Three kids are selling lemonade in their neighborhoods one hot day, to passers-by.
Kid Red yells things like “The best lemonade in town!”
Kid Green yells things like “Hey Joe, how ’bout some lemonade?”
Kid Blue yells things like “It’s hot today! Get your lemonade before you head to the beach!”
Can you identify the future marketer, salesperson and PR guy? It turns out there is a systematic way of guessing. On this important question hinge many things: business vision, market positioning and corporate culture. The answer also drives a mutually-exclusive 3-way choice that sorts companies into marketing, sales, and PR-driven kinds. And perhaps most important, the mutual exclusivity means that the most seductive idea in selling, a 1972 idea known as the “Whole Egg,” (an integrated sales+PR+marketing model) originated by Ed Nay, then president of Young & Rubicam needs an update. The Whole Egg is not a white egg. One primary color will dominate. One of the three functions will always lead. Looking for balance is a recipe for failure. To get to a whole egg, you must first pick a color to paint it.