Power Boating vs. Sail Boating

At the Center for Ageless Marketing we place more emphasis on education than on training. Training is something people of course do with horses, dogs and circus animals, though a sizeable industry also exists to train people. People training – like animal training – is a lot about learning rules. Take sales training. It has so many rules – such as rules to qualify, rules to present, rules to close – that sales trainers use mnemonics and acronyms to help trainees remember all the rules.

external conditions by bringing forth a more autonomous body of consumers with greater resistance to attempts by others to steer them into buying decisions. These two events have made it less sensible for companies to be as rules-based in operations as they used to be. It makes little sense to set rules for conditions over which one has no control.    Companies in general have long been operated more like throaty powerboats muscling through the waves with little regard

Ageless marketing is rooted in principles rather than rules. It draws from developmental relationship marketing, which favors flexible principles over rigid rules.    Rules are procedural orders to be followed in given circumstances. Principles are insights one draws on to make choices best suited to the context at hand.    Perhaps to avoid misunderstanding, training is not without great value. Surgeons must be trained as well as educated. Policemen, firemen and soldiers require training. Training + education = professional development.

Power Boating Companies             Sail Boating Companies Rules of math prevail over tenets of behavior in objectively (rational) biased models of customer behavior Tenets of behavioral science are decisive benchmarks in holistically framed customer behavior models that have a subjective (emotional) bias Demand for order and structure in objective models makes marketing less flexible and slower to adapt to marketplace changes Company has an analog relationship with customers (as a fuel gauge has with a fuel tank), making it naturally more flexible Marketing is product centric and niche - dependent Marketing is customer centric and relationship-dependent Customers are sorted into categories, often with an ill fit that distorts behavioral profiles skews predictions off course Company adapts to the fact that customers are more self-selective in their behavior than traditional marketing models acknowledge Company strives to conform customers’ behavior to its will Company strives to conform its behavior to customers’ wills Staff governed by rules imposed by management Staff adapt by following principles management endorses Marketing driven by internally generated power Marketing driven by power generated in the marketing environment (e.g., as in viral marketing)

for conditions beyond the hull. However, a more powerful consumer constituency is forcing companies to think more about operate more like sailboats being artfully managed to take advantage of conditions beyond the hull – the behavior of wind and current. This is the prime catalyst of the growing keen interest in customer centricity.    Except in extreme conditions, powerboaters fairly much determine their own rules of engagement with the waters through which they move, giving little or no thought to adapting to

And professional development is a central focus of the Center for Ageless Marketing.    In this context, it’s worth reflecting on the fact that training without education leaves a person creatively challenged – inadequately equipped to work through problems that can’t be solved by the rules one may have mastered in training. It is not by rules alone that the best problem solvers live, especially now.    Managing by rules is not working like it once did because the span of control companies have over conditions that affect them has narrowed considerably. The Internet has contributed to shrinking that span of control by shifting the balance of information power to customers. The aging of society has also contributed to curbing the control that companies can have over

environmental conditions. Companies that move forward with similarly shallow concern for external conditions invariably reflect a product centric bearing, and depend almost entirely on generating their own energy needed to move forward, the same as powerboat skippers do.    Helmsmen of sailing vessels play by different rules. They adapt to environmental conditions. Companies that do the same will invariably reflect a customer centric bearing. This is not only because they willingly accede to the influences of consumers, but also because they depend on consumers to provide much of the energy to drive marketing, much like a sailor depending on energy generated by wind and current.    The Center for Ageless Marketing teaches sailing based on the principles of developmental relationship marketing.