In mid-forties atomic bomb was invented. This was a nuclear fission reaction that was supposed to create a powerful bomb and radioactivity. But in the decades that followed usage of this invention has gone far beyond what it was originally conceived for. Now not only nuclear technology helps us in power generation but has many other uses like in medicine, industry, agriculture, food safety and other academic purposes. Knowledge gained for a particular purpose was successfully utilized for many other purposes.

 

If we look around us we will find unlimited examples where the knowledge and expertise gained for a specific purpose was successfully transplanted for many other purposes. Imagine simple inventions like wheel, power of steam, electric current, rocket engines and propulsions etc. those have revolutionized our world. Who would have thought about their applications when these concepts were invented? Man has proven quite good at transplanting knowledge gained in a particular field to many other fields. A simple google search will reveal many immensely successful products that were originally meant to be something very different.

 

Limited point that I’m making is that awareness and knowledge gained in one field can be used in many other unrelated fields very successfully. And to do this we don’t have to wait for others to take lead and show us the path. We are all equally endowed and capable of doing so. Only requirement is our being conscious and aware of this fact. Once it happens the field is vast open since our individual knowledge is immense and this entire knowledge has multiple ways to be used. I’m sure men and women who love cooking can connect well since they’d have used many recipes’ to create new dishes.

 

Today I’m writing this article for a related but a specific context. The context is that we are all social beings. All our lives we keep interacting and communicating with other human beings. Interacting and communicating with others is an art which only few master well. Not only this, even the masters have blind spots. So in corporate lives we see some who are good at interpersonal relations with their peers,   some with their reportees and some manage their superiors well. I’ve seen many successful and well behaved men quivering the moment they have to interact with the opposite sex. Many are overbearing and intimidating. Very few people are gifted when it comes to communication. Haven’t we seen people in our lives who become children with children, young with young, connect with old well, participate in all serious discussions but as soon as they come out for a party in the evening they lighten the atmosphere with their conduct? While we see few such people around us also, best examples can be actors and politicians since they keep slipping to different roles very frequently and have the ability to transform them according to the requirement of each such role and its target audience. Do we remember Ashok Kumar who would fit in all kinds of roles that were offered to him?  Try to think of his roles in ‘Shoukeen’, ‘Khatta – Meetha’, ‘Khoobsoorat’, ‘Mamta’, ‘Bandini’ etc. Almost each of these roles had a different requirement and different target audience, but he managed to communicate well with his varied target audience in each of these roles.

 

So what is Kotler doing in this discussion? I’m sure every management graduate at least knows about Kotler and marketing. If I was to summarize in one statement, it was about knowing the requirements of the customer and offering him products that met those requirements well. And then there was a lot of stuff on nuances of marketing including target segments, product positioning, market research, advertising and promotion, distribution and reach etc. Sales, on the contrary meant selling something that suited your interests rather than the customers. But then what does this has to do with whatever I’ve written till now?

 

I feel that the knowledge shared by Kotler in his book is extremely relevant to our day to day communications and can be easily transplanted in this area with some ‘conscious’ efforts. In fact the successful communicators actually do this successfully, consciously or unconsciously. Which is why we see politicians who are great communicators seamlessly slipping into various roles with ease. Just to give an example remember Mr. Narendra Modi addressing the UN General Assembly where he addressed many State Heads, moves to address the Indian diaspora, then moves to communicate with US businessmen, bilateral talks with other State Heads culminating with a meeting the President of the US and then flying back to India to address a campaign rally in rural Bihar. What an amazing diversity in audience and situations? All this can be successful only if he knows his target audience well, understands their requirements well and packages his communication appropriately in terms of dress, words, message, gestures, body language etc. Even his worst enemies will accept that he is not only a great communicator but also a great marketer.

 

But then this is not applicable only to leaders, politicians and actors. This is equally applicable to all of us and in our day to day life. Just to connect with what I intend to ‘communicate’ I shall give an example in form of a day in the life of Mr. X.

 

Mr. X had to wake up slightly early in the morning because his infant son decided that his quota of sleep for the night was over. Mr. X was infuriated, because he had a long and tough day ahead of him, but he loved his son more than anything else. So in an instant he became a child and started playing with him. Father and son bonded well and father communicated well with his infant son. Marketer in Mr. X was in full bloom. But the reality is that Mrs. X also had to wake up early and was in a foul mood. She asked Mr. X if he wanted a cup of tea. Mr. X was busy playing but said ‘yes’ in between, in a feeble voice. He was unable to understand his target audience at that moment, who was Mrs. X and was infuriated because of lack of sleep. She asked the same question to him twice and both the times she ‘didn’t’ get a response. Obviously, she flew into a rage. Communication had floundered right in the morning.  Mrs. X couldn’t see that Mr. X was busy playing and maybe she needed to be a bit louder to be heard and Mr. X could’ve sensed the requirement of his target audience  of little more sleep and offered to take their son in a different room for a while to allow her to sleep.

 

Oh no! What a contrast it would have been to the situation that actually developed? But the day has to progress and it did so. Mr. X had become wiser for the day now. He politely announced that he has a very busy day that included a luncheon meeting so he won’t carry packed tiffin to the office. He also said that he shall have a light breakfast of fruits, milk and cornflakes, butter and toast to ensure that there’s no extra work load on Mrs. X. This time he understood the customer requirement well and was able to make him happy. Meanwhile the parents of Mr. X were already up in the morning and had witnessed all that was going on in the household. Father called up Mr. X who dutifully went to him and asked what he can do for him. Though the father was well aware that his son had a busy day he asked him to pick up his clothes from the tailor, who was way off for Mr. X and would’ve required him to spend two hours to do the needful. Father never thought from the perspective and need of his customer, Mr. X, and had to hear a polite decline from him. By now Mr. X was eager to rush out the home and lower his tension. His driver came on time the moment Mr. X handed over the car keys and his bag to him he got the message. In this case connect between the customer Mr. X, and the seller, driver, was excellent. The moment seller sensed the requirements of his customer he was all set to make him happy. As soon as Mr. X entered the car he was greeted with the smiling face of his driver, who put his favourite music in the car, drove the car professionally without any discomfort to the passenger and after some time when his customer was feeling relaxed asked him simple questions about the favourite colleagues in the office which transformed the mood of Mr. X. Driver had implemented the lessons of Kotler well in his real life and indeed ensured that his customer needs were identified and fulfilled to have a delighted customer.

 

Mr. X enters the office now in a cheerful mood. He was greeted by his secretary and the official day started on a perfect note. There was an important meeting with his boss after about an hour for which he had to prepare well. He called his Man Friday to prepare for the meeting. While Mr. X knew exactly what was required by his boss and how to prepare for the meeting, he was thinking and speaking very fast with his deputy. Within next few minutes temperature of the room started changing. His deputy was unable to comprehend what he was saying since it was complex and also because Mr. X was so fast. While Mr. X was getting annoyed at his lack of comprehension, deputy was fretting at the speed with which he was being explained. It was the cup of tea that woke up Mr. X from his slumber and reminded him of the lessons of Kotler. He immediately understood the requirements of his customer, his deputy, and realized the limitations of his knowledge. Now not only he explained his thoughts slowly to him but also in a way that made him understand the complexities well. Deputy did a wonderful job in preparing the presentation by crystallizing them well and putting them in logical flow which could be comprehended by their boss. Once again, a simple lesson of Kotler was implemented successfully by someone in his normal life. When the discussion the boss took place, the boss became their common customer. This time they had done a proper research of the requirements of their customer, had found the solutions to his needs and identified the right words to communicate the solutions to him. At the end of the meeting they had a delighted customer with them and a delighted customer always makes the seller happy.

 

The day progressed in the life of Mr. X. He had no luncheon meeting that day as he had informed his wife. But just as he was a seller many times he was also a customer at times. His secretary, for whom he was a customer at office, understood the requirements well. She had noticed that her boss hadn’t got his tiffin from home. She also knew one of his team members who had been asking her to give some private time with the boss for last few days but she couldn’t do it. Knowing the twin requirements she realized that today was the day. She told her boss that she had booked table for two at the nearby restaurant which he liked and asked that subordinate to give him company for lunch. What wonders can happen in life if we understand our customers’ requirement in real life and work towards customer delight. Marketing in fact works everywhere.

 

Immediately thereafter Mr. X had a meeting scheduled with one of his potentially large customers. He was an ace marketer when it came to professional issues. He was fully prepared with all the requirements of the customer, his being finicky in attitude when it came to quality and price but commitment to the suppliers and prompt payments. He was also aware that the current supplier of the customer was unable to provide the quality desired by him. Everything was set by Mr. X to ensure that he got the contract. Process went on smoothly till it came to pricing. Customer was known to be a hard negotiator and bargained hard. But alas! He was not aware that while Mr. X knew the issues he faced with the current suppliers, he himself wasn’t aware that Mr. X had spare capacity available which was a drain on his company. This lack understanding ensured that he was forced to give contract to Mr. X at higher prices. Once again Philip Kotler won. The person who had better awareness of the requirements of his customer won the game.

 

Contract won. Now the challenge for Mr. X was to ensure it was honoured since it was well paying and the customer was extremely quality conscious. He had to make it happen. For this he needed all round and willing support from the employees. They became his next customers. Within next 30 minutes he called a meeting of his factory manager, industrial relations head, union leader and procurement head. He knew the requirements of all of them by heart now. When they met Mr. X he became the best ever marketer again. To factory manager he promised regular feeding of orders and production linked salary hike, IR head & union leaders were also promised additional productivity linked bonuses if they agreed on double shifts and hiring of additional contract labour, procurement head was offered additional bonus if he managed to procure superior raw material at lower costs. All his customers were delighted and agreed to all his demands of higher productivity. Mr. X was getting surprised to see the success of Philip Kotler’s formula in his factory rather than the market.

 

The day was progressing well for Mr. X, courtesy Philip Kotler. He now remembered about his father, wife and infant son. Marketer in him was alive and kicking. He immediately asked his secretary to book a table for two for a candle light dinner at one of the finest restaurants in the city, left office early and went to pick up the clothes his father had asked, gave a surprise to his wife by telling her about the dinner just before she started to cook dinner. Rewards were quick to flow. Parents offered to take care of the son when they went to dinner to give them some privacy, wife was happy and cheerful and wore her best clothes, infant son was happy to play with grandparents and the salesman in Mr. X was profusely thanking Philip Kotler to have given him such invaluable life lessons.

 

This one day in the life of Mr. X is an example of how we are all marketers in our daily lives. The lessons that we read in business schools and thought were applicable to business organizations only were miraculously working so well in our personal lives also.

 

My Little Thought Of Life in this context is that we are marketers all our lives. More successful are we as marketers more successful we shall be in our lives, with our relationships and spread happiness around us. Marketing in true sense, as Kotler says is in understanding customer needs and fulfilling them rather than selling what we want to sell which is of no use to the buyer. Customers in our lives are in fact the all people who we deal and interact with. Once we know what is their requirement we would be in a better position to fulfil that and in case it is not possible, a good marketer is also expected to tell this to his customer in a matter of fact and honest manner. He may lose the order, but will earn the respect of his customer for ever. I know that human beings often have a tendency to be focussed on self-interest and are self-centred, but then great marketers focus on the interest of their customers eventually to serve their own self-interest.  This is what differentiates successful and not so successful. In this case customers happen to be the people around us.

 

To my friends and readers I wish a greater ability to transplant lessons of life from one area to other and an ability to be conscious of the fact that good marketers ensure customer delight which eventually spreads delight all around.