Part from my new book:
B2B marketing – Cookbook for beginners
The Holy Basic Questions of Marketing
I always pay attention to new marketing tools from a professional point of view, as well. Due to this, now in 2021, besides my several other addictions, I have become a TikTok addict. This way an extraordinary window has opened for me on the problems and the thinking of the young generations. It is a huge experience now considering that I’m over 60.
As I see (how surprising), one of the main problems of youth is finding a partner. Numerous videos on TikTok show young girls and boys telling what expectations they have concerning their future spouses. To my astonishment, for example, the number one condition for girls is if she messages him, he should react quickly.
Well, the older generation (over 30), has a lot more nuanced view of the ideal partner. Then, even fewer get to the point, which I also agree with, namely that it is worth clarifying the basic questions about the other right at the first date:
- Are they mentally grown-up, responsible, autonomous? Have they got bonding disorders?
- Have they separated from their parents? Do they live on their own?
- What addictions do they have?
- Do they have purposes, ambitions, long-term plans?
- Have they gotten over their previous partnerships, exes, have they moved on, are they prepared mentally for a new partnership?
The trouble is that, based on these questions, only 3-5% of the potential partners would pass this test. Dating is difficult!
I am telling you all about it because there are similar questions in the case of businesses, as well, that determine the ‘spiritual health’ of a company. For businesses, I call these questions ‘The Holy Marketing Questions’:
- What does your company do?
- What value do you give? What problem do you solve?
- In what ways are you different from the rivals?
- Who are your customers?
- What is the general image of your business?
These questions mean at least the same kind of watershed as the first date one outlined above and, unfortunately, as I have experienced, only 3-5% of businesses can give correct answers to these questions.
Since, if the answers are correct, success is guaranteed. If not, then it is worth taking Obi-Wan Kenobi’s advice: Go and consider your life!
To see it from another point of view: there is a really interesting graph in psychology, it is named after its creator, it is called Johari Window. It simply shows what things people may know about you. There are things that both myself and everybody know. There are things I hide I know about them, but no one else does. The most exciting is what everyone knows but me (like undone flies). And there are, of course, things that neither I nor others know.
| Things I | |||
| know | don’t know | ||
| Things others | know | free activities
|
blind spot |
| don’t know | hiding | unknown activity
(dark spot) |
|
You are in the same position with your company. Business leaders have a huge blind spot: a lot of things are visible from the outside, while at the same time, they remain completely unnoticed from the inside. That is why you need these questions; you should persuade yourselves to notice your blind spots.
Note: I have already given a lot of advice to several businesses and a lot of CEOs have taken part in training sessions of mine on this issue. I have always noticed that they find this section boring. They would rather hear at once about some kind of a customer-luring super-method. This may sound less exciting but believe me, it is crucially important.
If I used partnerships as an example, let me share the conclusions of a psychologist acquaintance of mine. She said, despite being a partnership advisor, lately, not partners but single people visit her and they find it impossible to build up a normal relationship. As a good psychologist, she can see it soon that the main reason is that it is the client who suffers from troubles. There are a lot of childhood experiences, bad habits in them, and these poison them. This is why they cannot find a partner and if they do then they are poisonous. First, they should change themselves. Their personalities should improve, and then they could hope to have a much better partnership. But it is painful and requires an especially huge amount of work – a lot of them even get terrified of it.
Thus, I can see that these basic questions are boring for a lot of businessmen and they do not quite understand why I regard these as important.
Since, if we can give a correct answer to these questions, everything changes. All of a sudden, their website becomes exciting and interesting, their advertisements effective, their written materials are read by a lot, and with pleasure. Their salespeople are received, listened to, and they can immediately sell a lot more. The atmosphere of the whole company changes, people become motivated and enthusiastic, and numerous excellent people would like to work there. And results fly.