You've got to tell to sell - best marketing advice
Written by Shirley Lichti for The Record, January 17, 2001

How will your organization face the marketing challenges of the new millenium? Sometimes it is useful to know what strategies other companies have successfully used.

I polled a number of local executives, asking them to share the best marketing advice they had received. Here's what they had to say:

Walter Hachborn, President, Home Hardware Stores Ltd.

Walter Hachborn, president of Home Hardware, has been in the business a long time and has seen the company grow from 122 independent dealers in 1963, to over 1,100 dealer-owned stores today.

Needless to say he's received lots of advice. A turning point for him was recognizing the importance of marketing. He developed catalogues and initiated weekly flyers, which increased sales.

His advice to others? Give the customers what they're looking for. Build a relationship with them. Recognize your customers, supply good quality products, provide warranties and then stand behind them. Train your staff so that they have in-depth product knowledge.

Advertising is very important too - you've got to tell to sell. You need to build a business on ethics and not try to hoodwink people into a bad deal.

Joan Fisk, President, Tiger Brand Knitting

Tiger Brand has always been respected as a quality brand. But you really have to ensure you keep the quality in your product. You can't just say it - you really have to live it.

My best marketing tip was from a sales rep in Salt Lake City. He told me to promote the fact that we've been in business since 1881. So we really try to build on our history and authenticity.

When I work at a trade show, people are always impressed to learn that the company has been around for so long and is fifth-generation family-owned.

They are even more surprised when they realize they are talking to the president. I've always been very involved in the business, the creative process and product development.

Jim Balsillie, Chairman and Co-CEO, RIM

Contrary to what a lot of people may think, I would advise that marketing is in fact a discipline or a science, not a generalized area.

And if you want to do effective marketing, branding, product design, product introduction, or channel development, it needs to be part of a very systematic, rigourous and scientific set of processes.

The very best advice I ever got was not to let marketing be the domain of intuition and gut feel. Instead, get experts who are well-trained and very capable, people who take a very systematic approach. Then give them the budget and support to execute their plans.

Marketing takes specific tools, time and resources to do it right.

David Knechtel, General Manager, Franklin Covey Canada

Your external marketing message has to be communicated and lived internally. For example, Franklin Covey is all about personal effectiveness and helping people to become successful.

As I learned from our marketing manager, we need to demonstrate that to our employees as well as to our customers. It sounds so painfully obvious, but you see many organizations where this doesn't happen.

The other thing is to realize the importance of relationships. You can have the best marketing materials and the slickest website, but they won't help you build relationships. Your marketing has to reinforce your overall vision of building relationships. It has to support and sustain how you develop relationships. Customers teach you about relationships.

Lynda Prior, Chair, Prior Resources Inc.

As a search, staffing and human resources consulting firm, we knew we did not want to compete in the mass market.

Our strategy was built on a commitment to this community, its economic development and the success of our clients within it. We could have set up offices in other cities or franchised our operations, but we resisted doing this because we felt it would jeopardize our focus.

We needed to ensure we were offering a holistic, full service and that we always kept our clients' best interests at heart.

The most important lesson I've learned is to clearly understand what niche you are in and then focus on it. It's easy to lose focus but you need to hit the sweet spot every time.

David Chilton, author of The Wealthy Barber, Financial Awareness Corporation

I never really received much marketing advice directly. However, I have gained tremendous advice from books. I credit a lot of the success in my career to reading.

I read just about everything, especially in the publishing industry, for example, publishing books, cover design, cross promotions, generating media. I read them all.

I'm not really as clever or creative as people might think. Most of my good ideas I stole.

Learn from other people's experience. It costs a lot less money and there's a lot of really good advice out there. It helped me and contributed to the success of the low-fat cookbooks, Looney Spoons and Crazy Plates, which we distribute.

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