So, the other day we began talking about the roles of Leadership and Marketing, and why they are so integral to a good business… and a good life. We also heard from someone who stated that the two disciplines don’t really fit in the same package… sort of like oil and water… right brain and left brain… good and evil… whatever.
Don’t believe it.
As small business owners, there are two main areas of responsibility that will make or break our companies:
First, we must lead our people, and
Second, we must grow our revenue and market share.
It is impossible to run a growing organization without strong leadership ability… and it is just as impossible to sustain growth without a foundation of marketing excellence.
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So, if you’d like, go ahead and review the seven reasons that we discussed about why these two skills are so important, and then if you’re so inclined… check out a previous article where I expanded on the first two… as they are seen from my point of view.
For our purposes today, I wanted to combine reasons three, four, five, and six into an easy to understand format. So… I spent some time over the last few days crystallizing twenty-plus years of Leadership and Marketing experience into the simple chart below.
I did this for one reason, and one reason only… because understanding this is the difference between living the life you want to live as the owner of a successful enterprise, or… possibly losing your house and everything else you’ve worked for… if your business fails.
Yes, I know… just in case someone wants to jump in to say that you can probably keep your house in bankruptcy… if you are tracking with me, THAT IS NOT YOUR GOAL!
Ahem… sorry, I digress. So here it is:
May I suggest that you spend a few minutes with the chart, and ponder these questions until tomorrow:
1) How does Leadership ability relate to your reputation in the marketplace?
2) How could the combination of Low Leadership ability, and High Marketing ability exponentially damage your reputation?
3) Looking at the chart, if you could pick only one of the first three positions as your starting point, which would you choose: Low Low, Low High, or High Low? Why?
I look forward to speaking with you.
Great grid there Steve. I like thinking in terms of spreadsheets. As to question number 3, I think the best advantageous position would be to start from the High Low, though in reality, I think good leadership is less of a commodity and thus more people would be coming from Low High. I also think that Marketing changes and evolves at much a higher rates than Leadership does. A rock solid leader of 20 years ago may not have to have changed much over the years while Marketing seems to almost change weekly.
Great post!
Chris, I love your observation that Leadership is less of a commodity; therefore less common. Over the years, I’ve seen many talented Marketing people who were unable to make it in their own companies… sure, they could get new business… but they couldn’t build the team and the relationships required for longterm success.
Thanks for the input, my friend.