Mark Stevens, CEO of MSCO, Inc., and Bestselling Author of Your Marketing Sucks and Your Management Sucks, Brings Unconventional Wisdom to the Marketing Game
By Kenneth Davis
Notable marketing expert and image consultant Mark Stevens said that many people have the wrong idea of what a real salesperson actually does and mistakenly believe that selling is easy.
Act Now! Activate a FREE three days trial to MarketingCrossing.com, because you know how important it is to know about all the jobs.
"There's a huge difference between order-taking and selling," Stevens said. "You're not a salesperson because it says 'salesperson' on your card. You're only a salesperson if you actually are able to close a sale. It often looks easy because you see people selling something like Coca-Cola, for example. It's a very established brand, and people know what it is and need to refill their shelves. Most of those people are not really salespeople; they're order-takers. If you want to be a salesperson, then you have to sell something. You have to create demand."
As founder and CEO of MSCO—a global results-driven marketing and management firm—Stevens advises his clients on how to create demand for their products through good marketing and sales strategies.
"What we do is advise our clients on marketing and selling across the board—how [...] they grow their businesses through great salesmanship and great marketing," Stevens said. "We do all the marketing lectures, we develop the marketing strategy, and then we create all the tools for marketing, such as websites, events, and PR."
MSCO, which is based in White Plains, NY, specializes in strategy and integrated marketing solutions. The firm boasts an impressive roster of clients, including Nike, Starwood, General Electric, Guardian Life, Intrawest, Estee Lauder, and many others. Through integrated marketing campaigns, MSCO focuses on achieving results for its clients. Stevens advises corporations on methods for achieving results and growth at various stages of the business lifecycle.
Stevens established MSCO 13 years ago after spending nearly 20 years building and running a number of different companies. He said his experiences dealing with marketing companies motivated him to open his own marketing firm.
"I was always hiring these companies to help me take these businesses to the next level," he said. "I hired them—from the giants on Madison Avenue down to local firms—and they all sucked because they were aesthetically driven. They didn't understand how to sell something, and they didn't understand how to grow something. They could make pretty pictures, but they couldn't sell anything. Because at the end of the day, good marketing has to make sure that something gets sold, so I founded the firm on that basis, and that's what we do. We're about 40 people, and our focus is return on investment; and return on investment can only happen if something gets sold. I'm a big believer in IBM founder Tom Watson's statement that nothing happens unless a sale is made. And we've always been driven by that."
In addition to running MSCO, Stevens is also an author. He has written several bestselling business-related books, including Your Marketing Sucks and Your Management Sucks. His forthcoming book, God Is a Salesman, will be published in 2007. He's also an in-demand speaker at organizations such as Nike, Oracle, and the Culinary Institute of America.
Stevens discussed the skills that he believes a person needs to become a successful marketer or salesperson:
"To be successful in both you have to be driven," he said. "You have to be imaginative; you have to be creative in the standpoint of not necessarily creative like an artist but creative in the standpoint of what's the best way to actually sell something. Rather than following a cookbook that tells you how to sell a particular piece of software, for example, how do you reinvent the standard way we use to sell so that you can be even more effective? You have to be able to dream. What I mean by that is you have to think about what nobody else is thinking about. It's easy to follow conventional wisdom, but conventional wisdom runs out of steam and leaves you without true imagination and without finding out a better way to get something done."
He added that a good salesperson needs to be able to control the agenda.
"You're often told that when a salesperson goes in to see somebody, you go in and ask them what they need," Stevens said. "I don't believe that. I think the first thing you should do is go in and tell them why they need you."
Stevens also believes that a person's likeability has no bearing on whether they'll be a good salesperson.
Q.
Do you have any hobbies or interests?
A.
I love to ski and hike. I love to write books. I like philosophy, and I like to drink good wine.
Q.
What CD is currently in your CD player?
A.
Chasing Cars by Snow Patrol.
Q.
What's the last magazine you read?
A.
The Economist.
Q.
What's your favorite TV show?
A.
I'll probably make a lot of enemies for this, but Bill O'Reilly.
"A lot of people say I'd be good in sales because I'm friendly and people like me," he explained. "That doesn't make any difference. They have to write you out a check, and there's a huge gap between someone liking you and writing you out a check. I think you want somebody who's strong and opinionated and not someone who's just nice."
Stevens went to C.W. Post College at Long Island University and said he studied "whatever I thought was the easiest thing to pass." After he graduated, Stevens went to live in Paris for a while, where he said he "went to discos every night and drank every night." But once he got back to the states, he decided to get serious and become an entrepreneur. At 21, he started his first business.
"I looked around and saw that not enough attention was paid to the small business community in the United States and all of the news and information that was being generated was for the CEOs of big companies," he said. "So I created a little mini enterprise devoted to providing intellectual content to small businesses. And I started writing books on small businesses and giving speeches and selling information on small businesses. Then I just migrated from there to running companies."
Stevens discussed what he enjoys most about his job:
"I think there's nothing more rewarding in life than growing companies," he said. "So taking a company from zero dollars to $10 million, from $10 million to $100 million, from a billion to $2 billion, that's extremely rewarding."
Stevens was born in New York City. He's been married for 33 years and has two grown sons; one is a successful real estate broker, and the other is on Wall Street.
MarketingCrossing Fact #211: Our “Advanced Search” feature allows you to tailor your search parameters so that the results are only positions for which you would be interested in applying.
Bethany , Salem, OR
The amount of jobs on EmploymentCrossing is amazing. The site has the highest number of
jobs in the world.
Bryan , Saint Paul, MI
EmploymentCrossing always helped me stay updated with the jobs available in the
market. The daily news on the site was also very informative. I like to read the different archives and the life
style column on EmploymentCrossing.
Derek , Philadelphia, PA
I got a job, thanks to EmploymentCrossing. It is the best service in the world.
Andrew , Columbus, GA
The best part about EmploymentCrossing is the simplicity of the site. It is a very user friendly website.
Jamie , Pueblo West, CO
EmploymentCrossing is a very user friendly website and has a fantastic search engine. I always got quick responses to my search criteria.
To compare MarketingCrossing with other job sites
Show Everyone What You Are Capable Of: Take Action and Investigate Jobs on 50,000+ Websites Instantly
Get immediate results in your job search: Discover marketing jobs from over 50,000 websites on MarketingCrossing. It is not logical for you to be confined to marketing jobs on one website when you can have the exciting experience of searching over 50,000 websites at once.
You are focused on living in the present and not the future: Do not wait for the ideal marketing jobs to come to you; instead, find them right now. Observe, be practical, take action and get results today.
Director of Web Marketing United States-ME-Waterville
Thomas College is seeking a Director of Web Marketing to improve the overall impact and effectiveness of the College's web marketing strategy with ...
Even with the economic recession, one should never stop trying to find a decent employment and stay on it. However challenging it can be, there will always be ways to get a job in whatever industry or set of skills one has. This holds true for any kind of job, and this certainly holds true when one is trying to search marketing job in these trying ...
See Every Marketing Job We Can Find on the Internet!
Unlike other sites, MarketingCrossing works for you and does not charge employers to post jobs and actually goes out and researches jobs for you. The jobs you see are the jobs we find for you and not the ones employers are paying us to post.
Show Everyone What You Are Capable Of: Take Action and Investigate Jobs on 50,000+ Websites Instantly
Get immediate results in your job search: Discover marketing jobs from over 50,000 websites on MarketingCrossing. It is not logical for you to be confined to marketing jobs on one website when you can have the exciting experience of searching over 50,000 websites at once.
See all the jobs in your profession on the Internet in one place. Your powers of observation and people skills will all pay off when you can view:
Marketing jobs from every company employer career webpage we can find.
Marketing jobs from every professional marketing firm career page we can find.
Marketing jobs from every job board we can find.
Marketing jobs from every newspaper classified ad we can find.
Marketing jobs from every specialized marketing publication we can find.
Marketing jobs from every federal, state and local government career page we can find.
Marketing jobs from every public interest, nonprofit and other career page we can find.
Tell us where to send your access instructions:
Today at MarketingCrossing
2,225 - Jobs found in last 24 Hours13,644 - Jobs found in last 7 Days42,003 - Total Jobs Found
Your privacy is guaranteed. We will never give out, lease, or sell your personal information.
MarketingCrossing - #1 Job Aggregation and Private Job-Opening Research Service — The Most Quality Jobs Anywhere
MarketingCrossing is the first job consolidation service in the employment industry to seek to include every job that exists and not charge employers to post jobs on its site.
MarketingCrossing uses sophisticated technology and manual work to comb employer websites and other job boards for jobs and bring them all to its site.