Author Archives: Rusty Rueff

About Rusty Rueff

Rusty Rueff, author of purposed worKING. Rusty Rueff is the former Chairman Emeritus of The GRAMMY Foundation in Los Angeles. He most recently completed the successful 16 month leadership role as Coordinating National Co-Chair for Technology for Obama (T4O) for the reelection of President Obama and ten-years of Board service and President of the Board of Trustees of the American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco. Corporately, most recently Rueff was the Chief Executive Officer at SNOCAP, Inc. until the acquisition of the company by imeem, Inc. in April 2008. Before joining SNOCAP in 2005, he was Executive Vice President of Human Resources at Electronic Arts (EA) from 1998 until 2005. He was also with the PepsiCo companies for more than ten years, with the Pratt & Whitney division of United Technologies for two years, and in commercial radio as an on-air personality for six years. Rusty holds an M.S. in counseling and a B.A. in radio and television from Purdue University. In 2003 he was named a distinguished Purdue alumnus, and he and his wife, Patti, are the named benefactors of Purdue’s Patti and Rusty Rueff School of Visual and Performing Arts. He is a corporate director of Glassdoor.com and runcoach. He is the co-founder and Executive Committee Member of T4A.org, serves on the Founding Circle of The Centrist Project and a founding Board Member of The GRAMMY Music Education Coalition. He is also the co-author of the book Talent Force: A New Manifesto for the Human Side of Business. Rusty and his wife, Patti, reside in Hillsborough, CA and Charlestown, R.I.

day 2877: Relational Marketing

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 “As Jesus walked by, John looked at him and declared, “Look! There is the Lamb of God!”

We know that there is no better marketing than the marketing that comes from one person telling another person to try something they have personally experienced.  It happens every day to each of us and we are influenced by what others tell us.  The real question we must always ask, if we want to be honest, is whether or not that person who is telling others is telling us what they really believe and experienced or just parroting what a marketer has given them.  Thus, the dilemma of social media.  Someone really told me that I needed to read a book.  I thanked them for the recommendation and asked them what was it in the book that made them think I would like it.  Their answer put me off. They told me they hadn’t read it, but had only heard from someone else that it was good. That’s where relational marketing goes bad. And, by the way, that’s our companies’ brands and products that are at risk.

I love the accounts of the “recruiting” of the Disciples.  Most of the time we just remember the times that Jesus called the Disciples directly, but in the first chapter of John we learn that it was relational marketing that brought a number of them to Jesus. Andrew came  to Jesus because of what he heard John saying.  Andrew then brought Peter to meet Jesus.  Later Phillip (who was directly recruited by Jesus) told Nathanael and so on.  What we say, what we espouse to believe matters and as shown to us can change the course of the lives of others significantly.

Reference: John 1:36-48 (New Living Translation)