Ralph Crosby's
Lessons Learned In A Lifetime Of Marketing
About
Ralph W. Crosby
Wanting to earn money as a youngster, Ralph Crosby took jobs that early on taught him the value of customer loyalty. In his first adult career, as a journalist writing for daily newspapers and national magazines, he learned how to communicate with another type of customer — the reader. It was when he changed careers from journalist to business marketer, through hands-on experience and the teachings of such experts as management guru Peter Drucker, he learned that the end result of business — both for profit or nonprofit organizations — should not be viewed from an internal perspective but from the point of view of the customer.
In his newly published book, “It’s The Customer, Stupid! Lessons Learned in a Lifetime of Marketing,” he documents his education as a marketer and explains the critical nature of the customer-centric approach in today’s unique marketing environment.
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Echoes of “Customer-Centric” Marketing
I heard the echoes of the wisdom of my management hero, Peter Drucker, when reading about the marketing success of Stuart Amos, President and CEO of FLAVORx, Inc., a successful medication-flavoring system. In a “Baltimore SmartCEO” article, Amos is quoted as saying:
“So many companies think that if they design this great product, people are just going to bang the door down and buy it. You need to be always solving your customer’s problem, whatever it is, and often, the trick is finding out what his problems are, what his strategies are. It’s a lot of work to peel that onion.”
The echo of Peter Drucker, known as the father of modern management, came from my interviews with him in the 1990s when we discussed my favorite Drucker quote, which I believe should be the guiding principle for all marketers, managers and business leaders. Peter Drucker wrote:
“Marketing is not only much broader than selling, it is not a specialized activity at all. It encompasses the entire business. It is the whole business seen from the point of view of its final result; that is, from the customer’s point of view.”
Learning the customer’s point of view is akin to Mr. Amos’ advice to “peel that onion.”
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About
Ralph's Book
Businesses often are started by entrepreneurs with an idea, a product or service, or an expertise. Many of them fail, not because the idea or product isn’t good, but because their attention is overwhelmingly directed internally – e.g., what goes into the product – when they should focus externally, always reminding themselves:
“It’s The Customer, Stupid!”
That’s the premise of Ralph Crosby’s new book, “It’s The Customer, Stupid! Lessons Learned in a Lifetime of Marketing.”
Book Reviews
In his new book, “It’s the Customer, Stupid!” Ralph Crosby, founder of Crosby Marketing Communications located in Annapolis, discusses how the Internet and social media are changing the game. One thing, he says, will remain a constant: Keeping the focus on the customer rather than the product, service or organization.
In “It’s the Customer, Stupid!” Crosby reinforces what he calls an old idea — customer-centric marketing — and explains why focusing on the consumer is even more pertinent now than it was decades ago. “It’s the customer who drives the purchasing decision, particularly now in the computer age, when a customer can go online and find out anything about products or services or organizations by simply clicking the mouse,” he said.
Elisha Sauers
The Capital Newspaper
