Rethinking Marketing by Dr. Minet Schindehutte
Indo American Chamber of Commerce had organized for a talk today at U.S.Consulate General, Chennai. It was “Rethinking Marketing: The Entrepreneurial Imperative” by Dr. Minet Schindehutte. As always, going through the security at the Consulate office and lack of parking near-by was a pain.
If you are going for any event at US Consulate in Chennai including Saturday movies or to American Consulate Library, remember to carry a Government given ID Card (Driving License, Passport, PAN Card and so on) in original, be there 30 minutes before the event, going by Auto-rickshaw will be the most convenient. Unlike VISA interviews, for these invited events Cellphones are allowed but need to switched off & deposited along with your original ID at the security gate. During the event, I found it difficult without my Mobile for taking photos, writing down notes & doing web references. We have got so used to having with us all the time our Mobile phones. And when you don’t have it you feel you are lost.
Dr. Minet Schindehutte carries a very accomplished bio. She is a scientist, entrepreneur, educator and scholar, a leading American expert on entrepreneurship, with previous work experience both in academia and the private sector. She is the co-author of two books including a book with the same title as this talk today, currently she is an associate professor of entrepreneurship at Syracuse University’s Martin J. Whitman School of Management, and a Fulbright Nehru Visiting Scholar BITS Pilani (KK Birla Goa Campus).
(Picture courtesy: Indo American Chamber of Commerce, Chennai)
Dr.Minet presentation had 10 salient points to remember for a successful marketing, in the talk today due to time given she covered about 6 of them. The key point was that as a seller of a product/service it is extremely important to put ourselves in the shoes of the consumer. Think differently, categorize the audience correctly and so on. She mentioned:
- Of a Paris restaurant (Dans Le Noir) that serves food in complete darkness, so that we are able to use all our other senses (non-vision) more and enjoy the food thoroughly, food here is being served by vision-impaired
- Guy Kawasaki’s book – Art of Start. Talk by him on make meaning in your company (Increase the quality of life, Right a wrong, Prevent the end of something good)
- Lean Startup isn’t about being cheap being less wasteful, the book by Eric Ries
At the end of talk, I was left thinking on how much of these marketing guidelines (which were certainly great when they were written) are valid in this “new normal” world that we are living through now.
