Marketing Internally

Yesterday was talking to a friend of mine, and she said something that stuck with me. She said, in effect, that : " We don't care about the Organization we represent, we don't care what impact our work will have on the Brand, the perception or the future prospects of our employers with the customer." And you know what, she is right. I have observed many times that as employees, we fail to see the larger purpose, we fail to see beyond the current realities. Haggling with customers and partners, we forget where the brick goes into the wall.

What am I driving at? I am driving at the problem of selling internally, which leaders are facing right now, and which will become more and more acute without focussed action. Generating enthusiasm amongst employees, and creating the buzz internally, making them believe in the vision that, lets face it, they are going to delivering is going to be the toughest job for leaders going forward. Every frontline employee is a marketer, and influence the perception of the organization in the customers mind. All the investment in careful marketing and PR is gone to waste if the customer facing personnel do not re-inforce the carefully crafted image. And no, you cannot legislate enthusiasm, cannot make a policy making it mandatory. It is a big problem, also a huge opportunity....

On acceptance of Mediocrity

Seth points to Andy Monfried’s post on lowering of standards. Great post, a must read, one to ponder on. Must warn you that the rest of this post bears no relation to what Andy says.

We live in a world which accepts mediocrity too easily. This is specially true for India, still feeling the after effects, after 60 years of independence, of British Raj and then the amazingly hare-brained Nehru Raj (Must say at this point that Nehru’s heirs have maintained the same “high” standards). We accept bomb blasts, corruption, poor infrastructure, poverty, impotent and stupid governance, and meaningless, inane rhetoric by the “rulers” as a matter of course. We condone the suppression of freedom of expression and right to equality, we keep restricting the growth of free enterprise and we keep electing the same nincompoops in government again & again. Sometimes I wonder if a democracy is geared towards mediocrity. Have the great western democracies prospered because of, or inspite of democracy? But, undoubtedly, it is the best system of governance available thus far, and more power to it. Enough ranting…the needless losses of life yesterday in Kashmir & Mumbai still rankles. It will go away soon; it always does, until the next time.

By the way, I bet that we won’t see any action to deter this from happening again, no getting at the root cause (I hope we know where the camps are) and effectively discouraging the abettors (read our friendly neighbor). What we will get, in plenty, is rhetoric, propaganda, hollow speeches, calls for calm and more security for our “rulers”. Well, we are not branded cheap just like that; life in India costs just the one local train ticket….

Category:Gyaan, Rants