So many marketing consultants say that marketing is about understanding the reason you are in business, do you believe that is true? They report that to be true and they even write books about the subject, gives seminars, go on radio talk shows and even sell business cassette tapes for business executives and small businessmen to listen to stating that; Marketing is about understanding the reason you are in business. But is it true? Is marketing really about understanding the reason your business? About a decade ago ServiceMaster was asked by a marketing consultant why they were in business? One of the executives said that they were in business to provide jobs for lower income America; those people who could not find jobs or were unqualified or trained to do higher-end jobs? Eventually the rest of the ServiceMaster executive team had agreed upon that. They were all applauded by governments regulators and politicians and they even promoted this attitude in their public relations. However, if you ask me, I think that is rather pathetic. Businesses are in business to make money. Not simply provide jobs for underprivileged folks. First we must consider that the unemployment rate right now in the country is 4.9 percent and anyone who really wants a job and is not doing crystal meth or on some other sort of drug has a job. So in this case, the ServiceMaster Company is no longer needed and may as well close out its business. If this is true what they say, then they should go out of business, but they dont why? Well, because it is not true. You see, businesses are in business to make money and their company is making money, perhaps even by exploiting those poor folks; who knows? It is not like their employees could not find jobs in this economy. Some marketing consultants say that businesses are in business to get customers. That is not necessarily true either. Sometimes it is better to make more money off the customers you currently have and have a small number of customers that pay a lot of money and in this case you do not want new customers because it comes with training and educating those new customers and it can cost a lot of money to go out in market and get those customers. Businesses are in business to make money and a blanket statement that says they are in business to provide jobs or to get more customers is simply not so. Anyone who proclaims this as the reason that they are in business is kidding them selves. If you kid yourself as to why you are actually in business then you will not perform at the optimal level to make money, which is and should remain their primary and main goal. Consider this in 2006. |
