The End of Marketing As

The End of Marketing As We Know It by Sergio Zyman.

Zyman is the former marketing honcho at Coke. So outspoken that he earned the nickname Aya-cola.

I would hate to work for this blowhard. His premise is that traditional marketers are clueless dolts who don't focus on business results or making sales. Zyman, of course, has the answers (even though he orchestrated the New Coke fiasco which he now repositions as a success). Again and again, he states the obvious as if it were news:

You don't make any money until you sell the stuff, and you can't sell the stuff until you've gotten people to want it. And that's what marketing does.

Zyman's pitch is the old line-is-good, staff-is-bad bullshit. I could substitute "training" for "marketing" and get a credible book on training, e.g.,

One of the biggest reasons that training directors often lack the discipline that they need to achieve their desired results is that they do not do a good job of defining what those results should be.

This is getting back to my point that training directors focus too much on tasks and not enough on results.

If you want to be successful, then you must clearly define, in detail, what success looks like. Then you've got ot figure out how to get there.

If you want to establish a clear image in the minds of [trainees], you first need a clear image in your own mind.

Make strategic thinking a way of life. What I mean is that you have to think about everything. You have to look around you. You have to see what is really going on. You have to understand the connections among seemingly different things, and then you have to form an opinion that will serve as the basis for how you are going to act, and what you are going to do.

Constantly test and measure the results of everything you do.

Reward excellence and punish mediocrity.

Have a sense of urgency, and work with passion. Otherwise, what's the use of getting up in the morning?

I bought Zyman's book at Half Price Books for $1. The price was right.