Bells and Whistles...from the Engineer's vantage point

Ask just about any engineer and s/he will tell you that they do not like "bells and whistles."  They are a bit disdainful when they use the term.  Features on a product are seen as unnecessary "fluff" added by marketing for no good reason.

When you look at what engineers do really well, it is developing clean designs, making them as simple as possible.  They want to design products that work well all the time with minimal downtime.  Features add complexity and often bugs.  Additionally, most people never  use the features.

Example....When was the last time you used a microwave to do more than reheat a cup of coffee or pop a bag of popcorn, however, most microwaves have dozens of features.  You can not sell one that only has two buttons: "Coffee" and "Popcorn."

Admittedly, most features are just "fluff" but to the marketer, they are very valuable.  More on that in the next installment.

James Snider is a Global Marketing professional, responsible for developing the 3.4 billion dollar 1394/FireWire market. James spent 16 years in marketing with 7 years working at "for profit" companies, 8 years as executive director of a non-profit and the past year as an independent global business development consultant.  www.linkedin.com/in/jamessnider

Left Brained...Right Brained

Part of the problem for engineers who want to move into marketing is the old "Left Brained : Right Brained" dichotomy.  

We are all a combination of left and right brained traits, but engineers tend to be more left brained.  They are more detail oriented and logical.  They reason through things in a step-by-step fashion.  They see problems as a series of dots to be connected sequentially with a line between each dot.  If they were a fisherman, they would bait one hook, drop one line in the water and catch one fish.  They tend to play it safe and follow the rules.  They are practical.


Marketers tend to be more right brained.  They are big picture and intuitive.  They gather random information together and weave it into a solution.  If they were a fisherman, they would cast a net into the water and catch all sorts of fish.  They tend to take chances and bend the rules.  They are creative.


By now, you are probably thinking, "But we are talking about technical products.  Engineers need to be able to talk to engineers.  If the customer is left brained, shouldn't the salesman be left brained?"  It is true that the technology marketer must have a good technical aptitude, but I assert that "marketing is marketing."  A good marketer will know how to sell the product to the customer, whomever the customer may be.


A few examples will clarify this.

James Snider is a Global Marketing professional, responsible for developing the 3.4 billion dollar 1394/FireWire market. James spent 16 years in marketing with 7 years working at "for profit" companies, 8 years as executive director of a non-profit and the past year as an independent global business development consultant.  www.linkedin.com/in/jamessnider

 

Let Marketers do the Marketing

In two weeks, I will be giving a presentation at Ignite Dallas (June 2, 2010). If you are not familiar with this international phenomenon, 15 or so speakers are selected to speak to a sizable audience on any topic they are passionate about.  They are restricted to 20 slides and 5 minutes.  The Ignite motto is,"Enlighten us, but make it quick."


I will be speaking on the topic of this blog...When Engineers Become Marketers.  Too often, marketing is relegated to the web guy, PR person, a salesman, or (today) the social media guru.  Marketing should be done by marketers.  Even with technical products which require considerable technical aptitude to be marketed well, the fundamental rules of marketing stay in effect and need to be followed.

Engineers who are not trained in marketing should not be marketing technical products.  On most college campuses, you will see a building called "School of Business" and a different building called "School of Engineering."  "Marketing" is taught in the school of business.  That is because it is not "Engineering."


Marketing is not something you can pick up by reading Wikipedia over the weekend.  It takes some aptitude, some training, and some experience to do it well.  Let a trained marketer do it.  After all, you wouldn't have your SQL programmer solder your thermal vias to your ground plane, would you?  That's crazy talk...


Over the next few installments, I will talk about how Engineers are fundamentally different than Marketers.

James Snider is a Global Marketing professional, responsible for developing the 3.4 billion dollar 1394/FireWire market. James spent 16 years in marketing with 7 years working at "for profit" companies, 8 years as executive director of a non-profit and the past year as an independent global business development consultant.  www.linkedin.com/in/jamessnider