The Anti-Marketer Report

Classic marketing people don't love me. I've been in interviews or meetings before where I didn't use the enough of right jargon or keywords, or God save me, acronyms, to prove myself competent. The truth is, my classic training is in financial/accounting, and my half an MBA which I can't afford the rest of, is focused on data analytics.

Over the last 30+ years, I've been immersed in small business marketing or solutions, which makes a person's eyes glaze when you hear what I'm going to do for you 'words'. When it starts to sound like the 17th creepazoid that has hit you up on LinkedIn for leads and digital marketing, then it's time to shut up for a while.

I guess what I have to say is that marketing starts to look different when you put these reality filters on your project:

• How big is the company you are serving and what numbers are going to bring the optimum profitability to the marketing? Some companies are custom or services and it's not going to make a flying flip if you provide the opportunity to make $30 million in revenue when they can't meet their customer's needs at that level with that size company.
• Some people wisely don't want to grow. They want to preserve the culture they have, and the people they have, and they want to go to soccer at 4 p.m. That's a conversation we need to have and I embrace that. I did that myself.
• People used to want a $500 website with lifetime changes; I'm dating myself back in time here. Now they can get that if they learn to do it themselves. I have no issues at all with people not knowing what they don't know, but disrespecting technology because you are ignorant and refuse to learn anything is a quality I don't admire.
• Experts are wrong Every. Single. Day. I cannot tell you how many times I have seen this. As a business owner, you get no credit for that. The buck will always stop with you.

I am not even sure what the point of this article is other than to open a dialogue of recognition of small businesses that may beat to a different drum or have specific goals that aren't the norm. 'Facts is facts' and numbers are numbers, and I suppose that it would be intriguing to hear how many marketers out there understand how to read financials or listen to management in that way.

If you are management, do you even know what you want? Have you had that hard conversation with marketing or your team and vocalized that? If there is one thing I learned in 'half my MBA' it's the Big M, that is Big M vs. little m -- making sure that the entire marketing plan (I'd prefer another word than marketing at the end of the day) is infused into the entire organization, and everyone, including the guy/girl who sweeps the floor, knows something about the true goal(s).

It is a beyond complex thing, this alchemy of company size, revenue potential, profitability, and market share. It is why so many business books fly off the shelves and will continue to do so because not a single soul has the magic formula. But I would like to see the financial conversation come up first as a measure of acuity as to answering the question, "Does my marketing have the capacity to meet the company's intentions short term and long term?" and "Do I as a CEO/founder/manager even know what our goal is?"

You'd be surprised how many don't.