Insight

When a new employee joins a company, there’s always a laundry list of required training that needs to be completed. This usually includes ethics, compliance, time reporting and other administrivia, company history, etc. and (at least at larger companies) is usually delivered via Computer Based Training (CBT) modules. These can be spiced up somewhat based on the company culture, but usually guarantee that the new employee is, at most, obedient and bored.

When you’re next updating your training curriculum, consider adding Marketing 101. And not just for your new marketing hires – for everyone.

This doesn’t mean that everyone needs to be capable of doing market research and performing customer segmentation analysis, but it does mean that everyone in your company should understand that a business doesn’t deserve to exist unless it’s alleviating the pain of a customer at a price that the customer is willing to pay.

As an entrepreneur or an executive, this may not seem like rocket science. If you stopped solving your customer’s problems, they’d stop paying you and you’d go out of business. Case closed. However, it’s not as apparent to your Director of Engineering or IT.

For a moment, think about how your IT, HR, or Compliance organizations would be different if they saw themselves as outside business service providers with inside information. If you took a top technology or outsourcing service provider and gave them the information that your internal teams have access to, what would they do with it?

Optimally, your internal service organizations would have their own marketing team to analyze customer needs and develop new and innovative products to improve business performance – but we know that won’t happen anytime soon. The next best thing is to ensure that a marketing mindset is at the forefront of everyone’s mind, from the C-suite to the mail room.