Great marketing is our mantra.

Great marketing boils down to excellence in your Team, Process, Product, and Story.

Today I will concentrate on building a Great Team.

Surf’s Up at Q9


John Bergman leaned back in his chair, caught Susan Kim’s eye, and said, “Let’s get Paul and decide on the positioning of the Seaka for younger teenage girls.” The Seaka is Q9 Corporation’s new smart mobile for surfers.

Paul Martell had developed the Seaka and brought it to Q9. He now headed the Q9 Sun/Sand/Surf business and the marketing team. Experience in three successful startups had shown him that the CEO must lead marketing. He conducted 275 interviews over three months to get his five person marketing team. Nothing mattered more to him than finding the very best people!

He found Susan Kim in Seoul, at Samsung. The quiet 33-year old had a reputation for being the most creative and connected new product-marketing visionary in the mobile business. She added three new software functions, a “can’t stop touching it” feel, and a great user interface, in or out of the water. The designers, engineers, and software team camped out around Susan’s desk, in the big old factory that they all shared in Geelong, Australia. Gemma Beal, a former Australian surfing champion, rode a Kawasaki bike back and forth to Bell’s Beach, carrying prototypes and drawings to the surfers for their testing and ideas, pulling in to the Billabong surf shop in Torquay on the way back to get feedback from the sales team.

They all felt pressure, with the launch date four months away, but as John Bergman, marketing strategist, put it, “Every one of us has a critical role, we are passionate, and we respect and help each other. We are selling to surfers. They don’t need mobile industry jargon. They need clear, simple messages in words that they can understand. That’s my job too.”

Tam Nguyen, the marketing production manager, explained, “Paul looked for people who were smart, committed, and emotionally mature, and set up clear, measurable objectives. He is holding our feet to the fire! We have the electronics tied down, the software is almost done, and the designers are doing final changes on the shell and the waterproofing. There is no market research. We talk to real customers every day, and we send drawings and descriptions to Q9 sales people in nine countries to discuss with surfers. You have to love and live with your customers, right?”

Paul added, “I fired the first person that I hired to be our sales liaison after just a week. I saw that he cared more about himself than the customers or the team. I hire slow and fire fast. We had Monica Nkosazana here three days later. She was already working with surfers at Jeffrey’s Bay, South Africa. She is also incredibly funny, so she keeps us all happy.”

Monica had the last word, “Seaka won’t change the world, but it will make surfing safer and more fun. There are about 20 million surfers worldwide. It is my job to reach every one of them!”

What’s Up at proVoice?


Clark Jansen III, Chairman and CEO of proVoice, Inc. (formerly Mungle Telephone) explained that the company has been a leader in telecommunications since 1895, “We installed the first telephone exchange in Cleveland!”

Jansen announced the new H₂One waterproof mobile device at the Consumer Electronics Show, Las Vegas. He invited us to visit the company’s Chicago headquarters.

proVoice Chief Marketing Officer, Sandy Heflin explained the excitement behind the H₂One, “Imagine calling a friend while you are floating in the pool! As CMO, I am responsible for the proVoice brand, and making sure that we deliver a consistently resonant and dynamic brand image.” Heflin passed us to Catherine Wu, Executive Vice President of Marketing, and the 8 senior members of the 63-person team assigned to the H₂One. “Too bad you can’t catch Clark, but he is near Bermuda on Larry Ellison’s yacht right now,” Sandy added with a touch of pride.

“This is a matrix organization,” Catherine explained, “so we have Cliff from marketing communications, Jenny from PR, Yoko from marketing strategy, William from product management, Bob from channel management, Gordon from sales, Teri from customer service and support, and Wyoming from our ad agency, Sprott + Funge. They all work on several products and projects, so they are BUSY people! They don’t all report to me. The last four, not including Wyoming of course, report to Walter Keenan, our Senior Vice President of Marketing Operations.”

Yoko Mishima, recently arrived from the Tokyo office, laid out the H₂One plan that would culminate in a simultaneous worldwide launch in Beijing, Chicago, Moscow, and Paris in ten months.

Wyoming Rivers of Sprott + Funge took over, “This is so bad, dude! We put the coolest Naming names in the swimming pool of The Four Seasons in Bangkok for three days. I am not kidding! The theme was WET. We all had different cell phones. Paolo from WotsaMattaName in Melbourne was almost electrocuted when he plugged in his charger. The result: H₂One. Brilliant!”

“Who are you targeting with this product?” we asked. Yoko and William stood up at the same time. “Let me answer that one,” William ventured, “from a product management perspective. We see this mobile device in the hands of anyone who touches water. The potential is huge.” Catherine Wu intervened, “We value that insightful contribution of product management to segmentation and positioning, William.” As William excused himself from the room, Yoko smiled graciously, “We have a big project going on with ¿WhyNot? the hottest market research firm in New York. They are quantifying over forty water-based segments to tell us where to focus, and planning focus groups in seventeen cities around the world.” Gordon Campbell, the sales vice president, offered to set up meetings with actual proVoice customers. “Fantastic, Gordon! Let’s do it after launch,” Yoko added.

Catherine closed the meeting an hour earlier than expected. “I have to get to the Executive Tower,” she whispered to Yoko, “Keenan has made a run on the corner office overlooking the Brâncuşi sculpture and is going after the space next to Clark’s Bentley.” She texted furiously while running for the elevator.

In a Few Words


Great Marketing Teams are:

1. Small, flat, tight, and entrepreneurial, with one clear leader.
2. Incredibly close to their customers or clients.
3. Selected for talent, a can-do attitude, passion, and obsession with growth.
4. Collaborative, mutually respectful, and focused on growing a single business.
5. Do-it-yourselfers who get just enough information, decide fast, and never give in.