Traditional marketing texts talk about Product, Price, Place, and Promotion. Today, let’s look at the 5th “P”… People.
“The future isn’t what it used to be,” Yogi Berra once wryly noted, and that insight is truer now than ever before. Increasingly, companies are realizing that a future defined in terms of the traditional axes of competition (the four Ps) will no longer propel growth, but simply allow ”sameness” with the competition to continue. Winning today requires a new competitive advantage… People, both employees and customers, who are not only satisfied, not only loyal, but also engaged. You know it when you see it: an enthusiasm for your company, an emotional connection to your brand, and a level of energy that is unmistakable. It is this passion that causes employees and customers to be engaged with your business, and thereby deliver enhanced profits.
At its most basic level, an engaged employee or customer must be satisfied– the person’s expectations of the performance of the company or the product must be met. If this state is achieved, then there exists the opportunity to build loyalty– the intent of an employee to remain a member of the company’s workforce or of a customer to continue patronage of the company. Loyal individuals have the option of recommending the company to friends, and doing so defines the next layer of the “triangle pyramid hierarchy.” For employees, the viewpoint that the company is one of the best , or, for customers, that it has the best , represents one more step up the engagement ladder. Finally, the apex of the continuum involves an emotional connection… reflected in an employee being proud to work for the company or a customer being excited about the direction of the company.
About Wendi McGowan