Valley PR Blog

Five Questions for Phil Myers of Pragmatic Marketing

By Linda VandeVrede on October 15th, 2007 In Marketing

Phil Myers is president of Pragmatic Marketing, based in Scottsdale.   He, Craig Stull and David Meerman Scott form a virtual triumverate management team.  I asked him about the company, which has launched a book-in-progress blog at www.tunedinblog.com. 

1) I’d like to hear your definition of what Pragmatic Marketing does?

We train and consult with technology companies on how to become market-driven.  We’ve pioneered a framework that organizes a spectrum of strategic to tactical activities that product managers and marketers need to master to create products people want to buy.  We’ve been in business for more than a decade and have up to this point trained 45,000 professionals in 3,000 companies, including big ones like Apple, Blackberry, SAP, Microsoft, Yahoo, and eBay, along with hundreds of small to midmarket companies.

2) Tell me more about the book Tuned In - who is your target audience, and how do you feel it will be different from other marketing books?

Tuned In is for everyone who markets a product, service or idea.  It’s not a marketing book, it’s a business concept book with the premise being that discovering real and deep connections to what your buyers value most is really the key to success in developing a business.  We identified a simple 6-step system that leaders have mastered it that debunks myths such as “innovate or die,” “customers know best,” and “revenue cures all.”  We’ll go through 40 to 50 stories of companies from businesses large and small, nonprofits, services, entertainers, politicians, even ministries that have created what we call resonators… the perfect solution to a buyer’s problem.

3) What is your connection/relationship to Craig Stull and David Meerman Scott - how did the three of you hook up?  I’m assuming you are all based virtually?

Craig and I are local.  I’ve known him for 20 years, and we worked together before.  We joined forces last year, and then added David who has just published a best-selling book, because we realize the three of us were attacking the same problem from three different vectors.  I was focused on the winning strategy to build successful companies, Craig on how to create products people want to buy, and David on the new rules of marketing.  The three converge for us as we talked about the essence of each and how they were connected and dependent on each other.  Being “tuned in” grew out of this after we collaboratively initiated research across the market… hitting some 33 executives, 400 companies and a big network of bloggers on the marketing domain.

4) How do David’s new rules of PR tie into your company’s philosophy?

David’s new rules really focus on being tuned in as the essence is thought leadership.  The issue for us is that focusing on one of these at the exclusion of the other two leaves you on an island.  Great strategies without execution in products and marketing matter very little.  Great communications without a product that delivers value or with a business that is clueless is a loser.  Great products built in isolation without a culture that drives the strategy of the business and marketing to establish authentic connections with the market also miss.  We believe what we’re doing now is like a full lifecycle solution for our buyers.

5) Any other data that is relevant to an Arizona readership, particularly that of Arizona PR professionals?

One of the things I valued greatly over the past 24 months is the amount of time I spent in the Valley with entrepreneurs, business leaders, venture capitalists, university incubators and the political landscape.  My sense is that all of the right things are building here in Arizona, much like I saw in the mid-80s in Austin.  It’s an exciting environment to be in because the next few years will generate many exciting stories to be told.

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