Page 239 - (DK) The Business Book

SUCCESSFUL SELLING 237

See also: Stand out in the market 28–31 ■ Focus on the future market 244–49 ■ Make your customers love you 266–69 ■
Forecasting 278–79 ■ Marketing mix 280–83 ■ Maximize customer benefits 288–89

individually and collectively? The advised that a business centered
starting point is to fully explore the on the customer was the only sure
world in which the customer lives. way to realize growth. “There is
What are the basic motives that only one valid definition of business
drive buying decisions? What value purpose,” he wrote, and that is “to
does the customer place on price, Being customer driven … create a customer.” By this he
quality, and design? Among all is about building a deep meant that a customer’s willingness
the social, cultural, financial, awareness of how the to pay for goods or services is the
and technological forces in the customer uses your product. catalyst that propels businesses to
environment, which ones Ranjay Gulati turn raw materials and resources
particularly affect the customer? Harvard business professor into products for sale. Without the
A marketer wants to know the customer’s desire or need, there is
practical details of the customer’s no impetus for commercial activity;
daily life. How does that person live and conversely, without commerce,
on a day-to-day basis? Does he or nothing can be produced to meet
she have tasks that could be made the customer’s demand.
easier? What other kinds of problems Drucker suggested that when
could the company potentially all of the major economies of the customers buy something, they
solve? The goal of all this research, West, bringing to an end the upward are not thinking about the product
according to influential management growth that had, with the exception or service itself, but about the
thinker Peter Drucker, “is to make of a few slow years, persisted since usefulness of it to themselves.
selling unnecessary.” the end of World War II. Everyone in For them, value lies in the problem-
business was thinking about how solving ability of the purchase.
Beating the recession to survive the lean times ahead. Although Drucker’s idea is
In 1973, Drucker advised business Recession struck in the very now at the core of most modern
leaders to “know and understand same year that Drucker published marketing theory and practice,
the customer so well the product or the work that would later be hailed at the time it was a counter to the
service fits him and sells itself.” At as a masterpiece, Management: prevailing management approach
that time, the corporate world was in Tasks, Responsibilities and of the 1970s, which advocated the
turmoil as recession took hold across Practices (1973), in which he maximization of shareholder value. ❯❯

Peter Drucker One of the most quoted experts in unfolding, he moved to England
management and marketing, Peter as the Nazis rose to power,
Drucker was exposed to big ideas before settling in Los Angeles,
during his childhood years in where he became a professor of
Vienna, Austria. Born in 1909, politics, and later a professor
his father was an economist and of management. Drucker wrote
lawyer, and his mother was one of 39 books on the subjects of
the first women in Austria to study economics, leadership, and
medicine. The couple regularly management. He died in 2005.
held salons in their home and the
young Drucker was encouraged to Key works
sit in on these discussion evenings,
which were regularly attended by 1946 The Concept of the
prominent professionals. Corporation
Armed with a degree in Law 1954 The Practice of
from Hamburg University, and Management
with a budding journalistic career 1973 Management