The Glass Onion

“I told you about the walrus and me – man; You know that we’re as close as can be – man; Well here’s another clue for you all….”

This is my final, retrospective entry on the concept of developing communication strategies that use purpose-appropriate tactics to produce both short-term ROI and longer-term, sustainable increases in enterprise value.

Why should we all care? To me, enterprise value is the language of CEOs, be they leaders of public or private companies. It’s the language of CFOs, too. These people are fundamentally oriented to play the enterprise value-creation game. If we want to have them value what we have to offer, it is imperative that we speak their language, understand their concerns. If your offer can connect along these lines with the CEO, you’re almost ready to transact. And if that connection extends to the CFO, they’ll allocate the funds to invest.

Last week, Ad Age sent out an e-mail soliciting feedback on the recent trend of management consultants like IBM, Accenture, and McKinsey making offers to assess the value being provided by their client’s marketing partners. I think this trend speaks volumes, and I assert that it is further grounding for what we have written about over the past two months.

I have no idea whether Paul was or was not the walrus. But if you are open to “…looking through the bent back tulips, to see how the other half lives…”, then I recommend the following for your review:

1. Value Based Marketing; Peter Doyle; John Wiley & Sons Ltd.; 2000
2. The EVA Challenge; Joel M. Stern and John S. Shiely; John Wiley & Sons Ltd.; 2001

I am sure there are even more places for us to look in order to continue to improve our proficiency with the language of CEOs, CFOs, and management consultants. If you have any further recommendations, please help us to keep this dialogue going.

The lyrics above are from Glass Onion, The Beatles, © Lennon & McCartney