Well, many of them don't any more. Maybe they did once, but human nature is a peculiar thing and we quickly forget where we've come from - and, axiomatically, what our target market is doing these days.
How many managers actually go to their shop floors and interact with customers by selling products to them? Not many.
How many managers actually use their own products, for that matter? When I opened my own agency, one of my first jobs was to produce an advertisement for Corned Ox-Lung and, based on the fact that I felt I should, at least, know what it was like, I tried some. It was quite disgusting (and this is from someone who eats snails, live oysters and crustaceans who eat God-knows-what on the sea bed)! The point is that if you don't know what it tastes like, how can you possibly sell it? I also carefully watched the people who were buying it - and why. I thought it was simple common sense but my client had never seen an adman ever do that before.
One of the big advantages a small businessman has over his corporate counterpart is that he knows and understands his customer better. Well, perhaps not better exactly, but he can certainly assess changes in moods quicker and respond to changing consumer demands faster.
Tom Peters, the author of The Excellence Challenge said in one of his many talks that being street-wise is "just plain vanilla, keepin' in touch."
You can chop and dice that summary all you wish and you will still come down to the basic fundamentals that every marketing expert in the world would agree on - and that is, the more you know about your marketing environment and the better you understand the man who buys your product, the better your decisions will be and the more effective your marketing effort will be.
When I recently read that the new Boeings being built are squeezing another nine seats into the economy section, I wondered how many of their executives have actually flown a long-haul flight in steerage class? For that matter, how many airline executives have done so? I'll bet 10 to 1 that not one senior executive of any airline operating in South Africa has flown to Europe in the back of the plane - and they should be ashamed of themselves.
You can apply this observation to just about any big corporation and the answer will be the same. Students graduate and put their lives of penury behind them and start off on their career ladder. They get nice and comfortable and how quickly they fall in love with the taste of Blue Label and rock lobster!
I remember Clem Sunter, when he was head of a mining company, going into the staff canteen in order to mix with the employees. He sat next to a woman wearing overalls and asked her what she did and she said "I'm a cleaner, what do you do?" He says he was a little surprised that she apparently didn't recognise him but said "I'm the chairman of this mine." Her reply really did hit home when she said "Yes, I know that, but what is it that you do?" No doubt he learned a lot from that one simple conversation.
The day you call yourself a manager and move off the showroom floor and away from street level is the day you take your first step in losing touch with the realities of your business.
This also happens frequently to journalists and columnists, by the way. At some stage they let their own agendas take over from the truth.
So take some time later today and go out among the people who work for you and also those that use your products. You'll be surprised at how much you'll learn.
Enjoy.
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