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Billy Mays-Death of a true salesman

The passing of Michael Jackson had overshadowed all other news but I thought we should not miss out celebrating Billy Mays. I find Arthur Miller's play somewhat unkind to the sales profession and thus the "true" for Billy Mays. Billy Mays was a true salesman and a great pitchman on TV.

What makes personal selling so effective is that when you speak directly with a prospect,face to face and one to one, it has the biggest impact on closing the sale.To do so via television is very difficult and Billy Mays was very good at it . You wanted to believe him and put out the $20 or so that he suggested you spend to acquire a product that sure looked useful.He did the "convincing that it is useful" really well. To do so for a mass TV audience is a rare and remarkable skill.  My guess is that Billy Mays was not only able to sell the products he pitched but the products "stayed" sold. Probably customers who bought Billy Mays pitches returned less product as he upped the satisfaction levels right at the sell stage.

Here is a clip from the Tonight Show to learn enthusiasm from Billy Mays:

Google's April Fool - GMail Autopilot

Is this Google's April Fool joke ?

The Recession and Buyer-Seller (B2B) Relationships

Marketing and Supply Chain went through a paradigm shift in 1987 when Dwyer,Schurr and Oh published their article Developing Buyer-Seller Relationships. Since then many scholars have used the marriage analogy to understand long term B2B relationships, business markets (SRM)and even consumer markets (CRM ) . Every link of the supply chain is a B2B relationship and it needs to be stable like a solid marriage, so that the next link in the value chain gets reliable product or service.

NBC reports that divorce is down 49% in DC due to the recession as it is simply not affordable by both parties !Similarly I guess B2B relations tend to continue in a recession as it is too expensive and risky to look for new partners both on the buy side and sell side of the business.

On a lighter vein B2B marketers and Supply Chain Managers need to smile with the country song it's cheaper to keep her.

Closing Newspapers changing Ad World

I have found myself not signing up for subscriptions renewals for magazines and papers I love even when the rates are really cheap ( some as low as  10$/year promotional rate). It's simply that I can't find the physical magazine or paper when I need to find it. On the other hand, I can always find the same thing online- pretty easily.

Some time ago I had asked a Wall Street Journal subscription person if I could get only the online version, no - I was told because they need to sell the paper version to show the official "circulation" numbers. I guess - this was one of the drivers that drove the Newspaper business to the ground. Every region has its beloved paper going out of business. The Rocky Mountain News is one such example, closed just short of a 150 year run. How very avoidable!

Some reports suggest that Newspapers lost out to free online advertising on Craigslist. They also suggest that a slow move to "online" editions that were free ( like New York Times - now ) is another reason. I guess Newspapers did not understand the changing business they were in. The "news" business has been changing radically with the Internet and you can choose exactly what news you want to hear,read and see. Online Ad delivery systems like Google AdWords then appear with very relevant ads when you look at a particular news item online. The advertiser does not pay unless a reader actually clicks through. Sales results for Ad spending have become increasingly important- particularly in this tight economy and here again paper editions can't compete.

Should the print media be looking at "what business are we in" ? The perennial marketing question made famous by Theodore Levitt in 1960 in the Marketing Myopia  ....

From Culture's Consequences to "Project Match" - IBM needs to add home country fixed costs

IBM has come up with a rather controversial "Project Match" offer for laid off employees to work in "growth" markets in India, Nigeria, Eastern Europe etc. IBM is telling its laid off employees to look at opportunities in the IBM subsidiaries where the local market is growing. The catch is that you get paid the local salary which might be just 20% of the current home salary.

If your job is outsourced then the logic seems to be to  move you to the "source".

While IBM's idea seems blasphemous to a high cost country employee- it tells us something about the full circle that globalization has come to. In the 1980's IBM was perplexed as to why various subsidiaries understood and implemented "central commands" so differently. So the now famous Geert Hofstede was commissioned to figure out why this was so. Hofstede came up with culture's consequences and changed the way we look at national culture and its impact on work at subsidiaries of an MNC.

Today, what would a laid off IBM-US employee do with his/her kids college expenses and 401K and mortgage  if they took a job at 20% salary ? IBM and other multinationals need to look at the possibility of covering some of these "fixed" costs if the idea is to work.

But if you have an expat offer (which takes care of these costs) and have not yet been laid off - this is the time to take it up!

And change in modern cultures- Barack Obama

Barack Obama is the President Elect of the USA. Not many "young" cultures or countries or even "older" ones can claim to usher in such change. Remarkable and only in the USA !

An interesting dynamic of this election is the support of the American youth for Barack Obama. The Obama campaign was able to galvanize the youth,turn them out and since the Generation Y or echo boomers have great relations with their parents and grandparents this historic change became possible as the young were able to persuade their older relatives.

Now, time to get back to work!

Change in ancient cultures- "The White Tiger" by Aravind Adiga

 

Aravind Adiga has won the Man Booker Prize for his very first novel. Curious, I had placed a hold on the book at my town library and sure enough the book is in big demand and is on a strict 15 day turn-around.

Adiga has written a gripping tale and covers both India and China with the protoganist Munna  or "The White Tiger" writing from Bangalore as a now powerful taxi operator who provides taxi services to the call centers of big brand companies like Microsoft and so on. Munna is an "entreprenuer" writing to the Chinese Prime Minister (throughout the entire novel)  who is visiting Bangalore and wants to meet local Indian entrepreneurs to understand their story. The book is about Munna's evolution as an "entrepreneur" from abject  poverty based roots as a Rickshaw Puller's son.

The most fascinating thing about the book is the understanding that Adiga brings about the changing  ancient social structure in India. He does so in a sort of cynical manner highlighting rare betrayal by the servant of the master.  I rather prefer the lighter approach  of PG Wodehouse called the "feudal spirit"  where Jeeves is pretty much always loyal to Bertie Wooster. 

To Adiga's credit however, he does bring out continuity and change in the Indian social fabric as the economy booms and "catching up"  with China is on peoples' minds. Adiga's incredulous observation that dependable "servants" literally drive the economy is masterful. He mentions the diamond trade among others  where trustworthy assistants move around with millions in diamonds or cash with literally no "legal" controls and almost no problems. While "The White Tiger" or Munna is a deviant - you do get the feeling of continuity and stability in a  bizarre sort of way. Definitely worth a read.

Banking is a mess, B2B trust and Karl Marx smiles at "mother of all bailouts"

The "nationalization" of institutions like Freddie, Fannie, AIG and so on and so on reminds me of what we thought we had left behind, socialism, the socialistic pattern and communism. Marx would be smiling and his more moderate followers like "Fabian Socialists"  would be laughing more loudly. Nationalization protects the consumer somewhat but creates public sector monsters. But I digress...

B2B scholars, including myself, have been studying  trust the glue that holds business together for a while  (Read Morgan and Hunt's interview here). We all were studying industrial firms supplying nuts bolts and other verifiable stuff that went into a value chain. Then came along the Internet and the study of trust went on to "e-Trust" and so on.

Banking,Insurance, Finance  value chains were frankly not on the B2B scholarly radar. The fact that home values were being pumped up (by appraisers threatened by real estate brokers) , home owner incomes were not being verified ( by bankers - I am  not clear what the incentive/threat was ), and mortgages were instantly sold (at a discount as a fancy" instrument") and then resold again and again with no "value add" seem so obvious in hindsight. The truth came to me very sharply when someone on a TV talk show said that today bankers won't lend money to each other because they can't trust each other... this brings us to the mother of all bail outs aka nationalization and a smiling Karl Marx with a "V" sign.... more as things play out ..

Will Budweiser change?

The news that InBev has taken over Anheuser-Busch for $52 billion is a major event for both marketing and the supply chain.Although,initial reports suggest that the big benefit of the merger is the enormous brand power and marketing muscle  of "Bud" in the US market,it seems likely that the new management will review  some of the traditional advertising  that Budweiser has been known for.Also,a focus of the American entity will be to cut supply chain costs by $1.6 Billion.

College classrooms will suddenly find the enormous marketing teaching material developed around the "Budweiser" brand outdated. Marketing clubs routinely discuss the Superbowl ads, dominated by "Bud" and things may change there as well.Similarly the famous supply chain beer game will probably need some reworking.

In fact, the merger will throw up enormous opportunity and challenges,not only for the merged entity but entire armies of consultants,speakers,professors and students will suddenly have to take a fresh look at global alliances, in this case a merger, and it's impact on something we assumed would never change viz. Budweiser and it's larger than life dominance in the American psyche.

For starters, consider the InBev website's brand section that asks you your country of residence and date of birth while the Anheuser-Busch website asks you if you are over 21 and simply assumes US residence. All this will start changing as "Bud" becomes truly global.Similarly, before making any marketing changes in a great marketing formula, the new A-B-InBev organization should sure tread carefully lest we have one more "New Coke."

Tim Russert and father's day

Tim Russert's sudden passing yesterday was a shock to his millions of fans. I was an avid watcher of NBC's "Meet the Press" on Sunday mornings and will sorely miss him. But I am struck with the irony of his passing on father's day weekend where he had made his own father "Big Russ" famous through his books on the topic. Thousands of readers wrote back to him with their own stories and his books added a new meaning to Father's day. As an interviewer, he was highly prepared,pleasant but tough and explained politics in a manner that everyone got a better handle on issues including the folks being interviewed !

There are some really nice things to note about Tim Russert as a recent talk show on MSNBC suggested. Tim never forgot his humble roots and was constantly amazed at the progress he had made. He was an expert in politics but never let you feel that he was a "Pundit" and you were not. In fact his openness to listen and learn from  the "non-expert" probably added to his own expertise and fan following. Finally, as  Pat Buchanan was saying, at interviews and broadcasts Tim Russert went at issues taking neither a rightist nor leftist view, leaving the interviewed, audience and even rivals with the feeling that he was fair. Tim will be greatly missed.