The Kotler experience cannot be quantified

“At 80 years old, he is fit and agile. On his first visit to Sri Lanka, Dr. Philip Kotler appeared quite excited. A globe trotter spreading his masterly knowledge on and insights into modern marketing, him discovering Sri Lanka personally just one week after i.e. Friday 3 June, celebrating his 80th birthday on 27 May, reflects the explorer in him”.

This was the opening paragraph that appeared in Daily FT when they met the man widely known as global guru of marketing. This summarises Kotler’s character and his address to a packed audience on last Monday morning and to some leading CEOs and professionals on the evening of the same day could be easily considered as the biggest marketing forum to ever happen in Sri Lanka. 

I have no intention of highlighting or analysing what Kotler said on Marketing 3.0 which was his theme for the forum, but there are a few lessons from this whole Kotler experience. 

As revealed by the Sri Lanka Institute of Marketing (SLIM), the organisers of this event, it is five times bigger than their next biggest project. An event of this magnitude always involves huge financial risk since expenses are extremely high. Sri Lankans are risk aversion as I have indicated many times in this column. It was a bold decision from SLIM to take up this challenge of “marketing” the marketing guru. But having more than 1,000 attendees in the morning and 200 in the evening while attracting loads of financial sponsors reflects that this project was profitable and the image boost it brought to SLIM cannot be quantified.If you need to excel in your life, you have to take such risky decisions. It’s all about taking a calculated risk and remaining confident about accomplishing the task ahead of you. High risk is always associated with high returns and without taking risks, you will be stagnant. I can see a great life lesson from the initiative taken by the organisers of this event.

I was attracted to one simple statement Kotler made on our country. He said the two letters SL we commonly use as a shortened form for Sri Lanka are well interpreted with the term “So Lovely”.  It is always a touching moment when someone you consider a guru comments on your own country in such a manner. After listening to all his complex marketing explanations, I still remember this simple statement he made and I’m pretty sure I will never forget his remarks.

The point here is that the creation of a guru and great personality in any field has not happened purely because he can understand complex things which we can’t figure out. It is always important to pick simple things we never consider as serious. Such things normally come naturally and create lasting expressions. The lesson here is that if you need to be a great person while doing things others can’t do, stick to basics which others ignore.

At the end of the evening session, Kotler requested the audience to ask questions. But no one (including myself, who was among participants) was confident and forward enough to ask the first question from this great man. Some may have thought of meeting him personally during dinner time and clarifying whatever they had in mind. But five minutes after the session was finished, Kotler moved away from the ballroom. No one got any chance to talk, share or clarify anything with him. The final chance of getting a few great insights from a great man was lost.

In life you will not get too many chances. Most of the time, you will get one chance or may be two if you are extremely lucky. If you don’t explore it at the first instance, you may be too late.