At TMA Event Pragmatic Marketing’s Steve Johnson Draws—and Energizes—a Crowd

May 24, 2011 | Posted by: Katie

By Bob London, President, London, Ink

Technology Marketing Alliance (TMA) Board Member

Somewhere in the dark recesses of my basement, there is a box that attests to the enduring appeal of Steve Johnson’s message. The box contains several binders and files of notes that my wife kept after one of Steve’s Pragmatic Marketing training sessions—more than ten years ago. Whatever’s in this box, it is apparently valuable enough to survive nine consecutive spring cleanings—far outlasting a bunch of old stuffed animals (our kids’), a pallet of unopened wedding gifts (ours) and an extremely rare Microsoft Zune mp3 player.

As further proof of the loyalty that Steve and the Pragmatic Marketing Framework (see Figure 1) generates, most of the people at today’s Technology Marketing Alliance (TMA) meeting had already heard him speak or attended his training on at least one other occasion. They were back for more and Steve did not disappoint.

Steve is perhaps the leading authority on the myriad pitfalls of product management and marketing and definitely the most engaging and entertaining communicator on the subject. Which is a big reason why, according to its web site, Pragmatic Marketing is “The World's Most Popular Product Management and Marketing Training.”

Amidst the funny, forehead-slapping insights on sales/marketing/product management behaviors, here are some quick takeaways from Steve Johnson’s TMA presentation today:

·      It’s just as important to define who isn’t a prospective buyer as who is—to avoid wasting time with markets that have poor potential.

·      As a rule, you can’t have a leadership position in 14 vertical markets if you only have one customer in each market.

·      In most companies, any marketing success is accidental. Unfortunately this isn’t repeatable since you don’t know what generated the success.

·      To underscore the last point, according to Amazon.com’s Jeff Bezos, if they’re successful in the current quarter, its because they made the right calls 18 months ago.

For more wisdom, please visit Pragmatic Marketing at www.pragmaticmarketing.com and follow Steve Johnson on Twitter at @sjohnson717.

And to make sure you don’t miss the next great B2B marketing education/networking event, visit TMA at www.technologymarketingalliance.com