A little while back a listed company asked me to do some marketing work for them.
After a long discovery process, at first sight, they were a perfect client, and I could deliver stellar results for them to Create More Customers.
It was going to be a combination of strategy and execution (which I have written about here.)
Then they pulled the old bait and switched – “actually we don’t want any strategy; we just want you to do the implementation.”
At first sight that is fine, however, here is the clincher: “we’ll do the strategy, you do the execution, but you will be accountable for the outcomes.”
Wait, what?
So they will pick what they think is an effective strategy (trust me, 99.9% of the times it’s wrong.)
But if it turns out not to be effective, you want to externalize the blame to me?
That is insane.
As the saying goes; can’t have cake and eat it too.
The person that comes up with the strategy is accountable for its EFFECTIVENESS in getting outcomes.
The person who implements the strategy is accountability for it EFFICIENCY in getting outputs.
Subtle, but a massive difference.
The subtleness was lost on them, which is ironically the very reason they don’t have the customers they want in the first place which is why they contacted me.
Backwards logic.
If you need help with your strategy and or implementation in your marketing and sales, then get in contact with me here (but I hope you don’t want your cake and eat it too 🙂 )