Several years ago, I had the privilege of hearing Peter Drucker, the “Father of Modern Management,” speak. At the time, he was already very old and nearly deaf, and didn’t seem to realize he was almost speaking in a whisper. The audience, however, was in total awe…and you could have heard a pin drop. I’ve admired Drucker for a long time and collected many of his quotations. One of his quotes didn’t immediately resonate with me, but has become one of my favorites. It goes like this:  “Any business enterprise has two, and only two basic functions: marketing and innovation.”  The latter function, innovation, addresses what it is that differentiates our products and services from the competition - our unique value proposition. Marketing is what ensures that our products and services get into the hands of our target customers.

If our respective enterprises aren’t doing as well as they could be, maybe it’s time to ask ourselves the following critical questions: (1) are we still offering a unique customer value proposition? and (2) do our customers and potential customers know we exist and that they should be buying from us?

As Drucker stated so aptly, these are the two things we really do need to get right.  

{ 4 comments }