It’s Time to Drain the Swamp

After 16 Blogs I trust you understand quite a bit more about the marketplace and marketing; what it is and is not; how there is so little marketing in the marketplace these days.

Between you and me, I hate what I see; so do many other people I speak to.

I’ll say it again…the big companies do not exist to serve customers; their sole purpose is to increase shareholder [i.e. owner] wealth; their customers simply provide the $$.

The Hayne Royal Commission has exposed banking as a business owned and run by a bunch of crooks; the financial planning industry is just as bad; put them together [i.e. banks financial planning arms] and it has been one huge rip-off for customers.

All marketplaces it seems are now swamped by charlatans, thieves, deceivers and fraudsters. Their money-making scams are rampant; inbuilt obsolescence and C.R.A.P. quality abound; fine print contracts and half-truths are the norm; over-promise and under-deliver is a common theme; even the tradie under-quoting then charging ‘extras’ is an example. The over-riding objective now is, just gimme the money!

President elect Trump declared he wanted to drain the Washington DC swamp; I reckon we should drain the Canberra swamp…but that’s another story!

YOU can drain YOUR marketplace swamp:

If you’re in business chances are you’re doing it tough. If you are then STOP playing the same losers’ game everyone else is playing.

Instead, play your own game; make up your own rules; base them on a ‘revolutionary’ definition of MARKETING; that is to communicate love.

This means treating people right because people matter; their needs are more important than yours; profit has to be relegated to a score-keeping role in the bigger game of loving, serving and caring.

People everywhere have had a gutsful of being shafted by the system; if you stop and think for a moment chances are you feel the same way. So stop shafting! To do so will require more than a discount and a smile.

Adopt another of my definitions – ‘SERVICE begins when your customer walks in; SERVING begins when your customer walks out’.

And never forget the 2 things people crave in life, relationships and business transactions; they are love & recognition.

GOOD NEWS:

As a business owner you have a big impact on PEOPLE – yourself, your customers, staff, suppliers, community and their families. Thus your new, people-focused, MARKETING strategy will have a multiplying impact. How amazing is that!

Yes, I appreciate there may be some ‘mongrel’ customers who want to make your life miserable; but focus on the other 96% who will really appreciate what you and the team are doing for them.

In a future Blog I will show you a way [‘the 3 P’s Strategy] to avoid ever having to do business with the 4% – it’s not nasty but positive, honoring an easy to implement.

Peter Fitzgerald, The Marketplace Spirit