from HBR

I have been reading Havard Business Review these days. There is a article in recent issue-Nov.2006 about Theodore Levitt--a scholar renowned as a founder of modern marketing,who sought above all to use his insights to serve the needs of businesspeople.After a doctorate in economics in 1951,he joined the faculty of Harvard Business School,where he remained a professor until retiring in 1990. He was also one of Harvard Business Review's most prolific authors, publishing 26 articles-a number exceeded only by Peter Drucker. Levitt carried his practical approach to his tenure as Harvard Business Review's eighth chief editor,from 1985 to 1989. Levitt's ideal businessperson was someone who, amid the clamor of meetings, phone calls, stock-market,updates, daily papers,weekly magazines, and consultants' presentations,was fed up with hype and showed an insatiable appetite for expertise...In that ideal, he was his own best exemplar.

After the Sale Is Over...
Excerpted from Sep.--Oct.1983 (it is old but I find it very illuminating for AIESECers who do business with companies)
The relationship between a seller and a buyer seldom ends when a sale is made. Increasingly,the relationship intensifies after the sale and helps determine the buyer's choice the next time around. Such dynamics are found particularly with services and products dealt in a stream of transactions between selller and buyer-financial services, consulting,general contracting, military and space equipment, and capitcal consummates.
The sale, then, merely consummates the courtship, at which point the marriage begins. How good the marriage is depends on how well the seller manages the relationship. The quality of the marriage determines whether there will be countinued or expanded business, or trobles and divorce. In some cases divorce is impossible, as when a major construction or installation project is under way. If the marriage that remains is burdened,, it tarnishes the seller's reputation...
...In the [traditional] selling scheme the seller is located at a distance from buyers and reaches out with a sales department to unload products on them. This is the basis for the notion that a salesperson needs charisma, because it is charisma rather than the product's qualities that makes the sale.
Consider, by contrast, marketing. Here the seller, being physically close to buyers,penetrates their domain to learn about their needs,desires, and fears and then designs and supplies the product with those considerations in mind. Instead of trying to get buyers to want what the seller has,the seller tries to have what they want. The" produce" is no longer merely an item but a whole bundle of values that satisfy buyers-an "augmented" product.
Thanks to increasing interdependence, more and more of the world's economic work gets done through long-term relationships between sellers and buyers. It is not a matter of just getting and then holding on to customers. It is more a matter of giving the giving the buyers what they want. Buyers want vendors who keep promises,who will keep supplying and standing behind what they promised. The era of the one-night stand is gone. Marriage is both necessary and more convenient. Products are too much of a hassle and too costly. Under these conditions, success in marketing is transformed into the inescapability of a relationship. Interface becomes interdependence...
During the era we are entering the emphasis will be on system contracts, and buyer-seller relationships will be characterized b continuous contact and evolving relationships to effect the system. The "sale " will be not just a system but a system over time. The value at stake will be the advantage of that total system over time. As the customer gains experience, the technology will decline in importance relative to the system that enables the buyer to realizedthe benefits of the technology. Services,delivery,reliability,responsiveness,and the quality of the human and organizational interactions between seller and buyer will be more important than the technology(Trainee) itself...
...It is reasonable for a customer who has been promised the moon to expect it to be delivered. But if those who make the promises are paid commissiions (our 1000kuai) before the customer gets everything he or she bargained for, they're not likely to feel compelled to ensure that the customer gets fully satisfied later. After the sale, they'll rush off to pursue other prey. If marketing plans the sale, sales makes it,manufacturing fulfills it, and service services it, who's in charge and who takes responsibility for the whole process?
Problems arise not only because those who do the selling,the marketing,the manufacturing, and the serving have varying incentives and views of the customer but also because organizations are one-dimensional. With the exception of those who work in sales or marketing, people seldom see beyond their company's walls.For those inside those walls, inside is where the work gets done, where the penalties and incentives are doled out, where the budgets and plans get made, where engineering and manufacturing are done, where performance is measured, where one's friends and associates gather, where things are managed and manageable. Outside "has nothing to do with me" and is where" you can't change things"...
One of the surest signs of a bad or declining relationship is the absence of complaints from the customer. Nobody is ever that satisfied,especially not over an extended period of time. The customer is eithor not being candid or not being contacted-probably both. The absence of candor reflects the decline of trust and the deterioration of the relationship. Bad things accumulate. Impaired communication is both a symptom and a cause of trouble. Things fester inside. When they finally erupt, it is usually too late or too costly to correct the situation.
We can invest in relationships, and we can borrow from them. We all do both,but we seldom account for our actions and almost never manage them. Yet a company's most precious asset is its relationships with its customers. What matters is not whom you know but how you are known to them.