Midsized companies have trouble “getting it” when it comes to marketing. Ownership and leadership tend to be sales oriented. Branding is unfocused. Marketing initiatives come and go like the wind because there is no long term plan in effect and no metrics established to monitor results.

If you are a frustrated marketing manager in a midsized firm, you should read The Perfection of Marketing immediately. I can give you three good reasons to do so.

  1. Reading it will make you realize you are not alone, and you’ll feel better.
  2. Getting your boss to read it might change his or her mindset – the book is that powerful.
  3. If your firm adopts the Connor method, you will leave competitors choking on your dust.

Connor uses a nice storytelling technique to lay out the three-step system he boldly calls The Perfection of Marketing. He’s pitching his agency’s services to the open minded but marketing-challenged owner of an industrial firm. Later in the conversation they are joined by the firm’s marketing director and CFO. As they talk, every marketing misconception and bad practice common to midsized business is exposed and refuted.

Among the many best practices that Connor explains and justifies -

  • The paramount importance of identifying what he calls the Sales Moment – the single, unique, and ownable quality of your product or service that closes the sale.
  • Why powerful taglines are a necessity.
  • Why you should change your company’s name.
  • Four types of marketing campaigns – what they are and why they work.
  • The importance of repetition in branding and marketing.
  • The necessity of search engine marketing (along with a primer on how to get started).
  • The proper way to establish budgets and calculate ROI.

By the end of the book, the business owner is questioning every marketing step he ever took … or didn’t take. You’ll probably do the same, because Connor’s explanations are clear, logical, persuasive, and supported by real examples drawn from his actual clients.

A few things I didn’t like about the book.

Connor seems to advocate slapping a TM symbol on every tagline. I’m not a big fan of that – to me it makes most brands look too packaged, draws attention away from the logo and tagline itself, and usually, the phrases aren’t all that original anyway.

Second, the book is blatantly self serving. It’s a very long and very effective infomercial for his agency’s services. Some readers may become skeptical because of this.

Finally, Connor boxes himself into a corner by claiming perfection. As a result, you get the impression he and his firm have never made a mistake. Even in the last chapter, where the potential client asks him for examples of failure, we get the impression the only time his system fails is when the client fails to listen to him.

I, however, am more than willing to look past these flaws because the instructional value of the book is outstanding. In fact, this material rises to the level of indispensable – provided readers not only grasp it, but act on it.

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