Date: Thu, 6 May 1999 09:21:54 -0500 From: "Mike Avery" <mavery@mail.otherwhen.com> To: freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: PCWeek article by Anne Chen -- Comments Message-ID: <199905061430.JAA01645@hostigos.otherwhen.com> In-Reply-To: <7727176F15A5.AAA3312@po02.wxs.nl>
next in thread | previous in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help
On 6 May 99, at 9:55, Jeroen Ruigrok/Asmodai wrote: >> Absolutely. And since marketing needs HOURS (communicating with >> humans is MUCH more time-consuming than coding), there also needs to >> be a financial incentive, at least for the primary marketers. > I do not doubt that marketing costs time, but to put off coders > like that is being as worse as people putting down PR > activity... > Coding take less time? Heh, I wonder if Matthew Dillon, Peter > Wemm, Doug Rabson, David O'Brien and the likes all think that's > correct... It's probably an open-ended question. Marketing, like most activities, can happen at the wholesale and retail level. At the wholesale level you are trying to interest lots of people in a product - a big media blitz, gaining "mindshare" (a disgusting buzz word... I hope it's on it's way out). At the retail level, you are trying to convince a small number of people that they can't live without your product. While working for a state agency, I saw the retail level as a vendor spend three years working with (or on) us before getting his first sale. We hated the jerk. He was always there, always had a suggestion, always bidding on things, always trying to get his foot in the damn door. He won our "sleaziest vendor" award twice and won second place several times. We'd go out of our way to miss meetings with him - so he'd corner us in the hall. Coding is you and the machine. It responds quickly, it doesn't lie to you, and it responds as quickly as it can. If you need faster response, you can upgrade to a faster machine. People will lie to you. They aren't under your control, so they can just not talk to you... or schedule other meetings. At their best, people are slow, and it's hard to change their minds. A lot of the time consuming activities are damn near pointless and often frustrating. In the end, he got a small server contract, which went well and led to a good sized server contract (around 200, if memory serves). His were better than the ones we had been buying. That led to a good sized PC order - around 5,000, I think. Persistence does pay.... But.... he spent a lot of time with us over a 3 year period to get those sales. He had other profitable accounts, so he could afford the marketing time. So.... marketing can take LOTS of time. And often you have nothing to show for your efforts - sometimes for years - other than people who will let you buy 'em a drink and otherwise shun you. The guy has since moved on to become a regional Microsoft marketing manager. Which confirmed our feelings about him. And reminds us that marketeers go where they think the money is. Mike ====================================================================== Mike Avery MAvery@mail.otherwhen.com (409)-842-2942 (work) ICQ: 16241692 * Spam is for lusers who can't get business any other way * A Randomly Selected Thought For The Day: The best laid plans of mice and men are usually about equal. To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message
Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?199905061430.JAA01645>