Eleven Lessons To Be a Success in Marketing From Central Java

You may be convinced that the best marketing people come from Harvard or North West and are nurtured and primed at P&G, GE or someone like that. You may argue that to be a dynamic marketing person you need an expensive MBA, hundreds of costly seminars, conferences. power breakfasts and so on. I would recommend spending a month in Central Java Indonesia.

Central Java was the economic powerhouse that kept the country afloat during the Asian Crisis in 1989. You will recall that banks collapsed, the currency plunged, companies panicked and CEOs fled to places with where there were no extradition treaties.

In Central Java people complained a bit about some inconveniences. Then went about with domestic production, marketing and consumption, and life went on. The secret was that the Central Javanese had discovered, in spite of a frenzy of advice from world renowned gurus and the IMF, on how to keep the market healthy and moving. Essentially there were eleven guidelines.

1. The customer is not your wife. The Central Javanese Code demands that she must believe everything you say. If she doesn't you will marry someone who will. Neither is the customer, your mother. You can't fool her but she is awfully forgiving. The Customer is your next door neighbor who has known you most of his life, knows of all your indiscretions, and cannot be taken for a ride. He has a neighbor exactly like you, on his left, also trying to sell him something.
2. The product if it does not build confidence in you, from your mother or neighbor should be scrapped and you should begin again from scratch. Once the product has managed to salvage your reputation with your neighbor make sure that it is better that the one produced by your neighbor's other neighbor.
3. Your Strategy is to have a unique product at the best price. Often you don't have to look further than your mirror to discover uniqueness in your product. Abidin, now a big-time restaurateur, sky rocketed to fame and fortune by calling his Chicken Soup stall “SOP AYAM PAK KUMIS” (Mr. Moustache's Chicken Soup). By the time the Goat Soup was launched, Mr. Moustache was famous all over Central Java.
4. The price figured out by Mr. Moustache was simply by taking average price of Chicken Soups in the area and knocking off two cents. Later when he became famous it was expected of him to raise the price by five cents and was seen as a compliment to his discerning customers. Mr. Moustache or Pak Kumis made it a point to repeatedly tell his customers that were the most discerning in Central Java.
5. The business plan if it does not make you profit enough to put aside to buy your Yamaha motorcycle is a real winner. Because you have discovered one plan that does not work. Go to the next one.
6. Competition seems to be all around but ceases toexist when you focus quality time on your business.
7. Consultants are best ignored. Especially those who come bearing charts. Do not be impressed by charts. The only charts that really work are those that can be drawn on the ground with a stick. In Central Java where the ground is volcanic charts are difficult to see.
8. The Marketing department is impressive and expensive, but absolutely unnecessary. Besides you take so much your time thinking up and remembering such titles like, Key Account Managers, Account Managers, Sales Coordinators and things like that. With the money you save, keep rewarding your customers and not only will they give you valuable selling inputs but you will also be renowned for your excellent customer service.
9. The organization. Now that your have fired the Marketing Department, fire all other departments in which employees are not constantly and actually handling and carrying your products.
10. Long term planning should never be attempted unless you can do them for your customers and each of your competitors as well. As a well known Fried Banana King in Central Java said, five years ago, “If Desi ever marries Ade,I will loose all 12 of Ade's family as customers. Desi hates me.” So the Friend Banana King spend most of his free hours “romancing” Desi. In the end Desi married the Fried Banana King. Ade unleashed such a vengeful and vicious campaign that the Fried Banana King was not only ruined but had to flee. You never tell can you?
11. What about leadership? Simple just walk behind your employees.