Building sales may require trust first
Maybe, as the recession lumbers on, you should follow Chuck Thomas' lead and focus your marketing on building trust, with some trust of your own that sales will follow.
That's not to say Thomas' approach to marketing, which he packages under the VALCORT acronym, is a last resort. In fact, Joe Slawek, president of Geneva-headquartered flavor developer FONA International, Inc., gives Thomas and VALCORT much of the credit for the fact that FONA has doubled in size over the past four years.
What's different is that VALCORT is based on the CEO's personal values and Thomas' assertion that "it's the CEO's values that drive the company. Virtually every CEO we talk to understands the importance of communicating his personal values throughout the organization."
Thomas is president of CTCreative, Inc., a St. Charles strategic marketing firm.
"We look for ways to create a better customer engagement," Thomas says. "Our clients are highly motivated. They know they must find new ways to get a higher level of customer commitment."
The goal is "to integrate (the CEO's) value vision through the organization because that will drive growth," Thomas says. The difficulty, at least until you buy into the values-and-marketing concept, is that the process "requires the client to open up."
VALCORT was created because Thomas, who once worked with large downtown ad agencies, "realized most (agencies) were idea factories - but the ideas were different from the ideals and values the (client) CEO holds." Consequently, Thomas says, marketing ideas and direction tend to change fairly frequently because none match up well with what the CEO seeks.
"Even in a $3 billion company, it's the CEO's values that drive the business," Thomas says.
VALCORT - values and vision; assets; lens on the market; creative; outreach; relationships and tracking - is structured to incorporate the CEO's values into the marketing-advertising process. Here's how the process worked at FONA International which, it must be noted, began the VALCORT introspection with an open corporate culture.
"Everybody wants to give you advice," Slawek says. "But (CTCreative) came and interviewed our people - many, many people - and learned about FONA. They had individual meetings with people at the medium and senior levels.
"They collected our internal collateral materials, marketing items and some financial reports. They talked to our customers, our suppliers and the community."
The result "tells you where you're strong and where you're not so strong," Slawek says. With the report in hand, marketing direction is reasonably obvious.
CTCreative's VALCORT likely would overwhelm a truly small business. With 175 employees, FONA may be the ideal VALCORT size. "Businesses that fit in our bell curve are in the $25 million to $200 million annual sales range," Thomas says.
• Questions, comments to Jim Kendall, JKendall@121MarketingResources.com
© 2009 121 Marketing Resources, Inc.