Step 1: Enthusiasm (Launch) Step 2: Disallusionment Step 3: Panic _______________________ AFTER THE FAILURE _______________________ Step 4: Search for the Guilty Step 5: Punish the Innocent Step 6: Reward the Non-Participants I think we are someplace between Step 4 and Step 5.
The sales force results were exactly what the brand team wanted. Unfortunately the brand team had no idea what would be successful. They gambled on their own knowledge and lost.
You forgot Step 7: See what sticks to the wall and hire a bunch of worthless nurses who add no value to sell.
I love it when they use our sales meetings as a stage for rewarding and recognizing the marketing people. First of all, we have no fucking idea who you are and second, if we did we still wouldn't give a shit. I have never seen a more self absorbed bunch of clueless twits in one place in my life and we have to sit and politely applaud as they prove to us that they are clueless twits.
If you don't know who they are, or what they do, or give a shit, doesn't it stand to reason you would be clueless genius?
Read the OP moron. The poster simply says that you should know your audience when planning a meeting. Why would you waste the time of thousands of PSSs and DSMs having a celebration of the brand team on stage at a SALES MEETING? It is the peak of self indulgent elitist behavior. HQ leadership thinks you are brilliant and wonderful but why should I give a shit?
Marketing on stage equates to self gratuitous aggrandizement, an attempt to share in the success of field sales. At one time field sales was largely the driver and director of sales. No more, marketing was given the keys.
No company ever succeeded by strictly marketing genius. Even the best products fail when the sales strategy and connection to the customer fails. That is a proven fact that AZ lost sight of long ago. The brand teams became the decorated heroes and the sales force became the scapegoats when their brilliance failed to be executed properly.