Marketing Failure #2 - Underestimating the Intelligence of your Potential Customer

In marketing this issue can take on several meanings, but we will only start with two. The first has to do with the fact that if you underestimate the intelligence of your potential customer, the customer will “see through” the product or the argument and realize that what is being sold is not what is being advertised. This issue falls under “Product Management” or under “Public Relations”. The second issue, though, may be that the potential customer wants more than the company is selling. Imagine that you are looking for a health club to join. You go to the geographically closest to your home, and do a “walk through”. Now your intent may be to compete in a world class competition. You envision yourself making breakthroughs and perhaps even becoming a top ranked athlete – a jewel in the arena. However, the club seems to have fairly outdated equipment, and it is also difficult to get access to the few good pieces of equipment. In order to use the better equipment the gym wants you to go through certain classes they have designed. It does not matter much if you have already had those classes, or in fact have used the equipment before. You must follow their structure. What is concerning to you is that it could take years under their plan to get to the good equipment, and you have only a very limited time in which to train. Naturally, wanting more and wanting it faster, you go elsewhere.

NKT presents two obstacles to the potential customer who wants more. While proposing that they are offering an “authentic tradition” they have done away with two of the most principle aspects of the curriculum of the student. The first is that they do not conduct debates. All other schools teaching Tibetan Buddhism have managed to incorporate debate classes into the curriculum, and it is only through such sparring that the student can test the depth of their skills. The NKT classes sometimes have paired discussion, at which times the students talk about work, or stress, or how their car is running. The student wanting to discuss the teachings, let alone debate the teachings, is the outsider. The teachers at the center may say “Geshe-la said that he learned 30% from classes and 70% through his fellow students” or some similar statement. However, Geshe-la meant through debate – on the debate grounds – not by “kickin’ it with his buddies”. So, the students who want more have been underestimated and cannot get what they need in this environment.

A similar obstacle for the student wanting more, or whose intelligence has been underestimated, is that the format prevents any question and answers during class. No one ever raises a hand or asks for clarification. The teacher reads from the book (which could be read at home, of course) offers a few personal anecdotes, and class ends. This could be a bi-product of a cultural issue. This format may have worked in Tibet, particularly when the student went to the debate grounds after class. Then the tradition moved to England, which is a less expressive group by nature, and here the debate format was dropped. By the time NKT got to the US the didactic presentation style was in place. No discussion, no debate, no individual meetings. In order to progress one must follow the specific curriculum of listening to the teacher read the book, typically two pages a week, until the book is done. 12 books to go. No questions.

This format underestimates the intelligence of the potential customer. Some customers want to ask questions, they want to learn faster or they want an authentic education. So, they get bored. Or, perhaps they have a concern about time. Perhaps they are training for a particular event (such as saving all sentient beings) and do not want to take four years having a book read to them. Or, and perhaps worst of all, the student who stays under this arrangement can develop a fundamentally flawed conclusion about a topic, and that mis-understanding is never corrected. The student may have, as many at NKT do, a basic misunderstand the concepts of emptiness, the role of Tantra, or the nature of cyclic existence. With no debate and no class discussion these misunderstandings takes root, and are never spotted, never corrected. If the student sticks around long enough she becomes a teacher. Thus, the lack of debate and lack of discussion open the doors for a future deterioration of the teachings. this is another reason why NKT will fail. Those that stay do not learn properly. Those that wanted to train properly went to another gym.

The next entry will be about training the sales force. This will examine the impact of some of the conclusion from above, specifically the result of the lack of debate and the lack of interaction with teachers.

Next: Sales Force Training

Followed by: Product Differentiation a.k.a. “taking over where others have failed”