Marketing or Sales – Take your pick?

I participated in a professional debate after a very long time last week. The Topic was “Marketing or Sales - Take your Pick” organised by TiE Chennai. Quite obviously I was given the topic of Sales and the co-speaker was a much senior person to me with vast experience in Marketing & Lead Generation. The Moderator conducted the session very well asking some uncomfortable questions on behalf of the august audience who were all members of TiE Chennai and many of them young Entrepreneurs. The topic was more in the scheme of Entrepreneurship and Start-Ups. For a young Start-up, be it 1 month old or 3 years old (Oh, btw, Flipkart and Ola are not start-ups anymore – the unofficial timeframe that is globally accepted for a new business to be called a Start-up is only 5 years!), should it put its focus, money and effort on Marketing (Offline or Online) or on getting the first Sale (and successive Sales) therefore effectively in building a Sales Team which will eventually build a Sales pipeline. The jury was out that evening, as decided by the Moderator and “Sales” won the topic of the day hands down. However, my co-speaker as well as a few in the audience (and some of my friends too) had a different view. Many felt that a product becomes a Brand only because of it’s Marketing, Promotions, Brand Recall and so on. 

Here’s my take. If a Brand is only remembered for it’s Marketing and probably not for its Sales, then it is, perhaps not selling enough! There’s a good old saying that a good product doesn’t need Marketing. Then there is evoking, invoking and hard selling the theories of Ace Marketing Professor Peter F Drucker (with which accompanies loads of 2 decade old emotions from University PG days) by one and all. I am of the humble opinion that Marketing, in it’s true definition and application has truly changed in the last 3 decades, more so in the last decade with the emergence of the Millenials and Gen Z as consumers of products and services.

For Ex., the newest Indian Interest which are the Food hailing Apps, affectionately (sic) known in the Start-Up ecosystem as “FoodTech” – apparently using technology to sell food (hic). Companies that are funded by Wall St., the Chinese and the Japanese, tease customers who order through the App with deep discounts, at times 50% or more effectively making a mockery of the efforts of the Restaurateurs who prefer to align with these Apps for the fear of losing out to competition. Interestingly, none of these discounts are offered in most cases by the Restaurants themselves, rather by the FoodTech companies – in order to acquire new customers and retain existing ones. The so called coupon codes aka cost of acquiring new customers is shown as Marketing – for convenience purposes as well as for the Balance Sheet. So, what was traditionally known as a one off “Sampling exercise” has now morphed in to this. Most e-commerce companies that sprang up in the past 10 years or so have effectively used this tactic to raise more funding. This, I do not call as Marketing. Cut to bigger and established consumer brands who offer 10% extra Shampoo or 15 gms extra of Biscuits and 20% more of Air in packs of Chips for the same price – No, this I do not call Marketing either. 

The core principles of Marketing haven’t died, they have just been tweaked conveniently to suit new age Marketing Campaigns, created by new age Marketers, approved by new-age Marketing Standards to please new-age Millenials and Gen-Z Consumers. Be it is a Start-Up or a Larger company, if you are not selling enough to fund your cash flows, you will cease to exist in the short term, no matter how strong a brand equity you build. Everyone is not as lucky as a Flipkart or Idea Mobile. 

I have been a firm believer of the adage, “A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush”. In the recent Tamil film “Petta”, there’s a conversation between two friends how a Facebook video garnered thousands of likes and shares to which another quips, if these could fetch him a beer. This is the reality of the so called new-age Marketing. Even as we felt that the physical sampling of audience viewership by Research Firms was a dubious exercise, today’s digital marketing metrics are not just dubious but futile. In fact, most of today’s new-age techniques do not have a conversion to sale, thereby making the money and most importantly the time invested in the exercise, a gross wastage.

Yet, there’s so much hype for Marketing a new product or service without giving it the much needed Sales push. There’s only so much Marketing can do, finally the product has to sell. And sell again and again for the company to remain in business. Be it a Start-Up or an established one. Take your pick.

Customers Expectations & Managing Impatience

The Ola App says your driver will arrive in 3 mins. It’s already 4.26 mins and you are irked.

The Swiggy App says your food is on the way and shall reach at say, 8.05 pm. It’s already 8.08pm and you are calling the driver frantically to figure out where your food is.

You spent one hour taking trials of 17 dresses and finally picked up 3 at the Department store in the fanciest Mall in town and have been impatiently waiting at the billing queue for over 10 mins. During a “sale” season, the wait time trebles and a few customers are already dropping their shopping bags.

Are you still staring at the guy getting his hair-cut for the past 20 mins and wondering why would the stylist take so much time to complete the "job"?

Sounds familiar? Well, you are not alone. An article in Nautilus has an easy explanation: “Slow things drive us crazy because the fast pace of society has warped our sense of timing.” Does it mean humans first experienced impatience when life became fast-paced sometime in the 19th century? No, nature gave us impatience as a useful instinct. In fact, animals also show impatience. “It’s an internal timer that tells us when we have waited too long for something,” says the article. A webpage took 4 seconds to load in 2006, 2 seconds four years back and 0.25 seconds today. We are still impatient until it loads. How true!

The iconic Sambhar at Ratna Café, a popular restaurant in Chennai which is over 6 decades’ old takes a few hours to be prepared every morning to get that consistency and a lasting taste. The iconic Lassi from Punjab is stirred for hours together while the Tanjore Spice powders and Chettinad Pickles take days to be prepared. Although I am a pure vegetarian when it comes to food, I have heard how it takes 10-12 hours to prepare the Hyderabadi Haleem dish. Remember, an egg has to spend 270 days inside a womb to be given birth as a human baby. Good things take time. Great things take eternity.

So why do humans get upset upon small delays? Why do we forget that unforeseen and unnatural delays are normal? And even if someone is actually late, why fuss so much? If the delivery boy turns up later than proposed, what would actually happen if the customer waits a few more minutes? If the Cashier at the till is slow in his/her work (probably a beginner), why cannot we wait a few more minutes and encourage them, rather than chide & complain?

I am not a psychologist, so I wouldn’t be able to answer many of those questions. But I can probably say how Retailers and Customers are handling this or perhaps supposed to. With so much of tech taking over our PoS billing solutions, why wouldn’t Department stores and Hypermarkets invest on small benches for customers to sit near the check-out areas, quite similar to Hotels? Even the smallest Lodge in town has a seating area near the Cashier while Star hotels have experience centers such as an Aquarium. This, in my opinion is the most important reason why Customers shrug the Trolley and prefer the Mobile Apps for shopping. It’s the impatience of standing in Q that drives customers to choose one over the other. While it is clichéd to say Men are bored at Department stores while their wives or girlfriends are shopping, I am yet to see (In India) a store which has a seating area or Foosball tables for men to hang around, let around a café or a bar. I don’t know of a shopping centre which has an affordable play area or Crèches, save for the one off “Fun City” outlets which end up being more expensive to hang around for an hour or so than actually shopping & dining together. 

In services businesses like a Salon or a Restaurant, chances are lower to replace the physical presence. While the Food hailing Apps can deliver even the most exquisite delicacy in town all the way to your private dining area at home, the “Dining Experience” is something that cannot be replaced. However, Restaurants take way longer time to prepare, serve the food and send the bill than it is supposed to, thus making Customers lose their cool and get impatient while leaving, although after a sumptuous and a happy meal. Sadly, most Restaurant owners and Customers fail to understand the difference between a find-dine and casual dine restaurant, forget what is a Quick Service Restaurant. 

Ultimately, impatience begins when expectations are mismanaged. So, Hello Retailers – set your business expectations right to your patrons – like a simple placard on the dining table (or even on the Menu card itself) which states the estimated time for serving the food; or like at Airports, where you estimate the waiting time for Security Check or walking time to reach the Boarding Gate.

Setting the right expectations can turn the experience to be much better. In Retail or in our personal lives. Isn't it?

Retailers and Jet Airways – Cross Learnings

I had just started flying frequently from Bangalore to Delhi for monthly meetings and the preferred choice those days was Jet Airways (9W). Their on-board service was perhaps the best in class (the only comparison was the erstwhile Indian Airlines) and a few years later, maybe Kingfisher. Even with the popularity of the red-dress stewards with mini-skirts that attracted millions of flyers (forget not those plastic Kingfisher branded earphones), the Corporate Traveller still preferred 9W. There were many reasons for this choice, despite their pricing being 7-9% higher than Kingfisher and almost 1.5 times of Indigo and Spicejet in the later years. 

The Jet Airways – Citibank co-branded Credit Card was a must have on our wallets in the later part of the Millennium. The card provided several intrinsic benefits – including Lounge access at Airports as well as shopping and dining benefits across the country. The 5 Tier membership on Jet Privilege, among India’s largest Loyalty Program was similar to the Snakes & Ladder game, that travellers had to cautiously fly a designated number of flights in a quarter to retain their Membership Tiers. And how can I forget the uncountable “upgrades” I have enjoyed on 9W from Economy to Business to even First Class! 

Move over Kingfisher, which many Corporate Travellers thought were more hype and publicity than 9W which had a very genuine care for travellers. Be it the highly curated gourmet food menu even on Economy Class, Coat hangers for Business Travellers and an overall, relaxed travel experience for toddlers to Senior Citizens, these were a few things that attracted passengers until a few years ago. Around a decade back, 9W acquired Sahara Airlines only to burn out too soon, even as the low-cost airlines were matching or lowering air fares what Sahara offered. And after the merger completed, 9W continued to be a premier airline, some even calling it elitist. It was common to see celebrities, cricketers, reputed Business Leaders and many more socially popular people on board 9W. Even without the selfie melees those days, it was nice interacting with such personalities often on board or at the 9W Lounges. 

As I write this piece, I just finished reading that SBI which is managing the debt ridden airline’s takeover has further tightened the norms for a possible suitor even as travel agent-turned India’s most respected Aviator and business tycoon Mr. Naresh Goyal resigned from the Board recently. I am able to already see similar comparisons between 9W (and to some extent Kingfisher as well) and Modern Retailers, for they both cater to similar consumer segments. I have hardly seen traditional Kirana stores go out of business, save for financial mismanagement or not keeping in tune with changing times. In some cases, the next-gen of these Kiranas despise to take over the business calling them traditional, boring and uninteresting. 

But we have seen the meteoric rise and abysmal fall of so many Retailers, Shopping Centres and Malls. If we see what’s in common with those who downed shutters or ones that don’t have the grease to keep them up – it’s all about financial prudence, business stability and focussing on the core. For example, 9W lowered its fare over time to compete with the likes of cost-efficient airlines like Go Air. Being an International Airline and also having a Government norm to fly to far off destinations including Tier 2 towns, the airline was making losses for every nautical mile it flew in some cases. Sounds similar to many of our Retailers selling at cost or lower, a few or more SKUs which they call “Loss Leaders” and what is expected to drive footfalls who will eventually end up buying high-margin products. How I wish this dream was fulfilled. 

Most recently, 9W removed complimentary meals on board for the first time in it’s illustrious history which made even the most hopeless 9W Fan and Corporate Traveller to start whining, writing a fitting Obit for the airline on social media. Instead of upping its value proposition, the airline took to removing services, akin to how Retailers cut down support staff or reduce/switch off air-conditioning in the Retail Stores and Malls to reduce operating costs. In-flight Retail, which is a proven big-billion business worldwide remains largely untapped as well.  All is not over for 9W, yet. I am quite confident that the airline will find a new suitor who will continue and also improve the brand’s legacy with passenger growth touching double digits the last few years. Also, the Government wouldn’t let another airline fail, for it impacts the image of the country at large. However, Retailers may not be that lucky. A private Retail Company is not of national importance, yet – the way Americans eulogised Walmart & Starbucks. We see store openings and closures commonly these days. Ask me about E-Commerce players losing money for every transaction – from selling mobile phones to a portion of Roti or Dosa – well, they all hope that consumers will get used to convenience. Well.