Leaders and Losers: Marketing Management by Example
Posted by KevinE at 11/15/2007 10:48 PM and is filed under uncategorized 
I think that marketing “leaders” and marketing “losers” are often confused with each other.
Context:
- I was chatting the other day with a colleague about startups, and how I love the energetic people they attract.
- Of course, startups also attract some of (us) non-mainstream folks. We don’t like 9-5 jobs, or homogeneity, or micromanagement.
- The result: teams tend to be diverse… and that makes better marketing, in my opinion.
That said, someone looking at the team from the outside might say “Hunh. No suits, bunch of geeky non-beautiful people, odd habits and hobbies… losers”.
That same uninformed perspective tends to view people who can stand up in front of an audience of their peer executives and successfully lay blame on other groups for the company’s failure to perform as “leaders”.
Here’s my definition.
A “leader” is someone who can take any group of random people and form them into a cohesive team – recognizing each person’s strengths and weaknesses, and fitting them together like a jigsaw puzzle into appropriate roles, to create a performing unit.
A “loser” is someone who demands everyone conform to the “loser’s” pre-written job description; who complains that they never have enough of the right resources; who always has a great reason why something shouldn’t or can’t be done, and who will happily take personal success and financial payoff over team or company success.
So ask yourself – are you a loser or a leader? Are you led by a loser or a leader? What are you going to do about it?
Go do it. Today.
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[ps: Please buy my book. http://buynow.stupidmarketing.com -- and tell your friends!]
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