What do you do if you study chemistry at Saint Andrews? Become a marketing guru, obviously. That’s the path Steve Alker has taken. Read on to learn more about this active participant.

Where are you based?

I live in Rudgwick, which is a feudal village in West Sussex, 30 miles to the south of London. Understanding village life is essential to survival here. In a city, you are regarded as deranged or possibly even a pervert if you greet people in the street who you don’t know. In the village you would be regarded as being rude if you don’t. We also practice the ancient traditions of forelock tugging, and causing traffic jams with Range Rovers, Mercedes Benz Limos and my Bentley.

What do you do in real-life?

I run the Sales and Marketing activities for Unimax Solutions, I own a sales training firm and I’m retained as a head-hunter for an Instrumentation Recruitment company. I get all the jobs where their directors can’t even pronounce the sales discipline, never mind understand the technology. My wife runs the family estate and shoots people who refuse to pay their bills.

Tell us about your company.

Unimax Solutions has become one of the larger CRM consultancies in the UK. It is a partnership which grew out of 3 separate Maximizer businesses, where we wanted to gain some critical mass in order to win larger contracts and to gain leverage with our principal Maximizer UK. It also provides us with an extremely civilised forum for disagreeing with each other. This way the partners are freed up to do the marketing, selling, technical support and product development, whilst leaving admin, accounts and legal aspects to a central cadre of administrators. They are acquainted with the works of Franz Kafka and we model our bureaucracy on his book “The Castle”

We are incredibly committed to delivering CRM and sales-forecasting systems which actually work. This has the unfortunate consequence of leaving us looking for different ways of saying, “Your figures / conclusions / strategy is/are total rubbish” 

How did you find KHE?

I was looking for some answers to a point on advertising and PR lead returns (They are decreasing, by the way) and discovered that the major sites I used contained mainly sanctimonious self –serving drivel. I’d been following some questions on MarketingProfs with interest and plucked up the courage to pose my own question. I got the answer I was looking for, but not the one I wanted and that lead to a change in my marketing strategy. Shortly after that I started to answer some questions where I felt that I had direct relevant experience which might be of assistance.

I rather like the fact that if anyone writes rubbish in response to a question, there are better informed members who are prepared to tell everyone that the submission is crap. I’m astonished how frequently I feel that I need to check my references before I submit a single word to you.

Explain your Community Name and why you selected it.

I couldn’t think of a witty one. I’m also useless at tag-lines, jingles and advertising slogans.

What kinds of KHE questions do you enjoy most?

Research and metrics and strategy, though I seem to have done rather a lot in e-marketing. I enjoy trying to answer the difficult ones, especially if they involve statistics, business process and sales technique. Oh, and anything which merits an amusing answer!

Describe a specific KHE discussion you learned something from.

That’s a hard one as I get something out of most postings I read. The one which really impressed me was from telemoxie after the Katrina disaster. It showed how this international community could pull together to offer advice and support in the face of a huge human tragedy. The spin-off benefits through individuals being inspired to do their own bit are immeasurable and I think that it stands as a selfless example of can-do spirit when so many were not-doing and playing the blame-game.

What is your favorite marketing book? Why?

(It’s spelt favourite, by the way!! Oh you Americans!)

I don’t have one. Most are useful in a narrow sense and are usually self serving, unless they are text books, in which case I use only bits of them for reference. My formative ideas were guided by economics and Adam Smith’s “The Wealth of Nations” should be required reading for those benighted souls who don’t understand the power of markets and the value of individual freedom. Beyond that I find that Moor’s “Physical Chemistry” gives me a constant reminder not to ask water to flow uphill unaided (Or for big CRM systems or Communism to be expected to work) and Ian Stuart’s “Does God Play Dice”, on Chaos Theory will free up billions of man-years by showing corporations and Governments the futility of doing 5 year forecasts. On the sales front, Gavin Kennedy’s “Everything is Negotiable”, taught me all I needed to know about sales negotiations in one book.

What networking or professional organizations do you belong to?

This one! I’m also a member of CRMguru and InsightExec and the UK Based Conspectus, (for Management Consultants.) and the Wiglaf Journal. I’m also a member of the “Dennis The Menace” fan club after I signed up my entire University to “The Beano” comic when I was Senior VP of the Students Representative Council (SRC) (A bit like the Student’s Union, only we wore nicer gowns and had more political power) It beat joining the International Federation of Student Socialists or some similar Marxist codswallop, which a bunch of bearded twits wanted me to spend the student’s money on.   

How many years have you been in marketing? How did you get started?

In 1981, I started off as the first graduate technical sales person my firm had ever hired and spent a year narrowly avoiding getting the sack because I kept utilising marketing techniques instead of making 4.68 visits a day, asking 6 questions, answering objections and closing sales. Then I worked out that the UK sales and marketing manager, who to my mind was an uneducated Cockney, not only quoted Dickens, but had a mind like a razor and drove a Jag. I drove a basic Ford, so maybe had a point.

So I carried out the nonsense that he required of me, did my marketing bits in my own time, rescued a sales conference with a product marketing presentation and through a combination of the Neanderthal sales “rubbish” he taught and my guerrilla marketing tactics made more sales in my territory for a new product than the other 10 territories combined. I’ll be forever indebted to that guy.

I’d just bought a Ferrari on the commission when the sods promoted me, firstly to a product manager, then sales manager and then marketing manager, so I had to spend the money on a new house in the expensive South of England.

I went on to be head of Marketing (EMEA) for BS&B Safety systems and then ended up as General Sales Manager and Director for an Electronics Instrumentation, Test and Measurement company for a few years before I got fed up with the politics (That’s a euphemism for getting the sack but I did have the rest of the board dismissed 3 weeks later!) I received enough compensation for being brave enough to reveal ineptitude on a grand scale which allowed me to found my own CRM and Marketing consultancy.  

Did you study marketing in college? Or have you learned on the job?

I went to St Andrews University in Scotland, which prided itself (in those days) in not teaching anything which was even remotely useful in the real world. If you couldn’t work out how to do the workaday things from the education they gave you, you really shouldn’t have been there in the first place! So I studied sciences, with practicals in the three P’s – Plays, Parties, and Politics. I was however fortunate enough to gain high office as firstly treasurer and the senior VP of the SRC. Having responsibility for a staff of 12 and a budget (In today’s terms) of £6,000,000 is a huge growing-up experience. That got me my first job, not the degree.

I have no formal marketing qualifications apart from Maths, Economics, Physics and Chemistry. I joined the CIM, but despite finding the coursework easy, the volume of irrelevant information I needed to learn to tick the right boxes in their exams was incredibly boring. I didn’t need to learn how to sell cornflakes to fat consumers or how to kill children with fish fingers, so I got myself onto a number of formal courses in Industrial Marketing, one run by a head of department from Ashrigg College which was one-to-one for six months and absolutely superb.

Do you have (or have you had) a mentor? What has he/she has taught you?

I’ve learned on the job under great mentors – Tony Cooper (The cockney referred to above) taught me everything I ever needed to know about sales and sales management. My managing director, David Jeffcock, an ex-Loctite man gave me 2 years of undivided tuition in marketing which proved invaluable for years to come. Some of the other Managing Directors I worked for have proved unintentionally influential by allowing me to dismiss everything they ever thought of about marketing without me having to either agonise over it or think too much about ignoring them.  

What is your next career objective? 

This might appear to be hugely lacking in ambition, but I’ve never wanted to become a Managing Director or CEO of anything. I just don’t have the correct blend of skills. I’ve enjoyed running a very large department and turning round sales and marketing led operations, but the aspects of HR and Manufacturing are beyond me and the CFO is may ally, not my potential employee.

So it’s more of the smaller things in life, where can contribute rather than make a prat of myself. I’ve got my eyes on a software company back up in Scotland and there’s a nice castle for sale just outside Stirling. It’s got enough outbuildings to house a large office for 10 people and stables for my daughter. To put this in context, it costs about as much as a 4 bedroom semi-detached house in Chelsea, London, though I’ll grant you; the heating bills are a tad larger!

Do you have a favorite gadget/tool that helps you do your job?

A Grand Piano! No one, to my mind made a bad marketing decision whilst playing Debussy and no one feels inclined to bollock a colleague for a minor mistake in a presentation when they’ve just made 12 minor mistakes and one big mistake in their rendition of Brahms’s Ballad in D Minor. By the way, bollock is only a little bit rude in the UK; it actually means a hard leather ball and has metamorphosed to describe an itinerant priest. You can blame the Sex Pistols for the pejorative use, but a famous obscene publication trial against Richard Branson in 1979 had the case thrown out when John Mortimer QC proved to the court that the priestly origin had metamorphosed to bollocks due to the tendency of Victorian prelates to spout nonsense.

Describe one of your non-marketing hobbies or interests.

Playing Chess. I love the game and it’s so versatile. I’ve played on horseback, 400 feet up a cliff face and I’d like to play it underwater, but I’m a useless swimmer. I’m a moderate player and enjoy the game socially. In fact in a world where my children outgrow their computer games in days or weeks, no one I’ve met has ever tired of ChessMaster – that must be unique within the genre.

What is the value KHE provides to you personally?

It’s the politest place on earth where people can tell each other that their ideas are crap. Sorry, I meant tell them that they are misguided. It also has the ability to display a constant source of innovative ideas about marketing subjects which span the entire spectrum. And of course there’s getting some specific answers to the few questions I’ve put myself, particularly where discussions with local colleagues have been fruitless.

Apart from that I enjoying trying to help people out and I also find that the forum keeps my mind sharp and focussed. In my business, the big consultancy jobs can be weeks apart, so the ability to practice the art and science whilst hopefully benefiting others is invaluable.

Have you made any offline connections with people you met in KHE?

Yes, many such as Tim Smith (Wiglaf), Randall (WMMA), Fred Ramstedt, Gary Rosensteel, Mike Goodman and Woutkok. Apologies to those whose emails I don’t have space to include here – there are some fantastic ideas which fly around off the forum, even if we can’t print some of them!

I should also mention a few off-forum exchanges with some prats who lift great chunks of someone else’s works from the web, pretending that they are their own ideas. Attribute and cite or be shot! And then there’s the latest trend which is to re-state the question – at length – and then to quote every nit-picking detail about the subject which my 12 year old could find on Google and then, to ad insult to boring injury, fail to actually answer the question. If you print enough of the Encyclopedia Britannica, relevant or not, the questioner will go away or die of boredom and the copy-typist who filled our forum pages with their drivel will get the points because the question gets closed through lack of interest.     

Do you have any advice for new members of KHE?

Follow the questions and answers for a few weeks to get the feel of the place, then pick the most taxing question you’ve been perplexed with recently – one where you really want help with the answer. Explain your reasoning to date and your conclusions, if any and be prepared to comment on member’s replies, preferably daily.

If you disagree with a point, say so. When you wrap up, thank the contributors and summarise your conclusions.

If you comment on someone else’s questions, try to do it from a position of knowledge. If your comments are opinion, say so – you will be appreciated. If you are quoting someone else, give them the credit and if you copy and paste from the web, give an attribution and cite the source. And for heavens sake, if you think that someone’s views are a load of piffle, say so!  

Do you have a favorite quote you want to share?

“All it takes for evil to prosper is for good men to do nothing” There are actually about 10 variants of Burke’s actual words, but you get the idea!

And finally I offer a longer quotation from TS Eliot, which comes from the Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock. I think that it’s one of the most beautiful poems in the world, but this stanza accidentally describes marketing meetings! 

There will be time, there will be time
To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet;
There will be time to murder and create,
And time for all the works and days of hands
That lift and drop a question on your plate;
Time for you and time for me,
And time yet for a hundred indecisions,
And for a hundred visions and revisions,
Before the taking of a toast and tea.

Is there anything else you would like to say to the community?

It would be a useful addition to the discussions to have a space where, perhaps through a link, contributors could display graphical content or those sorts of expressions or equations which don’t lend themselves to text. I’d also like to ban that sodding txt language and to instigate a charitable fund for people whose keyboards have lost the use of their upper case functions, so that we can buy them a new one.

I’d also like to thank the staff and many contributors who make this one of the most vibrant professional sites I use or read and for putting up with me being so verbose!