“MARKETING IS EVERYTHING AND EVERY THING IS MARKETING”
We have been thinking and the Leadership Program and the Marketing has one thing in common, and it is that you create and you live an experience, from one part in the Marketing, you build a community of customers, you create a tribe, and in the other hand the leadership program has help me to open my mind and to involve more in the TA community, working in an international projects like ITAS with people of all TA and in a project like SOL where I am working with people of Irun (I have never work with people of different campuses before)
Is important to find a perfect balance between reflexive part and action part if we want to create a potential team. Because the action has to have a sense and the same action sometimes is the one that give sense to all the process.
We think that being a leader requires you an extra effort and in turn gives to you lots of learning. All this, challenges yourself to lead people that almost you don´t know, trying to do it as well as you can and giving all you have to make things go forward
My conclusion of all this, is that finding the balance between action and reflection is the base of a potential team, and this starts from each one. Because of this, every person of the team has to develop the skills that both aspects require even if one of it is in the base. I think that is essential to work on both aspects if we want to take the team and ourselves to a better level.
Being the leader of a team requires taking care of lots of things that goes further than maintaining the direction of it, but it´s important to base your leadership philosophy in something.
It´s important to know which are the needs of each team, in which point of the process they are, what they want to give to the project… if we want to have a common vision and a coordination between all of us.
PUT THE KNOWLEDGE IN PRACTICE
the most important thing of the program is to put in practise all the knowledge that we take in the program, is why Miren and I made a training session in our team, Jump In! , to transmit all that we have learned.
Normally in our trainings we speak a lot about different theories, about what we can do to make the things better, but finally the most of the times nothing happens, is why we think to make something practical, something different.
Our team is starting the third course and we need action, we need new ideas to make money before going to the next learning journey in February
The most important thing in a team is the motivation, without motivation nothing happens, you work better and happier if you are making something that motivates you, is why we start the training session with a different check in. We ask people to draw in a paper something that motivate him or her, to know each one in witch contest was motivated.
The reaction of the people wasn´t so different, for example someone says that he was motivated when he feel that the other team members value his work, his opinions etc. Other one says that to discover new things, to learn day-by-day make him motivated.
But finally all the people arrive to the same conclusion, if you see that the people that is around you is motivated you motivates too.
“You can´t motivate people, but you can create an environment to make people motivate themselves”
Ones we finished the check in we started making the teams, we choose three leaders and they choose their team members.
First we put a big question in the table. What is the big picture of marketing and the relationship to the process of the company?
A lot of reflections came to our minds like: The people must buy the product; if you buy something is because you know it. Moore things you have to choose, more things to choose. You have to be more customer oriented than organization oriented, you have to know the customer needs. The reference point we have to know that each one of the team is selling the team, so all the people is making marketing al the time.
All the reflections came to one important thing. That we have to ask and to study the customer, to know what they want and what they need.
“Marketing is everything and everything is marketing”
After the first part of the training we start with the real action, we made a Bench Marking Adventure in Oñati.
Each team had to analyse two different services, each one based in a theory.
We give two theories to each team and we choose the place to go based in the theory that we had.
In one team for example we had the Reference Customer theory and the Main Message theory.
First of all we choose the reference customer theory and we decided that the best option to make the research was the university.
We thought in our marketing teacher because he has been working 25 years in the university and he knows really well the students, because in this case we identify that the students are the biggest customers.
We ask how to get the customer to the loyalty and how to make him repeat.
The answer was that the student of the university is a captive customer because he signed a contract for X years, but their work is not to capture those students, their work is make those students don´t feel confortable and part of the university.
Other important thing that the teacher says to, as is that the advertising is very important that all the universities have to have.
But that the most important thing is to know your customer, and make a tribe with them, because in final they are the best marketing, what they transmit to the others is what counts.
He says to that there are different tools to measure what are potential customers and what are notable customers.
The key is o manage the information, there are loyalty indicators, discounts, a club of the best students etc.
And to finish he recommends us a book that it is very interesting. Where all this issues are better explained.
“Customer experience”
To finish this post we have to say that the best thing that we take from this session is that we have started ITAS and SOL project with leadership program people and that we are making things week by week, using the different tools that we have learn in our team Jump In!
