"Eat what you shit in marketing"

Something I have applied to EVERY job and project I have undertaken has been founded (rightly or wrongly) with the saying that "you eat what you shit."

Profanity aside. I will explain why I believe in this marketing mantra so much.

Passionate, good people believe in what they do and the products that they sell. A motivated workforce can know their company is down, but will work to get it back up. They will stick around and fight and continue to fight.

The company I work for is in trouble, big trouble. That is not good news (but our PR team might well have you believe otherwise) - almost every person I know or talk to says it to me and nods. That is both inside and outside the corporate cloud.

Now I can't fix the company, but I do wish that one so good would apply the above philosophy. It might just help get us back up and running.

I am sure that few people who read this blog will have missed the apple launch. The iPhone is something. Apple may be masters of PR/Spin/Brand but they have something that other corporate companies just cannot grab in their minds - They have passionate employees who are ambassadors of the brand.

You can see this by Apple (see here) giving away an iPhone to every employee. Now, that is something. They told us it would be "revolutionary" and some (me included) thought this was just spin. But Apple went ahead and just created 30,000 very happy (and motivated) ambassadors.

In the big world of corporate America thats $12m dollars. Roughly what a competitor will spend on "corporate jets" & "corporate entertainment." (I kid you not). So continuing the comparison with others in the industry how can they commend the same loyalty and expectations in the employees mind, let alone the consumers?

True, I was given a phone on joining, but that has been it. Competitors to apple have released their own phones, but how many people can actually name them. We have put out our own product to compete with Apple. Critically, no samples for the staff. How can you create buzz if your own employees aren't even using the product?

My hat is off, and I bow to Apple. A simple gift of a phone to each employee sends out a message. They are on top and they know it, a simple thank you to the staff and a feeling of positivity. Ironic that in my inbox on the very same day was an internal email encouraging staff to buy a new phone for "Independence day."

Sort of feels that we may be looking in the wrong direction doesn't it?

Simple marketing 1 - Competition 0