I am not a very deeply religious person, but I do have the greatest respect and regard for all religions. Much more than that, I have a curiosity for how religions influence cultures and how the traditions of these cultures have so much for us to learn and apply in our day to day lives. On my recent visit to India with Anthony Robbins and my Platinum Partners, I had the privilege of cruising down the river Ganges or Ganga, on whose plains one of the world’s earliest settlements, the Harappan civilization came about. The Ganges is the sacred river of the Hindus and it is believed that a dip in the holy river can rid a person of 10 mortal sins. Some say it cleanses you of 10 lifetimes of sins! We watched devout Hindus saying their prayers on the banks of the river, lighting little earthen lamps (diyas) and setting them afloat, immersing ashes of their departed loved ones so they may find eternal peace, dipping in completely with their hands folded and eyes closed in deep faith; and I was fascinated.
The river that has nurtured and cradled in its lap, generation after generation since 1900 BC, is still today, an extremely powerful physical and spiritual force. Dams, canals and hydroelectric power plants are built along this river. The fertile soil of the Ganges basin is a boon to India’s agricultural economy. Beyond this physical and natural significance of the Ganges to the people of India, the river holds a mighty spiritual influence on Indians all over the world.
From a Western, scientific, rational, practical point of view, it makes no sense at all. The river is not exactly clean; yet hundreds of people are bathing in it at the same time. You have to put aside all logic and take in this picture through your mind’s eye. There is then, only one way to describe the experience—it is magical.
I returned from Varanasi, India with a new found respect for ancient cultures and traditions. M
y eyes opened to the fact that when people follow a tradition or custom for many millennia, there has to be some eternal truth that benefits and changes the lives of these people. Bathing in the Holy Ganges is one such custom. Just the experience of seeing all these people of faith participating in prayer rituals with an unshaken belief made me realize that not everything has to make scientific sense—some things you just do because they are good for you and they bring goodness to the world around you. That’s good reason.
In business, though, it’s hard to put aside logic and rational thinking. I don’t recommend that we should either. What I do believe would be useful is to look at things differently and reap positive results based on those actionable insights. Thanks to everyone who has read and shared “New Year’s Resolutions for Your B2B Lead Generation Playbook“. Unfortunately, most of us have probably already broken our resolutions or it’s time to buckle down and do some serious implementing. Let’s take these big ideas and put them into action. It starts with shifting our paradigm.
2015 Will Be the Year of the Nurturers
The existing paradigm includes tactics such as: create a ton of content, spew it everywhere, send out as many InMails and messages as you can on LinkedIn (so you can say you are “using” social media daily), cold calls, and automation with anything you can touch. We know that building an email list remains a priority, but it is still very challenging. Social media is still “freakin’ hard”. It takes rigorous discipline to be consistent, persistent and have a clear vision for the long term demand generation play. If you follow the current climate, the tendency is to add volume to activities and hope that results will grow in volume too. Not working? Double the content creation machine. Not getting enough inquiries? Triple the number of emails and InMails. So what results are we seeing by doing all this?
I have been talking about Human to Human, Person to Person, and I have been asked what this really means. I’ll say it again – market to humans, market to people. We’re dealing with people, not companies. We’re interacting with people, not robots. This eternal truth has remained the same since man first started exchanging goods and services with other humans. The unchanging principle of marketing is to fulfil human needs. So why do we so easily forget that eternal truth?
2015 is going to be the year of the nurturers. We are all tired of hearing that we have to create a ton of new content only to push it out and hear crickets, or have it ReTweeted and shared by people who are not in our target market. The emphasis on quantity vs. quality is over. We really have had enough and we can’t keep up. Can you generate eBooks, reports, Infographics, case studies, etc. every month—quality ones, mind you? Very few organizations can.
It is time to cleanse our lead nurturing mechanisms and lead generation activities of these sins of excess. 2015 is going to be the year we focus on the 20 percent (out of the 80/20 rule) that is effective by changing our focus to marketing and nurturing people. Here is a good article with a chart on how to nurture leads.
If your focus is on connecting with and growing a relationship with people, how do your volume-based tactics look now through this lens? Is it still about the numbers? Would you invest more effort now to build the relationship and lead nurturing? Try integrating this new, cleansed lead nurturing approach to your lead generation. We are calling for B2B Human Marketers and B2B Human Demand Generation experts—this is what changes the game.
Leave a comment below to let me know how things progress as you make this conscious paradigm shift. You can also email or call me, Louis Foong, at (905) 709-3827.
Featured image credit: Shutterstock
