What makes a great marketing team?

David Gordon 

The same thing that made your company great - and for many companies, something they have gone away from - entrepreneurism.

Successful marketers are innovators, willing to take risks and seize opportunities.  This is why, for the most part, independent distributors are more creative, and better, marketers.  It is also the reason why small to mid-sized manufacturers are able to compete very effectively.

There are 5 characteristics of entrepreneurial companies.  They are:

1. Focused - understand where the company is perceived, where the opportunities are and the company's vision

2. Cheap - Seek the highest value at the lowest cost, and ensure that you are your market's low cost provider.  Consider how Dell is so successful.

3. Competitive - Know your competition.  Wake up every morning thinking "How can I outperform them today?"  Keep an eye on them, and the customer; identify trends and understand how your customers and your suppliers perceive you versus your competitors.  What is your positioning?

4. Imaginative - To stand out and capture attention, you must be creative.  Doing what has been done creates parity.  Unfortunately being imaginative involves a 4 letter word - work.  Creating teams to stimulate new ideas is essential.

5. Have a high tolerance for risk - having the confidence of your convictions to seek new markets, to be the first in your market to offer a new service, to be creative, to point your company in a new direction, to listen to others (customers, suppliers, customers' customers) - in essence, to be different.

With most companies undergoing some level of downsizing this past year, ensuring that your culture hasn't changed is a challenge.  As you prepare for 2003, how can return the entrepreneurial spirit of your company to take market share?

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Article Highlights

Contributing Writer

Get connected and gain a competitive advantage

John Salvadore

Vice President & General Manager

Vanguard National Alliance

Have you ever wondered what it would be like if you were the sole provider of electrical supplies to a customer? That would be a situation that doesn’t happen often. The reason why is because in just about every market you have multiple distributors vying for the same business. Thus one asks how they can make their company different from the competition. How can you exploit your strengths and gain share?

In order to gain share and grow your business you have to understand the competition and try to figure out what they have been doing and why the customer continues to do business with them. So how does one go about finding out what it will take to become the number one supplier? You have to start with the customer himself or herself and dig deep for answers.   It is here where the sales team has to play a major role in understanding the issues that the client base has, it is their responsibility to obtain information and position their organization as one that adds value. Good sales managers make this “information gathering” and building new clients a part of the sales team compensation structure. As information is gathered it becomes a part of the company wide database for all to use

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