As the year winds down, we look back on our successes and failures in marketing and in life. All marketing ventures involve risk. The voice of the customer - due diligence - helps mitigate the risk. There is however always uncertainty, which is part of the adventure! And we can certainly learn from the inevitable failures.

Michael Jordan put it this way:

“I’ve missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. Twenty-six times, I’ve been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.”

Failure is a necessary part of greatness. So my friends, take the shot!

Happy holidays everyone!   (Thanks to Karen Halle for putting Mikey's quote in her San Diego American Marketing Association VP bio). 

I was talking with my colleague Frank Bailey, a very smart guy who heads up Education and Outreach at AARP. What came up was this: As an organization grows, as new leadership chooses its path, and as the world changes, do you turn to customers to tell you what they want you to do, or do you exert leadership and simply move forward? 

My answer is this:

1. Always keep the pulse of your customers and the market. Ask them what they want and need, but not in a vacuum. Provide boundaries to the inquiry, which should come from your mission and vision.
2. Marketing research, which we do a lot of and believe in, should inform leadership certainly, but it is not leadership.
3. Do NOT abdicate your responsibility as a business leader to commit, and to make the decisions you need to make.

It's up to you decide what you will do as an organization. Customers can tell you what they value and don’t value; not what you should do. Ultimately it comes down to your core values, what you can do better than any other company, what drives your economic engine, what sets you apart, and what sells in the market. These are your leadership decision tools.