Interview with Ali Pervez

Q. Why did you write the book Marketing is King!?

It’s very simple. I wanted to put my marketing knowledge to good use. I think that the greatest thing that you can do in life is help other people. I sincerely want people to benefit from my marketing knowledge.

Plus, I think it is about time that the power of marketing is finally unleashed to the world. I believe that marketing is a hugely powerful force. Advertisers to a high degree control our daily lives.

To me, marketing is not just about selling products. Sure, whenever people think of marketing, they assume someone is trying to sell them something. The end result of marketing in any business organization is to sell something. But this should simply give you a clue to how powerful marketing really is.

My passion is to take marketing from the business world into the real world. If something works, and works exceptionally well, why not take advantage of it? My book is about the real world application of marketing, and how to use it to solve everyday problems, like getting a job or internship.

I want to bring marketing back to where I think it should be – a tool to bring healthy and positive value to the marketplace to add and contribute to society in a positive and meaningful way.

My goal was clear from the outset to make marketing easy, understandable, and digestible to the average person by breaking it down into bite-size and manageable pieces.

Some people who want to learn marketing, may pick up Marketing for Dummies. It’s a good book, but unless you are a business person, there is no value, since the book assumes marketing is something used to sell products.

My book is not full of academic theories, concepts, pricing models, segmentation analysis, etc. It’s full of stories readers can relate to and have fun with! It’s actually a lot more than a book in many ways. It’s a training manual, with case studies and tests. But most of all, it’s down to earth, simple and practical, and this is what I think people want.

The acid test I used was my daughter, who is in the seventh grade. She has mastered the concepts of marketing, just by reading my book!

Q. Why is marketing king?

Our success in life is determined by the market. The market always makes the final call, be it business, personal or social. It doesn’t matter if you think you have a winning product or idea. If the market thinks differently you are out of luck! In the real world it’s all about what others (the market) think of you!

So the real question is, how do you talk to the market? This is done by using a language called marketing. One way to see marketing is as a language, the language of value. It is the only language the market understands.

I am sure that you have heard the phrase “Cash is King.” But how do you get cash? By marketing some product, service or idea. Who invented cash in the first place? Cash was invented as a means of exchange of value. And that is what marketing is about: bringing value to the marketplace. It allows you to do this by using the three tools of marketing - market research, advertising and sales.

One of my students is 24, and has gotten job interviews with CEO’s by applying my marketing concepts. This is the real reason marketing is king! It allows you to bring true value to the marketplace.

Q. How are you different from other marketing gurus?

First, I do not see myself as a guru. (I do not have a beard!) Second, I simply refuse to accept the fact that marketing is something reserved for the business world. What I have done, and done well, is to bring together the pieces of marketing for the first time in a very simple format I call the marketing triad. I’ve taken the threads of marketing and made them into fabric.

Like it or not, accept it or not. I am going to tell you a fact of life. We are not rewarded in life for how hard we work, how intelligent we are, or how good we think we are. We are rewarded based on the value we bring to the marketplace. It’s never about us, it’s about what others (the market) think of us.

There are a lot of brilliant people, products and ideas out there that are totally unsuccessful, because the market does not think the same way. By the same token, there are a lot of perhaps very silly ideas that are hugely successful. The market has made it so.

Q. Is $31.50 a good value for a book like this?

It’s actually a phenomenal value. If you can use my book and get a job, what is that worth to you? Just multiply your salary by the number of years you end up working, and that is your total revenue gain. Then offset the $31.50 you pay for the book. This is your return on investment. Plus, not having a job is a major financial drain. Most people have no idea of how much they are losing per hour by not having a job.

If you work 250 days per year and 8 hours per day, that is a loss of $25 per hour if you are earning $50,000, or $50 per hour if you are earning $100,000.

I have many successful students that have used the techniques in my job hunting chapter to find a job, including myself, so it’s not me on trial, it’s you!

If what you have been trying up until now is not working, then you need a different approach, so why not give marketing a chance?

Second, this is more than a book. It’s a training manual. I have created headlines, highlighted key points to remember and created exercises. There are real letters that I and my students have used to get job interviews in an hour or less. I give you facts and real stories. I give you humor. But most of all, I give you value, value well beyond what you will pay. The chapter on job hunting is worth a few thousand dollars in itself. A professional outplacement company may charge you a large chunk of change to reveal the information in the book. Bottom line, I want to help people benefit from my marketing knowledge and experience.

It is a fact that a one percent increase in sales effectiveness can increase sales revenue by 6.5 percent. My hope is that sales professionals will read the sales chapter and gain that one percent increase to result in a 6.5 percent increase in sales. A salesperson earning $50,000 should earn $53,250, or $3,250 more after reading this chapter. Not a bad return for $31.50 investment!

Q. What is the difference between sales and marketing and how does advertising fit in?

Sales is simply a component of marketing, not vice versa. Sales is really about convincing, influencing, and persuading people you have something of value to offer. If we look at marketing from a business perspective, it really starts the moment an entrepreneur comes up with an idea. At this time, the founding pillar of marketing, or market research, is used to validate the idea. Once the product is made and tested, it is finally sold to consumers. So sales is merely a component of the marketing process. The biggest mistake poor salespeople make is trying to sell a product the market does not need or want. This is usually because they have not done upfront market research.

Marketing is also not advertising. By assuming marketing is advertising, you are making a very big assumption that you have a product that brings value to the marketplace. This is one of the major reasons companies go out of business, by bringing products or services to the market that have no value. It is also the reason why two-thirds of all TV commercials result in no increase in sales. Most advertising dollars in the USA are spent lining the pockets of advertising companies and not bringing any true value to the marketplace.

The secret to marketing is to use the pillars of marketing effectively and the way they were intended to be used: to develop a fully integrated marketing plan.