Everyone a marketer

Dear Entrepreneur

Everyone in your organisation is a marketer. And yes, that includes your support staff, i.e. cleaner, driver, etc. Before you look at me askance, wondering how your cleaner could be your marketer, consider the proliferation and growth of the network marketing industry estimated to reach US$160 billion dollars by 2021. No special skills are required for one to become a network marketer- in fact, being a great salesperson is usually an impediment to success in network marketing. People join network marketing from all walks of life, and yes, some of them were cleaners in their previous lives. So, this beckons the question, why are you not leveraging your employees to market your company?

Marketing is concerned with attracting customers, building relationships, communicating service/product benefits in a bid to influence perceptions. While the marketing department can and is capable of handling these tasks, one notes that building relationships is not solely the preserve of the marketing department. If anything, the marketing department’s interaction with customers is limited when compared to interactions the whole organization has with customers. So, does it not make sense then to turn everyone in an organization into a marketer, albeit, a part-time one.

If we look closely at our own interactions with companies we buy from, we will note that we have progressed from first time buyers to advocates because of the product elements and also the service quality we receive when dealing with the company. For most of us, our interactions with the marketing department personnel are limited, if not non-existent. We deal with the operations teams, the sales teams, the delivery guys, finance teams, receptionists and sometimes when we visit- the cleaners. It is these interactions that determine whether we buy from a company; deepen our relationship with them and/or even refer them to our own network. It behoves you, therefore, to ensure that every client interaction with your company adds shows your company in a positive light. Does it therefore not make sense to make every staff member a de facto marketer?

Network marketing’s success is premised on turning everyone who joins them into a marketer. The business runs on repeat business because the industry provides the requisite training to their recruits (most of them at least do), and the previously unskilled workers thrive. This, therefore, means that to turn your organisation into a mean marketing organisation training on customer service, client relationships, service quality etc is paramount. A receptionist who disrespects a client will cost you revenue, a driver who is rude to a client will cost you business, and likewise, an accountant who fails to provide a client with a refund on time will cost you business. Is it therefore not worth it to arm your staff with requisite skills to turn them into a marketer?

How many of you have all your staff as marketers? How did you manage to get everyone to rise up to the challenge?