Your marketing is so near, yet so far

Originally published at www.linkedin.com.

When two of the three win lines come up on a poker/slot machine — you think: We’re so close to winning!

And so it is in so many businesses — excellent distribution, innovative products, retail presence, good people, good pricing — and marketing is under-resourced / or non-existent.

“We’re so close!”. No you’re not. You’re miles away. You’ve lost.

Good Distribution / Good Product / Bad Marketing = You’ll be discounted, you’ll be a commodity, you’ll be generic, you’ll be de-ranged. You’ll find yourself struggling, your sales teams will be wondering why they struggle to maintain margin, you’ll see competitors grow margin and market share.

Make every post a winner. Marketing is your only organic growth engine. Fix it.