Tuesday, July 8, 2008

Fundas of Marketing applied in relations

It was my second class of Marketing, everything was hazy, not actually because of the professor's lecture , but because my mind was not there in the class instead it was roaming around the globe, standing a witness to my dreams. I had just started enjoying my future when suddenly I heard someone say “ your wife is your customer and if you don't satisfy your customer someone else will”, now I generally do not listen to the professor when I am dreaming but this statement was interesting. Now those of you getting weird ideas, hold you horses, its not as bad as it sounds :-).
It was in that 90 minutes that I realized the importance and meaning of the statement. If we believe in it and act accordingly we would not only make people happy around us but would also help our self to lead a happy life.
Let me explain, ask any successful company what is there prime objective and they would say “to satisfy our customers” , and then ask the same to a company suffering losses and they would say “ to make profits”.
I know it sounds a bit weird to any non marketing person, but try to understand any company can make profits only if its customers are happy
hence if a company functions as if its only motive is to satisfy its customer then profit follows automatically but if it only runs behind profits then it forgets to fulfill the needs of its customer in the long run. Of course it does not mean that the company should NOT be concerned about profits – after all one has to be pragmatic.
Now let us apply the same to relationships, I am sure all of us acknowledge the fact that all relations basically function in the principle of give and take, now I know some of you will not accept this sentence and would quote examples of a couple or the relation of mother and son, but think again are these completely selfless relations, don't u expect your husband/wife to be loyal to you, don't you expect certain level of love from your partner? Doesn't a mother expect certain respect and love from her son? doesn't a son expect love and care from his mother? and if this expectations are not satisfied the person seeks the same from elsewhere.
So I hope you agree that all relations are actually give and take. Now once this is said, let me define a customer , as per my professor anyone whom you give something either in product or service is you customer.
By this analogy our friends are our customers as we offer them help, emotional support , and much more in the form of friendship, by the same analogy you would find all the relations around us are basically customers, and hence if we do not satisfy there needs they would go to some other person, for example if you do not satisfy the basic needs of your friend like helping him/her in time of need, giving him/her the emotional comfort of a friend, he/she would find an alternative friend. Its as simple as that.
The moment each one of us start thinking this way, we would make everyone around us happy, and since they would also treat us the same, we would also be happy. But the problem is that we only focus only on ourselves, we want to satisfy our desires, and hence end up hurting others and eventually ourselves. The sooner we realize this fact the better our personnel life would be.

5 comments:

Ankur said...

There is a huge gap between what is taught in classes and what is required for execution and what happens in reality.... And your analogy of relations to marketing is completely misplaced my dear... True a mother might expect love and respect from her child but there are mothers who never get it and yet love their children.... Even if their children abuse them, ill-treat them .. still they love and are always ready to do anything for their welfare.... And the same is also true for many other relations... If ur "fundas" are applied to relations my dear then home will turn into a market place and relations into business.. So please refrain from thinking such analogies to be real.. They are made just to make the concepts clear.. Every theorem has its domain and range and no theorem is valid beyond that.....

Arnav said...

Well ankur,see lets think about this with an open mind and not with the feeling that marketing or selling is bad,
its not that way, look at it 4rm a broader horizon, I still stick to what I said. What I am trying to say is the thing called "expectaions" . True many mother do not get what they should... but some where deep inside they do want that unsaid love from their children , even if they don't say it. True tha many wives dont get the love they should get from their husbands, yes and they sill love them, but their expectations doesn't die out, they sill want that love.
and by using these fundas I do NOT mean to say ki use ur customer( your relatives/friends) for your selfish needs.
The fact is the companies which treat their customers as a way to get profit do not succeed , those that look for the customers benefit and plan their working as per the customer wishes are the companies which succeed. This is what I mean to apply.
If we think about out relations as customers , meaning that we do things to make them happy ( and NOT use them as a mean to succeed) we would be ultimately be happy. IT is this funda that I am trying to highlight.

Ankur said...

And it is exactly here that i differ... I am not saying that marketing is bad.. What i am trying to say is just that the theory doesnt apply to relation ship at all.. No customer will stay with u in case u r not satisfying them.. But our true friends and relatives who care bout us do stay with us under all circumstances.. We love some one because we love someone and there's no reason for it.. There might be expectation but its priority is much much lower than love... So in true relationship our satisfying them or not satisfying them does not matter.. Also bear this in mind that when talking bout market if there's another company that satisfies user's need better than his present service provider then the user will shift to that company... The same is not true in our relationships... And it is here that the failure of ur marketing analogy starts...

Arnav said...

well
c first of all , it does apply to relations as well, for example, if there are two friends a and b. Nw agreed that they are friends for no reason at all. yet they do have certain expectations from each other and say a does everthing for b, maybe he says he does not expect anything yet, mayber after 1 year , 2 year or decades he would get frustated and would stop caring as there is always a threshold for tolerence, no one can simply go on giving without having anything in return it simply does not happen.
and in true relations maybe initially one say x does a lot for say z ,but he wud be expecting something on the other in long term, and if he is left unsatisfied then in the long run either he wud leave z, or wud be under depression so z has to take care of the needs of x.
and yes compedition is here too, a fine example would be extra marital affairs , the reason why people go for extra marital affairs coz they are left un satisfied. In case of friends, if u realize generally no one has just 1 friend, reason being his/her different emotional needs gets satisfied by different friends....

Anonymous said...

Relationships is not fundaa
"GIVE N TAKE" for everyone.
marketing n relations cant be compared with each other.

Marketing is GIVE N TAKE