing an incredible opportunity to create engagement with your visitors.
Instagram is a platform used mostly by women, most of them use this social network
regularly. A priori, announce articles for men’s hygiene wouldn’t be a good option.
But as you know that this ad will be seen mostly by women, you can modify your
campaign to convince them to buy your products for their husbands, boyfriends,
companions, brothers. “
When it comes to advertising, the first thing to keep in mind is what you want to achieve.
Once you determine your goal, you should investigate the market to find out which
media or platforms are the best channels for your campaign.
●For example, posting an ad for men’s products in a magazine for girls and teenagers.
MISTAKE
● Publishing the same ad in a magazine dedicated to football, cars, etc. GOOD
STRATEGY
Local social networks and the online world are becoming vital for any marketing
strategy. We all carry a smartphone in our pocket and when we need to get something,
we can find it online:
“Where is the nearest open pharmacy to me, where to find a
locksmith, Best places to have lunch.”

5.- Problems with the price of your product

You may think that the price of what you are selling is not essential for your marketing
strategy. If that’s what you think, you are mistaken.
The price of the product is essential to the success of the company and should be
perceived as “fair” by your customers.
Would you be willing to pay $ 1,000 for a can of Coke? Never.
You will have to determine the price of your product taking into account, first, your
professional circumstances, and then try to find out how much your competitors are
charging for the same products.
Perhaps your competitors may not have the mortgages you have to pay; they may not
need to pay the staff you have to pay, or they are on business for a long time, which
means they can have some advantages or agreements with manufacturers or
distributors and can offer more competitive prices that would make your business
impractical.
This is why you must first determine how much you will need to charge for the product.
You will need to find out what the minimum amount you can charge is, so you don’t win
or lose, the limit by which, if you charge less, you would lose money no matter the
number of items you sell.
Once you know the price, the next step will be to “decorate” the product so your
potential customers will buy from you and not from your competitors.
A coffee usually costs about the same in any bar, the quality of the service, the
decoration, the environment, the professionalism of the waiters are what will make the
difference.
Competing for prices is a dangerous strategy that, in the long term, usually will not work
well. A few years ago, a baker dropped the price of bread.
For a while, he was very successful. He made very little money, but he was selling a lot
of bread.
A few months ago, he announced he would have to close his bakeries, as he didn’t
have money to pay his large debt. Along the way, dozens of bakeries that sold their
products at higher prices also closed, as they couldn’t afford to offer the same prices.
Now a whole region of Spain doesn’t have any bakery; people have to buy bread at
supermarkets and gas stations. They can’t buy bread near their home.

6.- Lack of coordination between marketing and

sales departments
Not all companies have seasonal sales, but all of them have peak sales and months
with fewer sales.
Marketing actions should be coordinated with what should be sold in every period, but
this doesn’t always happen.
You shouldn’t pay for an ad when your company doesn’t have the best products to offer.
You may think this should be obvious, but many managers spend a lot of money on
campaigns that will never bring good  results for their marketing strategy.
If you access the social networks of several restaurants, you’ll see a clear example of
what I’m saying. If you look for restaurants on Facebook, you will probably find many of
them posting at 7 pm pictures of the food that was served for lunch.
What they should do at 7 o’clock in the afternoon is to talk about what their customers
will find when they leave work, or the menu they will have for dinner.
What you need is for the marketing department to know what to sell
and when to sell each product.
Following with the example of the restaurant. What is the benefit of posting photos of
soup that is very popular during the winter, but we are not offering today because it is
very hot? Who, in his right mind, will want to get soup in the middle of summer?
A store should not create a promotion for selling fans during the winter. A fashion store
should not invest in ads to sell coats during the summer. We could give you many more
examples, but I think you already understood what we are trying to say.
And that brings us to the next common marketing problem:

7.- Not having a marketing plan

Every company, large, small or medium has an established schedule, they know when
they will allow their staff to go on vacation, they know when to pay their taxes, when to
buy new products.
But very few companies, small and medium, have a marketing plan. It is vital to know
which products or services should be advertised to encourage the sales, or when they
should do it.
To create an effective marketing plan, you’ll need to know when it’s
best to sell something or another.
For example, the number of divorces increases considerably in late summer, when
couples return to their daily routine after the vacation. Lawyers will get more clients
advertising their services in the late summer than during the holidays.
In early summer, many people start looking for gyms because they want to lose a few
pounds. If you are preparing a marketing plan for a gym, this is the best time to start
spreading your activities and attract some of these customers who are looking for a
gym.
Planning means doing things at the right time, not just because you think you should try
something different.

8.- Lack of Brand Image, Professional Reputation,

Personal Branding
Every business has a certain reputation, whether negative, neutral or positive. Without
this reputation, you can’t exist as a company.
The reputation will change and possibly improve over time. You should have a
recognizable, differentiable brand image of your competitors.
The style you impose on your business, your decor, your professionalism, your
products, your after-sales service. Many factors will help create a good brand image. A
good professional reputation will be key to getting new customers
and doing new business.
This reputation can make all the difference to customers who will have to decide, often
unconsciously, if they will trust one brand or another. The example we can use here are
the lawyers. A lawyer with a good reputation can get more money. If many people say
this lawyer can win all the legal petitions, he will be the first choice of people who want
to win their legal actions. The same thing happens with doctors, mechanics, dentists,
etc.
If you can’t be recognized for your professionalism, you can try to create a positive
reputation based on the decoration of your store, or how you help your customers, in a
warm environment, or on other factors that are relevant to you and your customers.
Every company has to be clearly recognized and have a unique brand identity. Ideally,
professionalism should be the main differential, but this is not absolutely necessary.
I’m thinking about the bad reputation of a well-known multinational store dedicated to
fashion that always offer low prices.
Customers who enter their stores don’t receive help or good treatment from sellers (who
usually just fold shirts), but many people continue to buy from them, due to a
fundamental factor: quality and low price.
9.- Not having a good online presence
As we pointed out above, today everyone has a smartphone in their pocket connected
to the internet. At any time, anyone can be looking for our items or products and if we
are not online, we will lose those sales.
Having a good online presence is not having an outdated website,a  blog in which you
don’t publish anything, a page in a social network where you just advertise your articles,
just a few photos.
A good online presence means that your website must be active and be functional. You
need to offer several contact options, with an active support staff to help your customers
to solve their problems and doubts so that they can trust you.
The same goes for emails.
Ricardo Llop, a reference in electronic commerce in Spain stated that the first thing he
does when he enters his office is to respond to his emails.
And the last task he does before going home to rest is to answer the emails in his inbox.
The difference between responding to an email now or leaving a customer waiting for 8
hours is that you will sell more if you provide fast support.
With social networks, you need to be just as careful. They should not be your primary
sales channel. Think about your social networks as a thematic television channel about
your business. You should create a channel where visitors can find information about
decoration, travel (on the theme of your sector and the products you are selling). You
can use this channel to talk about your products, but not just about them.
It is obvious that if you own a restaurant, you should advertise your menu on your social
networks.
But if you really want to attract followers, you need to talk about more than that, for
example on the products used in the meals, with general tips about how to improve
eating habits, etc.
Also, all social networks have options for sending and receiving private messages. It is
a perfect sales and after-sales channel. You should also always respond to all
comments from your customers and followers.
Responding to these comments is fundamental to show to your customers that you are
listening to them.

Market Opportunities
1. Consumer segmentation

To understand your demand, you must identify consumer segments that share
common characteristics. These characteristics can be “hard” variables such
as age, gender, place of residence, educational level, occupation and level of
income or “soft” variables such as lifestyle, attitude, values and purchasing
motivations.

Hard variables can help estimate the number of potential customers a

business can have. For example, a nappies/diapers producer should know
how many children under 3 years live in a certain country as well as the birth
rate. Soft variables can help identify motivations that lead to purchasing
decisions including price, prestige, convenience, durability and design.

An example of how segmentation can help identify market opportunities is

Aguas Danone, a bottled water company in Argentina. Several years ago the
company´s sales were falling and they were looking for a new product. Aguas
Danone identified two drivers behind non-alcoholic drinks consumption: health
and flavor. Bottled water was perceived as healthy but did not offer the
attribute of good taste. Soft drinks and juices tasted good, but were perceived
as highly caloric. The company realised there was an opportunity for healthy
drinks offering both taste and flavour. As a result, they launched flavored
bottled waters Ser with great success. According to data from Euromonitor
International, Aguas Danone has been the leader of Reduced Sugar
Flavoured Bottled Water in Argentina since launching in 2002, beating giants
such as Coca Cola and Nestlé. As of 2016, Aguas Danone still had 57% off-
trade value share of Reduced Sugar Flavoured Bottled Water as well.

2. Purchase situation analysis

Purchase situations must also be examined to uncover expansion

opportunities. Questions to ask when reviewing purchase analysis are:

 When do people buy our product or service?

 Is it when they need it?
 Where do people make the purchase?
 How do they pay?
Looking at distribution channels, payment methods and all other
circumstances that involve purchasing decisions can teach you how
consumers buy and how you can position your product appropriately. Offering
new shopping alternatives may bring new customers. For example, vending
machines offering snacks like yoghurt and individual juices have been
introduced in the hallways of the subway of Santiago de Chile, promoting on-
the-go consumption.

Another aspect to explore is the acceptance of different means of payment.

For example, Amazon recently launched Amazon Cash in the US, enabling
consumers without credit cards to shop online by adding credit to their
personal Amazon accounts.

3. Direct competition analysis

In addition to analysing demand and purchasing situations, it is important to

analyse supply. Knowing the existing players in the market where you are
competing or going to compete is important when evaluating opportunities. 
Relevant questions in this case are:
 What are the products and brands of our industry that are growing more
significantly and why?
 What is their value proposition?
 What competitive advantage do we have over them?
For example, SKY airline, competing in the Chilean market against a notably
positioned brand such as LAN, found there was an opportunity to differentiate
itself with a low cost model, which until then had not existed in Chile. SKY
lowered its costs, by eliminating complimentary food and beverages for all
passengers during flights and in doing so lowered its ticket prices. This helped
the company increase its share of carried passengers from 10% in 2008 up to
20% in 2017, according to Euromonitor International.

4. Indirect competition analysis

Opportunities can also be found by analysing substitute industries. For

example, thanks to the decrease in airfares, airlines may look for opportunities
in consumer segments currently supplied by other means of transport.  Air
carriers should research how many people travel on long-distance buses and
trains, which routes are the most in-demand, how much travelers pay for their
tickets, what the occupation rate of long-distance buses and trains is and what
is necessary to persuade a current passenger of buses or trains to choose to
travel by plane instead. This type of analysis helps establish competitive
advantages against indirect competitors and provide insight on additional
opportunities for growth.

5. Analysis of complementary products and services

Companies should monitor the performance of other companies’ products,

which are complementary to their own. For instance, a packaging company
should monitor sales of products that it could potentially package, while a
company producing coffee machines should gather insights on the evolution
of different types of coffee sales. Trends in complementary markets should be
taken into account when making investment decisions.
6. Analysis of other industries

In some cases, the objective of companies is not to continue operating within

an industrial sector but to expand a certain business model or philosophy.  For
example, a British holding of companies, Easy Group, started maximising the
occupancy rate of flights with the airline Easy Jet. Easy Group understood that
it was preferable to sell a seat at a lower price than not selling it at all. Easy
Jet opted for a rate management model that depended on the occupancy rate
of flights and the time remaining until the day of the flight. With this business
model, it managed to increase occupancy rates. Easy applied the same model
to cinemas when it created Easy Cinema and then with buses for Easy Bus. In
any case, to enter a new industry it is important to learn about competition
first: market sizes, market shares, growth rates, unit prices, per capita sales
and brands positioning.

7. Foreign markets analysis

When a company operates in a mature or saturated market, exploring other
countries may lead to additional opportunities. Markets in different countries
grow at different paces for several reasons, including disparities in the level of
economic development and local habits. Knowing the evolution of per capita
consumption of a given product in a given country can serve as an indicator of
the maturity of the product’s life cycle. Having information on the size of the
market and competitors in other countries will help to estimate the business
potential.

In addition to product sales, you can also investigate what happens in more
developed countries in terms of consumption habits. For example:

 What is the percentage of people who use the smartphone to pay for their
purchases?
 What is the market share of private labels in a certain industry?
Answers to those questions in more developed countries can serve as
indicators of the potential the indexes have in their own country. On the other
hand, monitoring what happens in other countries may lead to new products
or services present still absent in your current market.

8. Environment analysis

Market opportunities can also be identified by analysing changes in the

environment with technological and scientific developments generating new
business opportunities. For example, the growth of the Internet and
smartphones’ penetration has enabled the arrival of companies with new
business models such as Airbnb and Uber. According to Euromonitor
International, the share of mobile internet subscriptions to mobile telephone
subscriptions in the world was 20% in 2011, reaching 53% in 2016.  And while
globally only 17% of households possessed a smartphone in 2011, this
percentage reached 45% in 2016. Beyond mobile and the Internet, artificial
intelligence, robotisation, internet of things, biotechnology and renewable
energy sources also provide multiple business opportunities.

Changes in a country’s regulatory framework can also create opportunities.

Since June 2016, Chile requires companies to include labels on products high
in calories, sodium, sugars and saturated fats. This obligation may represent a
growth opportunity for healthier products not affected by the new labels.
Euromonitor International expects product sales in Chile will be impacted
depending on the product type. Obtaining more market research on category
and product sales in Chile may help identify categories that have growth
opportunities for new products without labels.

Other transformations in the environment such as climate change, geopolitical

movements and changes in financial markets also influence market
opportunities. It is imperative to consider using market research to gain insight
on the local business environment; ensuring that your strategy will flourish in a
new or developing marketplace.

Consumer segmentation, purchasing decisions, direct and indirect

competitors, complementary products and services, industry, foreign markets
and environmental analysis are the eight types of analysis that will help your
organization identify new market opportunities. Using a variety of analysis will
help your business gain a holistic view of opportunities and help create long-
term strategic business plans. Once opportunities are identified, companies
must move quickly to create a plan. It is necessary to develop a value
proposition, plan the commercialization chain and estimate costs, revenues,
cash flows and financing needs. Not all market opportunities identified will
succeed but experimenting will give answers on the potential of each.

To minimize the costs of failed opportunities, pilot testing new products,

services or business models can be performed in controlled areas. Risks in
pilot testing include alerting the competition about your strategy. This risk
must be compared against the risk and cost of launching a new product at a
global scale and failing. When pilot testing many experiments will fail, but
some will succeed and be developed at a larger scale.

What is a mission statement, exactly?

A mission statement "declares the purpose of an organization and defines the
reason for the company's existence," according to Business News Daily. It's
different from a slogan, which is a marketing phrase designed solely to catch
the attention of potential customers. It's also different from a vision statement,
which is longer and is designed to lay out your company's future. Also, while
your mission statement might be incorporated into your business plan, it's not
intended to describe the nuts and bolts of operating.

Mission statements are as varied as individual companies, but the really

outstanding ones do have certain characteristics in common:
1. They are short and punchy
A mission statement shouldn't be an essay. You'll have better luck aligning
your employees when they can remember what your mission statement
actually is, instead of recalling it merely as a wall of words on a sign
somewhere. Likewise, it should not be written in corporate jargon. Gee
Ranasinha, CEO of marketing firm Kexino, puts it this way: "Mission
statements need to be written using words and sentences that 'normal' people
use and understand."

Casual dining giant Darden Restaurants has truly mastered the art of brevity.
Its mission statement: "To nourish and delight everyone we serve." Darden
saves a deeper dive into their company's values for their employee page, on
which they go into much more detail.

2. They start with an action verb

It's helpful to read a few online lists of the very best mission statements. For
instance, in this list you'll notice that most of the statements have an action
word at the beginning of the statement. After the word "To..." you see such
words as "inspire," "create," "reinvent," "give" and so on. Although there are
variations in which some companies describe what they are going to "be"
rather than what they're going to "do," the majority use very active phrasing.
3. They are specific
Your mission statement should reflect the specific nature of your business and
define your company culture and character. Check out two different
statements, demonstrating this point. Here's an example: "Deliver to
customers and employees." Would you be able to tell what kind of product this
company is selling? Now compare the first example with, "To discover,
develop and deliver innovative medicines that help patients prevail over
serious diseases." This statement, from Bristol-Myers Squibb Company, tells
you precisely what the company does.

4. They are directed both inside and

outside
Here's an example of a statement that's only inner-directed: "The company's
primary objective is to maximize long-term stockholder value, while adhering
to the laws of the jurisdictions in which it operates and at all times observing
the highest ethical standards." Would this persuade you to become a
customer? They are actually a dairy product wholesaler, but their mission
statement is almost solely directed at their own staff and stockholders.

In contrast, Patagonia's statement is addressed to everyone on the outside as

well as on the inside: "Build the best product, cause no unnecessary harm,
use business to inspire and implement solutions to the environmental crisis."
Customers will gain confidence when they read this statement, while
employee motivation will be strengthened by the clear articulation of goals.

5. They are revisited every few years

Mission statements must grow with the company. Regardless of how carefully
you plan the path of your business, the passage of years will inevitably bring
evolution. In order to keep your company's mission statement absolutely
relevant, it should be reevaluated every few years. While you may not need to
entirely rewrite it, companies often find that it's necessary to add something to
a mission statement as they move forward with development.

Starbucks provides a great example of corporate evolution. In the beginning,

their mission statement was, "To establish Starbucks as the premier purveyor
of the finest coffees in the world while maintaining our uncompromising
principles as we grow." Nothing wrong with that -- but as they grew, they
wanted to express something more. Their current mission: "To inspire and
nurture the human spirit - one person, one cup and one neighborhood at a
time." Clearly this illustrates a shift in the company culture, and would be
noticed by customers as well as by employees.

6 BEHAVIOURS OF HIGHLY
SUCCESSFUL MARKETERS
2. Passion for marketing

Without passion you have nothing. If you don't believe in your craft, then it is
impossible to ever be successful. By having passion for marketing, you will always be
the first person to learn a new marketing technology, technique or way in which to do
something better. Education is paramount to marketing success as the marketing
game changes every single day and a good marketer knows when to change with it, or
stay true to the current game plan.

2. Creativity

Creativity isn't just about art. It is about thinking outside the box, and delivering
upon business goals in the most innovative and creative way possible. If you have
zero dollars to play with, a creative marketer can still executive a multimillion dollar
marketing campaign. They know that there is more than one way in which to execute
a successful marketing campaign and more creative they are, the more impactual the
result.

3.  Technology-savvy

No marketer can get by without understanding how technology supports

and powers marketing campaigns. If you are not using technology to its
utmost, then it is impossible for any marketing campaign to be successful. Knowing
about influencer scraping, marketing automation, big data and the internet of things
is just part of the equation. There is literally thousands of options out there. A good
marketer knows their stuff and is aware of what marketing technologies are must-
haves and which ones to leave by the wayside.

4.  Goal setting

Not only do successful marketers know how to set goals, they also are acutely aware
of the power of communicating those goals to the people around them. Without
exception, strong marketers have a goal in mind and adjust the plan when it
needs to be adjusted to ensure that those goals are met. You won't find a successful
marketer without this mindset.

5.  Exceptional communication skills

An exceptional marketer has communication skills that every other

marketer envies. They know that in order to achieve their goals, they need to be
able to get 100% buy-in from everyone around them and be able to communicate
what they are doing and the successes that they achieve. They set clear goals,
communicate them and make other accountable for their role in achieving the
desired outcomes. All successful marketers know how to write an email that gets
results, and verbally communicate to people across the entire organisation in an
empowering way.

6.  Surround themselves with people that are more capable than

themselves

Highly successful marketers, and I am talking HIGHLY successful marketers

are smart. They use their intelligence and know-how to source the right people for
their team. They always select people that are more capable of doing their part in the
equation better than they can do themselves. They work collaboratively and reward
the team along the way for small wins. Every team member has their back and is
doing their utmost to make the "highly successful marketer" proud of their
contribution to the team.

A highly successful marketer stands out from the crowd. They are disruptive by
nature. They self-promote in a way that makes everyone around them feel like it
isn't personal. They have 6 behaviours that make other marketers stand back and
wish they were more like them. They deliver upon promises and always pick people
to work on their team that will make them look good. 

They respond to situations with a level-head and adapt and evolve when need be.

A highly successful marketer always reaches their goals, no matter how many times
they have to intuitively make hard decisions along the way. It's their game plan that
sets them apart!
 10 common marketing
challenges
These are some of them and if you work or manage your own business, you will surely feel
identified with most of these issues:

1.- Not knowing how to explain the product or

service you want to sell
Often, being an expert on a product doesn’t make you the best person to sell it.
You know the features of your product, the manufacturing steps, the materials used, the
best applications, but you don’t know how to explain your product to the possible buyer,
for whom all these hundreds of product features matter little because he is just looking
for one of them.
Any item or service should be explained from the customer’s
perspective. What is the customer looking for when evaluating this
service or product?
Price, quality, reliability, for something that will solve a problem, that will make his life
more comfortable, or elevate his social status.
The business owner, a freelancer, a merchant, a liberal professional, someone in
charge of selling your products or services; or vendors and clerks, waiters at bars and
restaurants, all of them should receive training to learn how to sell your products, with
instructions on how the product can help potential customers.
“Your product or service is not good because it’s yours, it’s good because your
customers want to buy it.
This brings us to the next problem, especially at the beginning of any business:

2.- Not finding your market segment

Opening a business and think that all the inhabitants of the planet will love it is a very
common mistake many entrepreneurs make.
But if this entrepreneur has a little idea about social networks or simply has many
friends on his personal Facebook.
Let’s see some examples:
4.  A single person will not be interested in becoming a customer of
a lawyer dedicated to Family Law (divorces).
5.  If a seller goes to a nursing home to sell articles for
mountaineering, he will not be able to find potential customers.
6.  Distributing pamphlets in a high school with the Rolls Royce’s
latest model is not a good strategy as it will not generate any sale.

Do you understand what I mean?

We all sell something to someone. The problem of small businesses and, above all, of
the entrepreneurs who are starting, is that they don’t have much data to determine who
is the ideal buyer for their product?
It is vital to pre-define your ideal buyer and your market segment.
By doing this, you will have a much clearer idea of the potential of your new business. If
you find that there are only a few customers interested in your articles or services, you
will know that you will have to create a targeted sales strategy to attract more
customers. Perhaps you could think and act as a local business, or if your product has a
larger audience, you could create an international sales strategy.
Also, you’ll know why your potential customers are looking for your
product or service.
They may be attracted to the novelty (especially in technological products), they may be
interested in price, quality, social status, in a temporary solution, etc.
Once you know what your ideal clients are looking for, you can explain better your
product, and you will have more sales and more advantages.

3.- Lack of commercial department

The commercial department is one of the most relevant parts of any successful
business. In times of financial crisis, a good commercial department can save your
company.
 So imagine what you can do during the good times. The problem is that we believe that
only the commercial department can sell and that other departments don’t have to worry
about it.
If you have a restaurant, all waiters should be good salespeople; your store employees
should be good salespeople, if you are a lawyer, you must learn to become a successful
seller.
Organize your small or medium business so that everyone can learn
how to sell your products or services.
Unfortunately, many companies don’t work hard enough to train all the collaborators to
become vendors, people able to offer their products or services for potential customers.
If you have a sales section and you have created a sales department, let them do their
work.
If someone stands out for his accomplishments, reward him, encourage other
collaborators to learn from him. You should be the first to learn from him and try to
improve.
A good salesperson can quickly identify what he will need to do to sell (he will work with
his boss asked him to sell). A good seller knows how to approach potential customers,
building customer loyalty, how to generate cross-selling (increasing revenue per
customer and the company’s profits)

4.- Invisibility of your business

Promoting your business should be one of your main tasks if you want to become a
businessperson. The problem arises when choosing the medium and the resources that
will be used.
Advertising a company is very simple and can be very cheap.
But if you use a medium that is not appropriate and you address people who are not
interested in your product or service, you will only have lost time and money.
Some of the platforms you can use to advertise your business are:
– Press releases, radio, and television (locally, regionally, nationally, internationally) or
ads on different platforms on the Internet.
 Leaflets on car windshields, in mailboxes, in the hands of people
passing by your store. Does it sound like “vintage”? But why not?
 Create a corporate blog, position it for your professional sector
and start showing the advantages of your company and all the
solutions you offer to improve the lives of your potential customers.
 Profiles and pages on social networks. Also, you can create paid
ads on these social networks, as the latest changes on many
algorithms don’t allow you to reach many people.
 Organize an event that also helps the community, so that the
media will spread the word about the event and therefore help spread
the word about your business.
 Even messages in WhatsApp can be a great way to publicize your
business and more since the arrival of the new “WhatsApp Business. “
But each of these forms of advertising is more efficient for a type of business than to
another.
Paying for an advertisement on a regional television channel if you run a small local
business will not help you much.
If you have a blog, but don’t update it, to talk directly to your readers about the
advantages of your business by posting articles, talking about your services, you are
missing an incredible opportunity to create engagement with your visitors.
Instagram is a platform used mostly by women, most of them use this social network
regularly. A priori, announce articles for men’s hygiene wouldn’t be a good option.
But as you know that this ad will be seen mostly by women, you can modify your
campaign to convince them to buy your products for their husbands, boyfriends,
companions, brothers. “
When it comes to advertising, the first thing to keep in mind is what you want to achieve.
Once you determine your goal, you should investigate the market to find out which
media or platforms are the best channels for your campaign.
●For example, posting an ad for men’s products in a magazine for girls and teenagers.
MISTAKE
● Publishing the same ad in a magazine dedicated to football, cars, etc. GOOD
STRATEGY
Local social networks and the online world are becoming vital for any marketing
strategy. We all carry a smartphone in our pocket and when we need to get something,
we can find it online:
“Where is the nearest open pharmacy to me, where to find a
locksmith, Best places to have lunch.”
5.- Problems with the price of your product
You may think that the price of what you are selling is not essential for your marketing
strategy. If that’s what you think, you are mistaken.
The price of the product is essential to the success of the company and should be
perceived as “fair” by your customers.
Would you be willing to pay $ 1,000 for a can of Coke? Never.
You will have to determine the price of your product taking into account, first, your
professional circumstances, and then try to find out how much your competitors are
charging for the same products.
Perhaps your competitors may not have the mortgages you have to pay; they may not
need to pay the staff you have to pay, or they are on business for a long time, which
means they can have some advantages or agreements with manufacturers or
distributors and can offer more competitive prices that would make your business
impractical.
This is why you must first determine how much you will need to charge for the product.
You will need to find out what the minimum amount you can charge is, so you don’t win
or lose, the limit by which, if you charge less, you would lose money no matter the
number of items you sell.
Once you know the price, the next step will be to “decorate” the product so your
potential customers will buy from you and not from your competitors.
A coffee usually costs about the same in any bar, the quality of the service, the
decoration, the environment, the professionalism of the waiters are what will make the
difference.
Competing for prices is a dangerous strategy that, in the long term, usually will not work
well. A few years ago, a baker dropped the price of bread.
For a while, he was very successful. He made very little money, but he was selling a lot
of bread.
A few months ago, he announced he would have to close his bakeries, as he didn’t
have money to pay his large debt. Along the way, dozens of bakeries that sold their
products at higher prices also closed, as they couldn’t afford to offer the same prices.
Now a whole region of Spain doesn’t have any bakery; people have to buy bread at
supermarkets and gas stations. They can’t buy bread near their home.

6.- Lack of coordination between marketing and

sales departments
Not all companies have seasonal sales, but all of them have peak sales and months
with fewer sales.
Marketing actions should be coordinated with what should be sold in every period, but
this doesn’t always happen.
You shouldn’t pay for an ad when your company doesn’t have the best products to offer.
You may think this should be obvious, but many managers spend a lot of money on
campaigns that will never bring good  results for their marketing strategy.
If you access the social networks of several restaurants, you’ll see a clear example of
what I’m saying. If you look for restaurants on Facebook, you will probably find many of
them posting at 7 pm pictures of the food that was served for lunch.
What they should do at 7 o’clock in the afternoon is to talk about what their customers
will find when they leave work, or the menu they will have for dinner.
What you need is for the marketing department to know what to sell
and when to sell each product.
Following with the example of the restaurant. What is the benefit of posting photos of
soup that is very popular during the winter, but we are not offering today because it is
very hot? Who, in his right mind, will want to get soup in the middle of summer?
A store should not create a promotion for selling fans during the winter. A fashion store
should not invest in ads to sell coats during the summer. We could give you many more
examples, but I think you already understood what we are trying to say.
And that brings us to the next common marketing problem:
7.- Not having a marketing plan
Every company, large, small or medium has an established schedule, they know when
they will allow their staff to go on vacation, they know when to pay their taxes, when to
buy new products.
But very few companies, small and medium, have a marketing plan. It is vital to know
which products or services should be advertised to encourage the sales, or when they
should do it.
To create an effective marketing plan, you’ll need to know when it’s
best to sell something or another.
For example, the number of divorces increases considerably in late summer, when
couples return to their daily routine after the vacation. Lawyers will get more clients
advertising their services in the late summer than during the holidays.
In early summer, many people start looking for gyms because they want to lose a few
pounds. If you are preparing a marketing plan for a gym, this is the best time to start
spreading your activities and attract some of these customers who are looking for a
gym.
Planning means doing things at the right time, not just because you think you should try
something different.

8.- Lack of Brand Image, Professional Reputation,

Personal Branding
Every business has a certain reputation, whether negative, neutral or positive. Without
this reputation, you can’t exist as a company.
The reputation will change and possibly improve over time. You should have a
recognizable, differentiable brand image of your competitors.
The style you impose on your business, your decor, your professionalism, your
products, your after-sales service. Many factors will help create a good brand image. A
good professional reputation will be key to getting new customers
and doing new business.
This reputation can make all the difference to customers who will have to decide, often
unconsciously, if they will trust one brand or another. The example we can use here are
the lawyers. A lawyer with a good reputation can get more money. If many people say
this lawyer can win all the legal petitions, he will be the first choice of people who want
to win their legal actions. The same thing happens with doctors, mechanics, dentists,
etc.
If you can’t be recognized for your professionalism, you can try to create a positive
reputation based on the decoration of your store, or how you help your customers, in a
warm environment, or on other factors that are relevant to you and your customers.
Every company has to be clearly recognized and have a unique brand identity. Ideally,
professionalism should be the main differential, but this is not absolutely necessary.
I’m thinking about the bad reputation of a well-known multinational store dedicated to
fashion that always offer low prices.
Customers who enter their stores don’t receive help or good treatment from sellers (who
usually just fold shirts), but many people continue to buy from them, due to a
fundamental factor: quality and low price.

9.- Not having a good online presence

As we pointed out above, today everyone has a smartphone in their pocket connected
to the internet. At any time, anyone can be looking for our items or products and if we
are not online, we will lose those sales.
Having a good online presence is not having an outdated website,a  blog in which you
don’t publish anything, a page in a social network where you just advertise your articles,
just a few photos.
A good online presence means that your website must be active and be functional. You
need to offer several contact options, with an active support staff to help your customers
to solve their problems and doubts so that they can trust you.
The same goes for emails.
Ricardo Llop, a reference in electronic commerce in Spain stated that the first thing he
does when he enters his office is to respond to his emails.
And the last task he does before going home to rest is to answer the emails in his inbox.
The difference between responding to an email now or leaving a customer waiting for 8
hours is that you will sell more if you provide fast support.
With social networks, you need to be just as careful. They should not be your primary
sales channel. Think about your social networks as a thematic television channel about
your business. You should create a channel where visitors can find information about
decoration, travel (on the theme of your sector and the products you are selling). You
can use this channel to talk about your products, but not just about them.
It is obvious that if you own a restaurant, you should advertise your menu on your social
networks.
But if you really want to attract followers, you need to talk about more than that, for
example on the products used in the meals, with general tips about how to improve
eating habits, etc.
Also, all social networks have options for sending and receiving private messages. It is
a perfect sales and after-sales channel. You should also always respond to all
comments from your customers and followers.
Responding to these comments is fundamental to show to your customers that you are
listening to them.

Market Opportunities
1. Consumer segmentation

To understand your demand, you must identify consumer segments that share
common characteristics. These characteristics can be “hard” variables such
as age, gender, place of residence, educational level, occupation and level of
income or “soft” variables such as lifestyle, attitude, values and purchasing
motivations.

Hard variables can help estimate the number of potential customers a

business can have. For example, a nappies/diapers producer should know
how many children under 3 years live in a certain country as well as the birth
rate. Soft variables can help identify motivations that lead to purchasing
decisions including price, prestige, convenience, durability and design.

An example of how segmentation can help identify market opportunities is

Aguas Danone, a bottled water company in Argentina. Several years ago the
company´s sales were falling and they were looking for a new product. Aguas
Danone identified two drivers behind non-alcoholic drinks consumption: health
and flavor. Bottled water was perceived as healthy but did not offer the
attribute of good taste. Soft drinks and juices tasted good, but were perceived
as highly caloric. The company realised there was an opportunity for healthy
drinks offering both taste and flavour. As a result, they launched flavored
bottled waters Ser with great success. According to data from Euromonitor
International, Aguas Danone has been the leader of Reduced Sugar
Flavoured Bottled Water in Argentina since launching in 2002, beating giants
such as Coca Cola and Nestlé. As of 2016, Aguas Danone still had 57% off-
trade value share of Reduced Sugar Flavoured Bottled Water as well.

2. Purchase situation analysis

Purchase situations must also be examined to uncover expansion

opportunities. Questions to ask when reviewing purchase analysis are:

 When do people buy our product or service?

 Is it when they need it?
 Where do people make the purchase?
 How do they pay?
Looking at distribution channels, payment methods and all other
circumstances that involve purchasing decisions can teach you how
consumers buy and how you can position your product appropriately. Offering
new shopping alternatives may bring new customers. For example, vending
machines offering snacks like yoghurt and individual juices have been
introduced in the hallways of the subway of Santiago de Chile, promoting on-
the-go consumption.

Another aspect to explore is the acceptance of different means of payment.

For example, Amazon recently launched Amazon Cash in the US, enabling
consumers without credit cards to shop online by adding credit to their
personal Amazon accounts.

3. Direct competition analysis

In addition to analysing demand and purchasing situations, it is important to

analyse supply. Knowing the existing players in the market where you are
competing or going to compete is important when evaluating opportunities. 
Relevant questions in this case are:

 What are the products and brands of our industry that are growing more
significantly and why?
 What is their value proposition?
 What competitive advantage do we have over them?
For example, SKY airline, competing in the Chilean market against a notably
positioned brand such as LAN, found there was an opportunity to differentiate
itself with a low cost model, which until then had not existed in Chile. SKY
lowered its costs, by eliminating complimentary food and beverages for all
passengers during flights and in doing so lowered its ticket prices. This helped
the company increase its share of carried passengers from 10% in 2008 up to
20% in 2017, according to Euromonitor International.

4. Indirect competition analysis

Opportunities can also be found by analysing substitute industries. For
example, thanks to the decrease in airfares, airlines may look for opportunities
in consumer segments currently supplied by other means of transport.  Air
carriers should research how many people travel on long-distance buses and
trains, which routes are the most in-demand, how much travelers pay for their
tickets, what the occupation rate of long-distance buses and trains is and what
is necessary to persuade a current passenger of buses or trains to choose to
travel by plane instead. This type of analysis helps establish competitive
advantages against indirect competitors and provide insight on additional
opportunities for growth.

5. Analysis of complementary products and services

Companies should monitor the performance of other companies’ products,

which are complementary to their own. For instance, a packaging company
should monitor sales of products that it could potentially package, while a
company producing coffee machines should gather insights on the evolution
of different types of coffee sales. Trends in complementary markets should be
taken into account when making investment decisions.

6. Analysis of other industries

In some cases, the objective of companies is not to continue operating within

an industrial sector but to expand a certain business model or philosophy.  For
example, a British holding of companies, Easy Group, started maximising the
occupancy rate of flights with the airline Easy Jet. Easy Group understood that
it was preferable to sell a seat at a lower price than not selling it at all. Easy
Jet opted for a rate management model that depended on the occupancy rate
of flights and the time remaining until the day of the flight. With this business
model, it managed to increase occupancy rates. Easy applied the same model
to cinemas when it created Easy Cinema and then with buses for Easy Bus. In
any case, to enter a new industry it is important to learn about competition
first: market sizes, market shares, growth rates, unit prices, per capita sales
and brands positioning.
7. Foreign markets analysis
When a company operates in a mature or saturated market, exploring other
countries may lead to additional opportunities. Markets in different countries
grow at different paces for several reasons, including disparities in the level of
economic development and local habits. Knowing the evolution of per capita
consumption of a given product in a given country can serve as an indicator of
the maturity of the product’s life cycle. Having information on the size of the
market and competitors in other countries will help to estimate the business
potential.

In addition to product sales, you can also investigate what happens in more
developed countries in terms of consumption habits. For example:

 What is the percentage of people who use the smartphone to pay for their
purchases?
 What is the market share of private labels in a certain industry?
Answers to those questions in more developed countries can serve as
indicators of the potential the indexes have in their own country. On the other
hand, monitoring what happens in other countries may lead to new products
or services present still absent in your current market.

8. Environment analysis

Market opportunities can also be identified by analysing changes in the

environment with technological and scientific developments generating new
business opportunities. For example, the growth of the Internet and
smartphones’ penetration has enabled the arrival of companies with new
business models such as Airbnb and Uber. According to Euromonitor
International, the share of mobile internet subscriptions to mobile telephone
subscriptions in the world was 20% in 2011, reaching 53% in 2016.  And while
globally only 17% of households possessed a smartphone in 2011, this
percentage reached 45% in 2016. Beyond mobile and the Internet, artificial
intelligence, robotisation, internet of things, biotechnology and renewable
energy sources also provide multiple business opportunities.

Changes in a country’s regulatory framework can also create opportunities.

Since June 2016, Chile requires companies to include labels on products high
in calories, sodium, sugars and saturated fats. This obligation may represent a
growth opportunity for healthier products not affected by the new labels.
Euromonitor International expects product sales in Chile will be impacted
depending on the product type. Obtaining more market research on category
and product sales in Chile may help identify categories that have growth
opportunities for new products without labels.

Other transformations in the environment such as climate change, geopolitical

movements and changes in financial markets also influence market
opportunities. It is imperative to consider using market research to gain insight
on the local business environment; ensuring that your strategy will flourish in a
new or developing marketplace.

Consumer segmentation, purchasing decisions, direct and indirect

competitors, complementary products and services, industry, foreign markets
and environmental analysis are the eight types of analysis that will help your
organization identify new market opportunities. Using a variety of analysis will
help your business gain a holistic view of opportunities and help create long-
term strategic business plans. Once opportunities are identified, companies
must move quickly to create a plan. It is necessary to develop a value
proposition, plan the commercialization chain and estimate costs, revenues,
cash flows and financing needs. Not all market opportunities identified will
succeed but experimenting will give answers on the potential of each.

To minimize the costs of failed opportunities, pilot testing new products,

services or business models can be performed in controlled areas. Risks in
pilot testing include alerting the competition about your strategy. This risk
must be compared against the risk and cost of launching a new product at a
global scale and failing. When pilot testing many experiments will fail, but
some will succeed and be developed at a larger scale.

What is a mission statement, exactly?

A mission statement "declares the purpose of an organization and defines the
reason for the company's existence," according to Business News Daily. It's
different from a slogan, which is a marketing phrase designed solely to catch
the attention of potential customers. It's also different from a vision statement,
which is longer and is designed to lay out your company's future. Also, while
your mission statement might be incorporated into your business plan, it's not
intended to describe the nuts and bolts of operating.

Mission statements are as varied as individual companies, but the really

outstanding ones do have certain characteristics in common:

1. They are short and punchy

A mission statement shouldn't be an essay. You'll have better luck aligning
your employees when they can remember what your mission statement
actually is, instead of recalling it merely as a wall of words on a sign
somewhere. Likewise, it should not be written in corporate jargon. Gee
Ranasinha, CEO of marketing firm Kexino, puts it this way: "Mission
statements need to be written using words and sentences that 'normal' people
use and understand."
Casual dining giant Darden Restaurants has truly mastered the art of brevity.
Its mission statement: "To nourish and delight everyone we serve." Darden
saves a deeper dive into their company's values for their employee page, on
which they go into much more detail.

2. They start with an action verb

It's helpful to read a few online lists of the very best mission statements. For
instance, in this list you'll notice that most of the statements have an action
word at the beginning of the statement. After the word "To..." you see such
words as "inspire," "create," "reinvent," "give" and so on. Although there are
variations in which some companies describe what they are going to "be"
rather than what they're going to "do," the majority use very active phrasing.

3. They are specific

Your mission statement should reflect the specific nature of your business and
define your company culture and character. Check out two different
statements, demonstrating this point. Here's an example: "Deliver to
customers and employees." Would you be able to tell what kind of product this
company is selling? Now compare the first example with, "To discover,
develop and deliver innovative medicines that help patients prevail over
serious diseases." This statement, from Bristol-Myers Squibb Company, tells
you precisely what the company does.

4. They are directed both inside and

outside
Here's an example of a statement that's only inner-directed: "The company's
primary objective is to maximize long-term stockholder value, while adhering
to the laws of the jurisdictions in which it operates and at all times observing
the highest ethical standards." Would this persuade you to become a
customer? They are actually a dairy product wholesaler, but their mission
statement is almost solely directed at their own staff and stockholders.

In contrast, Patagonia's statement is addressed to everyone on the outside as

well as on the inside: "Build the best product, cause no unnecessary harm,
use business to inspire and implement solutions to the environmental crisis."
Customers will gain confidence when they read this statement, while
employee motivation will be strengthened by the clear articulation of goals.
5. They are revisited every few years
Mission statements must grow with the company. Regardless of how carefully
you plan the path of your business, the passage of years will inevitably bring
evolution. In order to keep your company's mission statement absolutely
relevant, it should be reevaluated every few years. While you may not need to
entirely rewrite it, companies often find that it's necessary to add something to
a mission statement as they move forward with development.

Starbucks provides a great example of corporate evolution. In the beginning,

their mission statement was, "To establish Starbucks as the premier purveyor
of the finest coffees in the world while maintaining our uncompromising
principles as we grow." Nothing wrong with that -- but as they grew, they
wanted to express something more. Their current mission: "To inspire and
nurture the human spirit - one person, one cup and one neighborhood at a
time." Clearly this illustrates a shift in the company culture, and would be
noticed by customers as well as by employees.

Traditionally, most organisations define their business in terms of

what they make (‘our business is glass’). But over a period, when
products and technologies become obsolete, their mission is no longer
relevant. So mission should be stated in terms of serving a particular
group of clients or customers and/or meeting a particular class of need
rather than products or services the organisation is offering at present.

2. Achievable:
The mission statement should be realistic and achievable. It should
open a vision of new opportunities but should not lead the
organisation into unrealistic ventures far beyond its competencies.

For example, the mission statement “we are in the business of

problem solving. Our business is to help solve
administrative, scientific, and human problems” of an
organisation manufacturing ‘office equipment’ sounds well and is
appropriate.
ADVERTISEMENTS:

3. Motivational:
A well-defined mission provides a shared sense of purpose ‘outside’ of
the various activities taking place within the organisation.

4. Specific:
A mission must be specific and provide direction and guidelines to
management. In other words, ‘to produce the highest quality products
at the lowest possible cost’ sounds very good, but it does not provide
direction for management.

Example of a Mission Statement:

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We shall be a value-driven group in the business of ‘EPC projects and

PMC services’ in the fields of Food Processing, Cement, Petro chemical
& Refinery, Oil & Gas, Chemicals & Fertilizers, Co-generation &
Captive Power Plants and select special projects. We shall endeavour
to synergise strengths of all groups of our company for delighting our
customers through.

1. Quality products, services and safe practices,

2. Effective project and risk management skills,

3. Up-to-date integrated Information Technology,

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4. Access to state-of-the-art technology backed by strong in-house

R&D base, and

5. In-house manufacturing capabilities, and Innovative Financing.

We shall continue to provide reliable post-commissioning support and

work towards promoting eco-friendly environment.

Example of a Mission Statement and Supporting

Organisational Policies:
The mission statement of an organisation having sophisticated
strategic planning systems, sometimes, includes major policies it plans
to adhere to in the pursuit of its mission. Such policies establish the
ground rules for the organisation in its relationships with government,
customers or clients, suppliers, distributors and creditors.

An example of such a document is shown below:

It is basic purpose of this organisation, in all of its decisions
and actions, to attain and maintain in the following:
1. A continuous, high level of profits, which places it in the top bracket
of industry in its rate of return on invested capital.

2. Steady growth in profits and sales volume and investment at rates

exceeding those of the national economy as a whole.

3. Equitable distribution of the fruits of continuously increasing

productivity of management, capital and labour among stockholders,
employees, and the public.

4. Design, production and marketing on a worldwide basis, of

products and services that are useful and beneficial to its customers, to
society and to mankind.

5. Continuous responsiveness to the needs of its customers and of the

public, creating a current product line that is ‘first in performance’ and
a steady flow of product improvements, new products, and new
services that increase customer satisfaction.

6. A vital, dynamic product line, by continuous addition of new

products and businesses and prompt termination of old products and
businesses when their economic worth, as measured by their profit
performance, becomes substandard.

7. The highest ethical standards in the conduct of all its affairs.

8. An environment in which all employees are enabled, encouraged

and stimulated to perform continuously at their highest potential of
output and creativity and to attain the highest possible level of job
satisfaction.

A Holistic Marketing Orientation and Customer Value

A holistic marketing orientation can also provide insight into the process of
capturing customer
value. One conception of holistic marketing views it as "integrating the value
exploration,
value creation, and value delivery activities with the purpose of building long-
term, mutually satisfying relationships and co-prosperity among key
stakeholders."16 According to this view, holistic marketers succeed by
managing a superior value chain that delivers a high level of product quality,
service, and speed. Holistic marketers achieve profitable growth by expanding
customer share, building customer loyalty, and capturing customer lifetime
value. Figure 2.3, a holistic marketing framework, shows how the interaction
between relevant actors (customers, company, and collaborators) and value-
based activities
(value exploration, value creation, and value delivery) helps to create, maintain,
and renew customer value.
The holistic marketing framework is designed to address three key management
questions:
1. Value exploration - How can a company identify new value opportunities?
2. Value creation- flow can a company efficiently create more promising new
value offerings?
3. Value delivery- How can a company use its capabilities and infrastructure to
deliver the new value offerings more efficiently?
VALUE EXPLORATION Because value flows within and across markets that are
themselves
dynamic and competitive, companies need a well-defined strategy for value
exploration.
Developing such a strategy requires an understanding of the relationships and
interactions among three spaces: (1) the customer's cognitive space; (2) the
company's competence space; and (3) the collaborator's resource space. The
customer's cognitive space reflects existing and latent needs and includes
dimensions such as the need for participation,
stability, freedom, and change.17 The company's competency space can be
described in terms of breadth—broad versus focused scope of business; and
depth—physical
versus knowledge-based capabilities. The collaborator's resource space involves
horizontal
partnerships, where companies choose partners based on their ability to exploit
related market opportunities, and vertical partnerships, where companies
choose partners based on their ability to serve their value creation.
VALUE CREATION To exploit a value opportunity, the company needs value-
creation skills. Marketers need to: identify new customer benefits from the
customer's view; utilize core competencies from its business domain; and select
and manage business partners from its collaborative networks. To craft new
customer benefits, marketers must understand what the customer thinks about,
wants, does, and worries about. Marketers must also observe who customers
admire, who they interact with, and who influences them.
Business realignment may be necessary to maximize core competencies. It
involves three steps: (1) (re)defining the business concept (the "big idea"); (2)
(re)shaping the business
scope (the lines of business); and (3) (re)positioning the company's brand
identity (how customers should see the company). This is what Kodak is doing
as sales from its traditional core businesses of film, camera, paper, and photo
development have sagged, and consumers have abandoned film cameras for
increasingly cheaper digital equipment, products, and services. On September
25, 2003, Chairman and Chief Executive Daniel A. Carp stood in front of
shareholders and unveiled the company's new strategy. He announced that
Kodak was "determined to win in these new digital markets." In order to do that
the company plans to expand its line of digital cameras, printers, and other
equipment
for consumers, who are now using the Internet to transmit and display their
digital images. Kodak also is stepping up efforts to deliver on-demand, color
printing products for business and wants to increase its market share of the
lucrative medical images and information services businesses.18
VALUE DELIVERY Delivering value often means substantial investment in
infrastructure and capabilities. The company must become proficient at
customer relationship management,
internal resource management, and business partnership management.
Customer relationship management fallows the company to discover who its
customers are, how they behave, and what they need or want. It also enables
the company to respond appropriately,
coherently, and quickly to different customer opportunities. To respond
effectively, the company requires internal resource management to integrate
major business processes (e.g., order processing, general ledger, payroll, and
production) within a single family of software modules. Finally, business
partnership management allows the company
to handle complex relationships with its trading partners to source, process, and
deliver products.

What is Management By Objectives?

Management By Objectives (MBO) is an performance management approach in which
a balance is sought between the objectives of employees and the objectives of an
organization. The essence of Peter Drucker ’s basic principle: Management By
Objectives is to determine joint objectives and to provide feedback on the results.
Setting challenging but attainable objectives promotes motivation and empowerment of
employees. By increasing commitment, managers are given the opportunity to focus on
new ideas and innovation that contribute to the development and objectives of
organizations.

However, Peter Drucker sets a number of conditions that must be met:

 Objectives are determined with the employees;

 Objectives are formulated at both quantitative and qualitative levels;
 Objectives must be challenging and motivating;
 Daily feedback on the state of affairs at the level of coaching and development
instead of static management reports;
 Rewards (recognition, appreciation and/or performance-related pay) for
achieving the intended objectives is a requirement;
 The basic principle is growth and development not punishments.

Management By Objectives (MBO) is also known as Management By Results (MBR).

Management By Objectives steps
Peter Drucker has developed five steps to put Management By Objectives into practice:

1. Determine or revise the organizational objectives

Strategic organizational objectives are the starting points of management by objectives.
These objectives stem from the mission and vision of an organization. If an organization
has not formulated these yet, it does not make sense to carry out the next steps.

2. Translating the organizational objectives to employees

In order to make organizational objectives organization-wide, it is important that these
are translated to employee level. For efficiency reasons, Peter Drucker used
the SMART Goals acronym SMART (Specific, Measurable, Acceptable, Realistic and
Time-bound). The element Acceptable is crucial in management by objectives as this is
about agreement on the objectives between the employees and the organization. The
management by objectives principle does not allow management to determine the
objectives by themselves. According to management by objectives, objectives should
be clearly recognizable at all levels and everyone should know what their
responsibilities are in this. Communication is also an important item for consideration
when it comes to expectations, feedback and to giving rewards for objectives that have
been achieved.

3. Stimulate the participation of employees in the determining of

the objectives
The starting point is to have each employee participate in the determining of personal
objectives that are in line with the objectives of the organization. This works best when
the objectives of the organization are discussed and shared throughout all levels of the
organization so that everyone will understand why certain things are expected of them.
In this way, everyone can make their own translation of what their contribution can be to
the objectives. This approach increases the involvement and commitment of the
objectives. Instead of simply following expectations of managers and executives,
everyone in an management by objectives approach will know what is expected of
them. By broadening the decision making process and responsibility throughout the
organization, people are motivated to solve the problems they are faced with in an
intelligent manner and they are given the information they need so that they can be
flexible in the changing circumstances. This participatory process ensures that personal
objectives with respect to general team objectives, department objectives, business unit
objectives and ultimately organizational objectives are made clear.

4. Monitoring of progress
Because the goals and objectives are SMART, they are measurable. If they cannot be
measured, a system will have to be set up in which a monitoring function is activated
when the objectives are deviated from. Detection must be timely so that large problems
can be prevented. On the other hand, it is important that the agreed objectives do not
cause abnormal behaviour of employees for example. For instance, when a service call
must be handled within seven minutes and as a result employees finish these calls after
6 minutes and 59 seconds to meet this requirement. There are always exceptions to a
rule and these situations should always be supervised.

In Management By Objectives, employees are not supported by their management

through annual performance reviews. Management By Objectives is about growth and
development. Each objective comprises mini objectives and it is about supporting these
in small steps in the form of coaching by managers or executives. Create a clear path
with sufficient evaluation moments so that growth and development can be monitored
accurately.

5. Evaluate and reward achievements

Management By Objectives has been designed to improve performance at all levels
within an organization. A comprehensive evaluation system is therefore essential. As
goals and objectives have been SMART formulated, they make the evaluation of
processes very easy. Employees are evaluated and rewarded for their achievements in
relation to the set goals and objectives. This also includes accurate
feedback. Management By Objectives is about about why, when and how objectives
can be achieved.

MBO: Management by Objectives

(8 Elements)
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Elements in the MBO Process:

There are some elements which are common to all the MBO processes.

The basic steps of MBO process are described as follows:

1. Central Goal Setting:
The first step in the process of MBO is to define and verify
organizational objectives. These objectives are generally set by the
central management and usually in consultation with the other
managers. Before setting these objectives a detailed assessment will be
made of the resources available.

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Proper market surveys and research will be conducted and business

forecasts will be made. This detailed analysis will highlight the
desirable long run as well as short run objectives. An attempt should
be made to make the objectives specific and realistic. Once the goals
are established these should be made known to all the members of the
organization and will be clearly understood by them.

2. Departmental and Individual Goal Setting:

After setting the organizational objectives, the next step is to set the
departmental objectives. The top management should discuss the
objectives with the departmental heads so that objectives can be
mutually agreed upon. Each department sets its long range and short
range objectives with the approval of the top management.

After setting the departmental goals, the subordinates work with their
respective managers to set their own goals relative to the
organizational goals. Such participative objectives are important
because people become highly motivated in achieving the objectives
set by them. The goals of the subordinates will be specific and short
range and indicate what the subordinates unit is capable of achieving
in a specified period of time. The individual members who comprise
the unit should also be consulted by the subordinate. In this way each
member of the organization is involved in goal setting.
3. Revision of Job Descriptions:
Under MBO, resetting of the individual goals will call for a revision of
the job descriptions of various positions which in turn, will call for the
revision of the whole organizational structure. The organizational
charts and manuals will be amended to depict the changes brought in
by the MBO. The job description of various jobs will now define their
objectives, responsibilities and authority. The relationship of one job
with other jobs in the organization should also be clearly established.

4. Matching Goals and Resource Allocation:

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Setting of objectives does not mean anything in itself unless resources

and means to achieve these objectives are also provided. Thus, the
subordinates must be provided necessary tools and materials by the
managements, so that they can achieve their goals effectively and
efficiently. The resource allocation should also be made in
consultation with the subordinate. If goals are precisely set, resource
requirements can be precisely measured which will make the resource
allocation very easy.
5. Freedom of Implementation:
The manager subordinate task team should be given complete
freedom in deciding how to utilize the resources and how to achieve
the objectives. There will be minimum or no interference by the
superiors so long as the manager-subordinate team works within the
overall framework of organizational policies.

6. Establishing Check Points:

MBO ensures periodic meetings between the manager and his
subordinate to discuss the progress towards the accomplishment of
the targets of the subordinates. For this the manager must establish
check points or standards of performance for evaluating the progress
of the subordinate. The standards should be specified quantitatively as
far as possible and the subordinate must understand them fully. This
practice should be followed by each manager with his subordinate and
it should lead to key result analysis as targets or goals are represented
in terms of results. The key result analysis should be reduced to
writing.

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It generally contains the following information:

(i) The overall objectives of the job of the subordinate.

(ii) The key results he must achieve to fulfill his objectives.

(iii) The long term and short term priorities of tastes he must adhere
to.

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(iv) The scope and extent of assistance he expects from his superior
and related departmental managers and the assistance he must extend
to other departments.

(v) The nature of information and reports he will receive to carry out
self evaluation.

(vi) The standards by which his performance will be evaluated.

7. Appraisal of Performance:
While informal performance appraisal of a subordinate is done by his
manager almost every day, there should also be periodic review of
performance. These periodic reviews are necessary since priorities and
conditions are constantly changing and these must be constantly
monitored. These reviews will assist the managers and subordinates in
modifying either the objectives or the methods if and when necessary.
This increases the chance of success in meeting the goals and makes
sure there are no surprises at the final appraisal. The periodic
performance appraisal should be based upon fair and measurable
standards so that the subordinates are fully aware and understand the
degree of performance they have made at each step.

8. Counselling:
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The performance review conducted at periodic intervals assist the

subordinate in improving his performance in the future. The superior
will discuss with the subordinate the ways and means to remove
deficiencies in performance and advise him as to how his efficiency
can be improved. MBO is basically a future oriented process and
motivates employees to think about the future in terms of “where they
are going.”