Business S & M

Let's be honest, no car dealership has made a sale based on the merit of its commercials. Growing up, I blamed the quality (or lack thereof) on the rinky dink cable provider in central New Jersey. But having lived in Boston and Orlando since, I've easily concluded that the talent and strategies of the dealers are to blame. Car dealerships are an easy target, but they represent an underlying problem--driving sales through hard and up-selling rather than using a marketing plan.

Every region in the country has its own clowns, but Orlando's are too good for me not to share. Take Scott Dance, for instance, and his little gremlin of a daughter, Grace. Perhaps Scott thinks that by oppressing his daughter into servitude that he'll feed me that "family vibe" and make me want to rush out to buy a car from him. He themed his 4th of July commercials around a "Ho Down" (What? Yup) and opted for a "Camelot" theme for Labor Day (Again, what?) where he and Gracie dress up as a king and princess. Competitor David Maus has no camera presence in his ads, looking incredibly awkward with one hand on his hip and the other gesturing like Bill Clinton. My favorite part about Dave's strategy is that he changes his slogan for almost every commercial. "Right here, right now." "Whatever it takes." "Give us the opportunity." "I hate consistency." "I'm begging you." Tom Parks, another dealer in central Florida, belives an animated dog named "Mr. Unbelievable" will do the trick. Again, I'm picking on car dealerships, but the problem spreads far beyond.


Why does no one place any importance on marketing? How come when Joe Blow starts a real estate company, he hires his wife or sister to be the Director of Marketing? As a marketing major, it's insulting! It's not just logos, colors, and party planning, unbeknowst to the majority. Strategy, positioning, utilzing effective channels, innovators and early adoptors, copywriting, demographics, psychographics...if you have no idea what any of these are, and you plan on running a business, you're in trouble my friend. The problem is that any chimp with a new banana can become Chiquita's top seller. It takes personality and passion to be a great salesman. It takes a fundamental understanding of business to be a great marketer...bingo, there it is. Unfortunately, sales directly create revenue while marketing efforts need to be tracked to see the impact, and a lot of companies don't have the time, resources, or even desire to do so. As we all know, 90% of salespeople will pitch to anyone with a pulse and forget about the client as soon as he leaves the door and his check clears. Marketers aim to find the ideal customer for the product and stay with him for life, because they understand the value of building relationships. Think about it, if you could identify exactly who needed your product and found out the best way to reach them, the battle's already half-won! It's like fishing with dynamite! To borrow a horrible analogy from Alice and Wonderland--if you reach a fork in the road without a marketing plan to tell you which way to go, then surely either way will do.

Accounting and finance jobs will always be placed atop the business food chain because money makes the world go round and "if it don't make dollars then it don't make cents." In a time when companies are struggling to stay afloat, leaders should be looking to the future to grow their businesses in a way that makes most sense for the consumers instead of cutting low-level do-bitches. Marketing Plans for Dummies should be on the New York Times Best Seller list every week, but the people who would benefit most from the book likely don't even realize they need it. Maybe the author needs a better marketing plan.