Not too many CMOs become CEOs, but one who did also went on to become a knight. So for all you ambitious marketers out there, here are a few words of advice from Sir Terry Leahy, the man who grew Tesco into a global powerhouse and whose new book, Management in Ten Words, is well-worth reading. (If you’d rather watch Drew’s interview with Sir Terry at the recent IBM Smarter Commerce Global Summit click here).
Loyalty
| Launched in 1995 when “computing power finally made it possible to do what we wanted to do,” the Tesco Clubcard loyalty program provided an immediate boost to sales and vaulted Leahy’s career. It all started, however, with the desire to simply say “thank you” to customers “irrespective of how much they spent.” Do you have an effective loyalty program? |
Courage
| Sir Terry faced many naysayers when he launched the Clubcard since it risked 25% of Tesco’s profits and its success was in no way assured. But once launched, the Clubcard was transformative, refocusing the entire organization. “We made loyalty and data insight absolutely central to everything we did,” explains the thusly courageous knight. Do you have the courage to make one really big bet? |
Compete
| “My strongest competition are the best management consultants there are,” Sir Terry asserts in his book, and consequently, he’s studied them like a dogged warrior. However, when Drew asked him if monitoring the competition can lead to copycat behavior, he revealed, “It wasn’t until I stopped trying to follow the competition that I beat them.” Are you following your competition a bit too closely? |
Values
| Though Tesco’s values are short and sweet, they were derived from thousands of interviews with Tesco employees, a process Sir Terry nonetheless describes as “the easy part.” “The hard part was living them,” he remarks in his book, which is why he traveled around the world inculcating those values via “town meetings” with 10,000 managers over a 14-year period. Is your business living your values? |
Simple
| Achieving simple is hard, especially for larger organizations, but, as Sir Terry explains, “Simplicity is the knife that cuts through the tangled spaghetti of life’s problems.” Both the Clubcard and Tesco’s values reflect Sir Terry’s commitment to taking the complexity out of business challenges. Are you keeping your communication plans simple? |
Final Note: Though he’s still a bit star-struck, Drew reports that Sir Terry Leahy couldn’t have been more down-to-earth and personable. Drew’s also grateful to the folks at IBM for the chance to interview Sir Terry and three other luminaries: IBM GM Craig Hayman, HARO founder Peter Shankman and former VP of Marketing at Virgin America, Porter Gale. And of course, let us know if you have any words for us.
