Customerising Revisited

Back in 1992 I researched how 30 businesses in the North East of England undertook marketing. I discovered that they did not use traditional formal marketing methods as taught by business schools.

Their approach was much more informal and personal based on networking, building customer relationships, growing by solving customer problems and above all doing that bit extra and delighting customers.

This insight was so different from big business marketing I coined a new phrase to describe it; customerising.

I discovered in 2000 that customerising is the way entrepreneurs start and build successful businesses yet customerising is still not part of business school marketing programmes - why?

Maybe that is because really successful small entrepreneurial firms are too busy making money to be concerned with the 4 'P's, the marketing mix and all that marketing jargon.

Perhaps business schools and academics should go and look at what successful entrepreneurs actually do as I did 20 years ago.... they might then be able to teach their students something useful.