Mark Stevens Doesn't Suck

Today, I had the pleasure of interviewing Mark Stevens, the head guru at MSCO, a hybrid marketing and consulting firm driven by the underlying principle that all successful marketing and management is  based on a clearly defined strategy for measurable business growth. Mark is the author of Your Marketing Sucks, Your Management Sucks and God Is A Salesman. Here is the interview:

Q. Who is Mark Stevens?
A. A person who believes that most of the rules of life and business presented to us as truths are actually myths that need to be challenged, I am challenger and the thinker who reveals a truer, more productive path.

Q. I am fascinated by the titles that cover your books: God Is A Salesman, Your Marketing Sucks and Your Management Sucks. Are you concerned that using God in a title or telling folks what they do sucks will push some readers away?
A. First, I don’t live my life fearing about what other people may think about anything I do. Second, I believe there is an impactful truth in the titles and although, some may argue with the truth, I prefer to live my life by it. Third, most marketing does sucks because it fails to achieve a positive return on investment. Fourth, God, and by that I mean the great religions of the world, has prompted 6 billion people to believe in a divine Being. There has never been a greater sales force than that. And I believe it is a very positive fact of life.

Q. Who should read your books?
A. All of those men and women who still want to open their minds to new ways of thinking and who believe, as I do, that there is an opportunity for continuous improvement and enlightenment in the adventure of life.

Q. Your blog is called Unconventional Thinking. What does that mean and what is your blog's mission?
A. What passes as Conventional Wisdom, is often simply a set of clichés that have lost all relevance. For example, we are advised that it is best to lead balanced lives but my unconventional prospective holds that just the opposite is true. A life of passionate unbalance, where work, play, love, romance, faith and achievement, are all seamless and concurrent. The blog asks people to take a fresh look at what and why they do what they do and to let go of the nonsense forced upon us by tradition. This is my mission.

Q. You seem to have a strong business philosophy. Can you share what that philosophy looks like?
A. Great business people learn from everyone but business people. Instead, they learn from physicists, artists, architects and generals. Case in point: the amazing accomplishment of the great religions of the world have taught me more about customer loyalty than any other executive sitting in a corporate suite. Look not where the answers are supposed to be but instead where we have never dreamed of finding them. Isaac Newton’s quote “Every action has an equal and opposite reaction.” Too bad the mortgage industry didn’t memorize Newton’s laws.

Q. If I were the CEO of Wal-Mart, what advice would you give me?
A. Remember Sam Walton’s Gettysburg Address, he wrote in 3 words: “Low price Leader.” Forget about everything else “Go for it.”

Q. I have been reading your blog for some time because it carries a sense of adventure. I like that your writing has a "go for it" dimension. Where does that spirit come from?
A. From two places: My DNA and my realization that life has a short fuse, so we have two choices in life: a) to be a go-for-it person or b) be a whiner. Which would you choose?

Q. Many of the readers here are entrepreneurs and/or consultants. What advice do you have for us?
A. Know that you are the people that make the earth move. You take the risk. You wake up in the morning, dust yourself off and find a new way to be successful. You are the winners. You don’t need my advice. If there is one thing I can suggest, however, try to wake the walking dead.

Q. What parting thoughts do you want to leave with us?
A. This weekend, set out on a two-hour walk in a place you never visited before, look all around and think about what you see. By the end of that very day you will see the rewards.