The Community For Marketing Professionals
Tom Davenport
Sort by:
Date
Sign up
Have an account? Login
- Share and discuss the best content and new marketing ideas
- Find interesting events and jobs
- Build your professional profile and become a better marketer together
Too early to judge their performance yet, but he partly won because Sugar didn't know what questions would challenge Mark's business plan.
With the other finalist, who proposed manufacturing women's tights, he know how to challenge her about unit costs and storage space.
When it came to challenging Mark, he didn't know what to ask. I would have starting with these questions:
- How do I know your outsourced staff or low-salary employees will provide a reliable service to our clients?
- Will we assess the potential for every lead before accepting them as a client? How do we cover that cost?
- If we accept every opportunity available, what proportion of these projects might not work out?
- What do we do when, say, one in 10 clients don't work out, and they go to the press to say "Alan Sugar's agency ruined us"?
Sugar didn't know to ask these questions, so he didn't.Mark sailed through for the same reason many agencies - good and bad - win business with clients large and small. The business owner doesn't always understand the details.