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Marketing Outrageously
How to Increase Your Revenue By Staggering Amounts!

Chapter 2 continued...

THE QUESTION

Do you know any people that start out with the thought of creating a lousy company?

Don't spend much time thinking about that—you won't think of any. Sure, you know some lousy companies, but they didn't start out with the concept of creating it that way.

I don't have any easy solution for those movie producers about not producing lousy movies, or the pro sports team owner on how not to produce a loser, or the businessperson on how not to create a lousy company. But, I do have one suggestion.

WHAT'S IT GOING TO TAKE?

Most businesspeople are thinking, "How can we make our budget numbers?" or "How can we improve our profit over last year?" They are asking the wrong question.

What if you asked the following question at your company: "What's it going to take to be the best company in our industry this year?"

You don't have to be a CEO or a business owner to ask this kind of question. You could ask, "What's it going to take to become the best marketing department in the industry this year?" or "What's it going to take to be the best department in our company this year?"

I know how difficult it is to answer that question. I've asked it many times. Sometimes I've just asked myself, because it can seem too outrageous to ask anyone else. Sometimes I've asked others, even though if they'd been carrying guns I'd probably be dead. But you have to ask it, because that's the only way to come up with truly outrageous marketing ideas.

I'll give you an example . In the late 1980s, I was general manager of the Portland Trail Blazers. Even though I didn't have the authority to draft or trade players, I could call meetings with those who did. I assembled the coaches and personnel managers and asked the question, "What's it gonna take to win the championship this year?"

Logically, it was a foolish question. This was the era when Magic Johnson and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar were leading the Los Angeles Lakers to regular championships. When the Lakers didn't win, Larry Bird and the Boston Celtics did. Lining up to cut in on the Lakers and Celtics were Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls. So how stupid was my question, "What's it going to take to win the NBA championship this year?"

On paper, we didn't have a chance; in our minds, less than no chance. We were, however, a pretty good team. We had won fifty-three games the year before. Considering all this, I wanted us to think beyond what we had.

The player personnel people took the question as an insult. I could hear them thinking, "Who does this marketing guy think he is?" They fumed and grumbled for a while.

I asked the question again. "What's it going to take to win a championship this year?"

Silence. Finally, John Wetzel, an assistant coach, said, "One thing we need to do is really improve our outside shooting. We need some guy that can come off the bench and really fill it up."

"Two shooters," said Rick Adelman, another assistant. "When we get to the playoffs, we can't run our fast break as much, and the middle gets clogged up. We need two reliable shooters coming off the bench."

We talked for two hours. Head Coach Mike Shuler was enthusiastic, salivating over the thought of somehow acquiring two bona fide outside shooters. We made a list of players who might be available. We came away from the meeting with assignments for each of us to start making inquiries with other teams.

Later, Rick Adelman told me, "I've been in a lot of player personnel meetings over the years, and this was the best. We actually talked about winning a championship and what that would take."

Did I think we had a chance to win the championship that year? Not really. But I knew we had no chance to improve unless we set the target higher than what was comfortable.

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