Respect.....

David Ogilvy once famously said ‘the customer isn’t stupid, she is your wife’. So would you call your wife ‘a punter’?  I very much doubt it.

And yet too often in many businesses there is a tendency not only to consider customers as stupid, as morons, as cash cows. Look at the recent furore over the launch of England’s World Cup strip to see how prospective customers think they are being treated by Nike.

But not only are customers seen in this light but there is a tendency to refer to customers as ‘punters’. I so hate that term for the people who pay our wages. And if anyone doubts this consider what Henry Ford said ‘it is not the employer who pays our wages..we only handle the money..it is the customer who pays our wages’.

Surely then we should treat these very important people with more respect.

According to the OED  a punter is a prostitute’s client. Is that how we think of ourselves? As a prostitute doing anything we can to make some money? Hardly a noble profession.

Alternatively a punter is a person ‘who gambles, places a bet or makes a risky investment’. Do we really think that someone who buys our brand is making a bet or doing some risky? Surely the brand is more confident and self-assured than that?

So we would not refer to our wives as ‘punters’.  Surely we do not see our profession as akin to prostitution. And nor do we would consider anyone buying our brand as doing something risky.

Therefore it is not appropriate to call our customers ‘punters’.

So let us show due respect and deference to those who buy our brands, our products and services, and let us call them customers.

And maybe then we might stop thinking of them as stupid. 

You do the maths...

Last week I was in conversation with a young business school student I know who was specialising in marketing. Consequently he was less keen on the financial and accounting aspects of his course. He was rather surprised that despite his indifference to the numbers he was still getting ok marks in these papers.

This attitude is wrong.

Marketing and finance are not mutually exclusive concepts. It is important that marketers of all ages get the financial aspects of the business.

For one thing marketing is all about profitably meeting customer needs. How can you do this if you don’t understand the financials behind the proposition that is being marketed?

And for another thing marketers hoping to reach a general management position and even the board, and some marketers can and do reach such exalted positions, must have an understanding of the business model of the business in which they work and its commercial drivers, including the financials.

And lastly it is no use any marketer bemoaning that the finance people don’t understand marketing. Make them understand. And just like making any foreigner understand what you are saying, it helps so much if you speak their language.

And that is why marketers must learn to understand, appreciate and love the numbers. You will be a much better marketer if you do. And it really is not that difficult.

And if anyone wants to better understand the importance of being able to read the books. Watch ‘Dragons Den’. The one thing that lets anyone with a great and innovative idea down? They don’t get the numbers. Brilliant idea, brilliant marketing, brilliant sales but no idea how to monetise the marketing and make money.

So don’t give up on the numbers. You never know when they might come in handy.