Here’s my second question to Gary Slack about the BMA Conference (PDF brochure)
B2Blog:
What’s the scoop about BMA’s theme of UNlearning? The conference’s banner shows a voltmeter at zero, does this mean we have to wipe out everything we know? What are we supposed to be relearning?Gary Slack:
Dave, the entire conference is going to be one hell of a discussion on these questions, with many opinions to be shared.Ralph Oliva, executive director of the Institute for the Study of Business Markets, our profession’s “think tank” or “research department,” will kick off the conference with 30 minutes of scene-setting remarks on certain things he believes b-to-b marketers have learned and take to the bank, some things we may need to relearn and some things he feels we need to unlearn.
I don’t want to steal Ralph’s thunder (nor could I copy his thunderous voice), but I will offer up one thing I personally think b-to-b marketers may need to relearn—and that is the importance of investing in early-stage marketplace familiarity with your company, brand, and products and services.
That’s the message, of course, of McGraw-Hill’s classic “Man-in-the-Chair ad (click for jpeg), created in 1958, where the gruff buyer responds to a hapless (and unseen) sales person by saying in so many words, “I don’t know who in the hell you or your company area.”
This message is important to relearn, as, in my opinion, we’re in an era in which way too many marketers (or the c-level execs they report to) think they can go from no or low awareness to a sale in just a few touches or sometimes even one, only to see their demand generation efforts under-perform or fail miserably trying to do the impossible.
With McGraw-Hill’s permission, we’re actually going to bring the “Man in the Chair” to life on stage during Ralph’s kickoff remarks on Wednesday, June 10. Without letting the entire cat out of the bag, don’t be surprised if there isn’t a second, modern-day but equally gruff buyer who might just say something (again to a hapless sales person) about how he Googled the sales person and his company in advance.
Sounds like the kick-in-the-pants us marketers, isolated from the day-to-day struggle of our salespeople, need. I submit my behind for some sorely needed kicking. 🙂
Well, based on their ad campaign for the conference, It looks like brains are what is going to get zapped. I’m a little less sure about being UNlearned, now!
What do you think? Are we too focused on the low-hanging, response-driven leads, and giving up on that early nurturing Gary thinks we need to tend to?