Week 2 Blog Post

Marketing, Leadership, and Coaching

According to Drucker, good leadership is essential to good marketing, going so far as to call leadership a "marketing job".  Cohen went on to conclude that if leadership is marketing, then marketing is leadership.  Cohen states that "this is important because just as leaders gain from applying research done in marketing, marketers gain from research done in marketing."  

In sticking with my football themed blog, I thought it would be interesting to break down a college football team and look at it is if it were a business corporation.  The Athletic Director would serve as the President, the Head Coach as the CEO, the full-time assistant coaches as managers, the part-time/volunteer coaches as lower level employees, the current players as current customers, and high school prospects as potential customers.     

You could even go as far to classify the full-time coaches as Marketing Managers, who determine what customers value.  We do this by conceptualizing, implementing, and monitoring, both when maintaining our customers (keeping our current players happy and engaged), and gaining new customers (recruiting high school players for next season).  We formulate a plan in which we work with our current players to develop them and keep them happy, implement the plan, and monitor it to determine its effectiveness.  The same holds true with recruiting new players; we develop a recruiting plan, implement it, and monitor its effectiveness.  We track our success rate with our current players through performance on and off the field, as well as track how many we are able to maintain year-by-year.  We do the same when recruiting new players, as we compare what recruits we get and which ones we lose to our competitors, and we strive to hit a certain quota of quality players at specific areas of need.  

Drucker believed that the purpose of a business is to help insure that the mission of the company remains focused on the customer.  If we take a look back at last week's post, I included the mission statement for the WNE Athletic Department:

The Western New England athletics department is committed to enhancing the overall development of its students and student athletes through competent and appropriate role modeling by our coaching staff.  Lessons learned in the competitive environment of intercollegiate athletics and the responsibility of team membership must be applied in the present, but most importantly, are used to prepare the student for life after college.

As coaches, we have to ensure that we not only keep our players (customers) happy in terms of wins and losses and how engaged and enjoyable our "service" of college football is to them, but we have to continually remind ourselves as managers to stick to our mission of enhancing the overall development of our players through competent and appropriate role modeling, and prepare them for life after college.  We do this through running study halls and encouraging and guiding them as to getting involved with other activities on campus.  We market such tactics to our potential customers, our high school prospects.

This week during our lecture, we were asked what does our company do to market internally?  In terms of running a college football program, our staff is required to meet with the Athletic Director on a regular basis, in which we evaluate our current progress and status amongst our competitors, and even review our internal processes to determine whether or not they require improvement.  Meeting with the Athletic Director is a good reminder for our organization as to what our mission is and to make sure we are sticking to it.  When we do our daily meetings with our head coach (our CEO), more internal marketing is conducted, but usually this is when we are regularly conducting SWOT analyses, looking at our internal strengths and weaknesses within our team, and our opportunities and threats amongst our competitors.  It is important for us to market internally throughout our organization so we do not lose focus on our mission.  Especially in the sport of college football, we as coaches can get caught up in just trying to win, or in general business terms, sell, sell, sell.  We have to remember that our purpose is to maintain our current customers and gain new ones, so we have to make sure we keep our current players happy and do an effective job at recruiting new ones for next season.

We were also asked whether or not the senior executives (leaders) in your company were marketers?  It is essential for our leaders to be marketers.  As coaches and managers of our organization, if we do not market our product to our current and potential customers, our job is at risk.  In our business, our success depends on how well we market our services to our customers, because without quality players, we do not succeed.  It is important for us as coaches to market our services to our players and have them buy-in to our system, and just as important to market to prospective players because we want to exhibit continued success.  Our success at marketing to our current players has a direct correlation as to our success at marketing to our prospective players, simply because the more we win, the more quality players we gain the next season.

I agree with Drucker's position that leadership is synonymous with marketing.  I believe that this pertains to all coaches, but since this week we are viewing our players as customers and assistant coaches as employees, we will look at the relationship of leadership and marketing through the eyes of a head coach. Cohen's 8 Principles of Leadership are:

1. Maintain absolute integrity.

2. Know your stuff.

3. Declare your expectations.

4. Show uncommon commitment.

5. Expect positive results.

6. Take care of your people.

7. Put duty before self.

8. Get out in front.

With the media playing such a huge factor in the environment of college football, it is extremely important for a head coach to maintain absolute integrity.  It's important for the the head coach to speak the truth, address any mistakes he has made, and keep his promises.  If he doesn't, he will no longer be credible to those he is leading, and will be scrutinized by the media, further deteriorating his reputation.  Obviously, to be a head coach, you have to know the game of football inside and out, otherwise you probably won't be hired, and if you are, you won't last long where you are it.  It is important for the head coach to declare his expectations to those who serve him, his assistants.  This is important so everyone is on the same page and acting upon the same vision.  A head coach that displays uncommon commitment motivates those around him.  If an assistant coach sees the head coach slacking off, he will think it is acceptable to do so as well, but if an assistant observes the head coach displaying uncommon commitment towards achieving his goals for the team, it creates an expectation throughout the coaching office and makes the assistants feel accountable to do the same.  Expecting positive results keeps a positive vibe throughout the organization, even when it comes to football.  Focusing on the positives in football helps keep morale up, instead of focusing on negatives all the time which can make for a hostile environment.  Head coaches who take good care of his people, in this case his assistant coaches, yields positive results.  Assistant coaches put in countless hours in the office, 12+ hours a day consisting of on the field coaching, running players meetings, film review, game planning, scouting opponents, and recruiting.  When a head coach makes it a priority to display the extra effort of taking care of those who work for him, it keeps morale high and your employees happy because it shows that the head coach recognizes the extra effort his assistants are putting forth.  Similar to displaying uncommon commitment, when a head coach puts duty before self, it shows how important the task is, which trickles down to his assistants.  If the assistants see the head coach putting his responsibilities towards the team ahead of his personal responsibilities, the assistants will follow suite.  Finally, all head coaches must get out in front and take ownership of their team.