From 99 Marketing Traps and How to Avoid Them*
Problems inspire roundtable autopsies.
A national account lost, a product recall costing millions, a much-anticipated new product launch that falls flat, a field sales star who defects to a competitor – these are the crises that bring together management teams to determine what really went wrong and why. (And, oh yeah, maybe who’s to blame.)
The marketing function is particularly vulnerable to these inquiries, because what marketing does is so measurable, even if the only measurements available are top-line growth and return on investment. And there’s nothing wrong with looking into what went wrong and why.
The residual of any crisis should be lessons learned. But that’s the mindset of a business more concerned with avoiding losses than realizing new victories.
Why are these kinds of autopsies reserved for disaster analysis? Aren’t there learnable lessons to be gained from successes? Isn’t the template for future success most likely to be found in victories already won?
How to Help a Brand that Has Fallen into This Trap:
Probing the why behind business success is an under-appreciated and under-utilized operational skill.
Knowing why always yields better decisions. The problem is that most companies are better prepared for negative than positive autopsies. We seem naturally more inclined to focus when a problem is involved.
However, when you are dissecting the causes and lessons of an event, whether desirable or undesirable, the process is the same.
Don’t take success for granted. Analyze it. Then duplicate it.
*Available now at Amazon.
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