Everyday mindset and mantras that have fueled the start-up community are now being transformed into growth drivers for longstanding organizations.
Marketing in an entrepreneurial environment is based on the same premise of knowing your target market and why they would be interested in your product or service. However, think about creating processes that have a defined objective, but which allow for and even encourage failures. Test, learn and modify what types of digital communications are most effective. Develop analytics that hone in on the specific features your customers value most. And most of all, support employees as they “pivot” based on market learnings and customer insights. Then, regardless of your organizational size or industry, you’ll succeed at cultivating entrepreneurial DNA.
How has this corporate entrepreneurial DNA been accomplished?
Three approaches are: External Stimulus, or Dedicated Time, or Cultural Environment.
An example of external stimulus is Google’s use of EIR’s, (Executives-in-Residence) housed within the company, which led to Google Search and Chrome.
Dedicated time includes 3M asking employees to allocate 15% of their time at work doing creative projects. The result was not only Post-Its but also manuals of new concept boards Facebook initiated “Hackathons” for their engineering teams. Ernst and Young created employee contests such as the Innovation Challenge, for new client ideas.
Smaller companies can create the culture to spark an entrepreneurial environment. Here are some comments from the 16 entrepreneurs who left NPI to create their own successful businesses:
1. “We were not entrepreneurs but the process and environment gave birth to the entrepreneur in all of us”
2. “Officers were like movie directors and the associates were the stars of the film”
3. “Birds with no cage learn to fly” reflecting the openness required in the environment
4. “Have no small thoughts”
Never think:
i. This is not something I can do;
ii. I don’t have the skills for this;
iii. I have never done this before, don’t know what I am doing;
iv. I am going to look like a fool;
v. I am not smart enough for this.
Think:
i. I believe I can do anything I set my mind to do:
ii. I must develop a well-thought out plan;
iii. I must know my clients/subjects;
iv. I must be prepared;
v. I must have confidence
5. “Pushed me over my limits…I was allowed to take risks, initiate projects without concern of failing, forced me to grow.”
Lewis Berey will be facilitating a seminar, “The Application of Strategic Marketing in Your Business Practice” at the Bloch School on October 13, 2017. Click here to learn more about Bloch Executive Education seminars.
About the Author
Lewis Berey started his business career at General Mills, where he became Manager of the Corporate Marketing Research department, which provided marketing guidance to over 15 diversified acquisitions. He then founded NPI, a strategic marketing consulting firm, with over 50 consumer and B2B clients in the Fortune 100 and nonprofit organizations. Concurrently, Lew was also CEO of a publicly held corporation, which acquired three national toy companies who manufactured products in a 175,000 sq. ft. plant in Asia. Currently, in addition to running NPI, Lew teaches and lectures at the Regnier Institute for Entrepreneurship and Innovation and in the MBA and MPA Programs at the Henry W. Bloch School of Management at the University of Missouri – Kansas City. Lew holds a master’s degree in Marketing from the University of Kansas.