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Your Customer is Wrong
January 21, 2008

Did you catch Kodak’s Jeff Hayzlett on Celebrity Apprentice last Thursday. Jeff is the #4 man at Kodak and an old friend of mine. He emailed me (and probably the bulk of his Address Book as well) to say that he’d be on the show this past Thursday (Jan. 17). I was to be on a flight at the time, so I thought I’d miss it. However, as fate would have it, the flight I was to be on had TVs in the seats (God, I LOVE JetBlue!). This allowed me to not only catch Jeff’s act but hear KISS’ Gene Simmons tell the camera that Kodak’s strategy was all wrong. It was priceless.

I won’t go into detail (you can catch it on YouTube or various websites), but it really was must-see TV. If you consider Simmons to be a sales rep, here’s what he did wrong:

1.    He refused to meet with the client, sending two subordinates instead;
2.    He ignored their “report” and decided on his own what the need was;
3.    He forgot the name of the product;
4.    When told what the client wanted, he said, “Well, the client is wrong;”
5.    All of Gene’s focus was on flash and show. That is, he focused on sales and while he did a decent job of selling, his lack of knowledge (not to mention his overpowering ego) prevented him from connecting his customer their customer.

It was a train wreck.

In the end, Kodak got the PR they wanted (Jeff emailed me this morning saying, “It far exceeded our expectations) and Donald Trump got to say those two famous words to a pompous ass. It was good theatre.

Oh, and my flight made it safely, thankyouverymuch.

Posted by Bill Farquharson on January 21, 2008 | Comments (0)