I was on a webinar on “passion” or “personality” in marketing and more specifically the importance of it in content and video especially if you’re looking to promote an idea or business using marketing today.
The same applies to sales.
People lower their resistance when people are authentic.
Basically I couldn’t agree more. How can you connect with people if you can’t be authentic or transparent, and that means letting the real person or personality behind that idea shine through.
We all know that people buy from people….more importantly people buy from people like them or people that are credible and believable who they can trust. Today, authenticity is a large component of trust, and that means letting the little mistakes and emotion through, just like a real person, but being big enough to admit them and address them if they backfire.
One of the speakers was Gary Vaynerchuck, who’s a passionate guy about the need for change in business and I couldn’t agree more with him. Gary took over the family wine business and used video to build the business and his personal profile delivering authentic wine tasting for ordinary people, without the pretence.
Passion or personality can be overwhelming and polarise people away from your argument or pull them towards it.
Sometimes though passion can appear to get the better of you, but that’s authenticity for you right there.
During the webinar a whole bunch of questions came in and one was how to get the boss to listen to you and let the team run with new marketing ideas. Gary’s response was “if they’re not listening then just punch them in the face”.
In the real world people are in positions of power for all sorts of reasons and not always because they are the best or right people. Sometimes though they just make mistakes and every day you hear people complaining about their politicians or bosses at work.
Human nature causes the weak minded to become defensive in situations where their knowledge is, or appears to be, less extensive, so they may dumb down, block or stifle ideas that may oppose their own beliefs, or just appear to be a threat.
A lot of companies and probably bosses are stopping sales and marketing teams running with new ideas because they don’t fit with conventional wisdom and getting those people to listen and make any kind of change can be a hard task, especially when your jobs on the line.
Instead of lashing out because of frustration, demonstrate you care and build a winning case.
Eventually its leaves you with such frustration that it appears there’s no alternative but to deliver a punch right to the face, and I’m sure some sales people have felt like lashing out at a few prospects and customers because it appears they’re being ignored just because their sales people, even though their product or service could be a game changer for that prospect.
Having heard or read the reply just “punch them in the face”, I’m guessing that you, like most webinar participants, interpreted that to mean a physical punch in the face, and with all the frustration that can build up when people seem to just ignore you, even though you’ve got great ideas it’s no wonder that people turn to aggressive tactics.
The response that came from webinar attendees was no surprise and mostly made up of criticism with comments like “how the hell can that be a real strategy” or “is this guy for real” ?
However, I think there’s an important point here, especially when you’re trying to bring ideas into a market that’s dead set on conventional wisdom.
Getting these people to listen or even consider change can and will only happen when you deliver a powerful blow that either affects them directly or influences their surroundings. It has to be formed on the basis of argument which demonstrates unequivocally that your case has a sound basis and should go to the very emotional core of the matter, not the hype and pretence of yesterdays tactics.
It’s why business, marketing and sales is really a science as change only comes when you have an overwhelming case for change, buts it not one that’s built on pure logic or fact as people are emotional beings that need to feel a real connection with an idea so emotional arguments and cases are more powerful than pure fact or logic based cases. However we can’t forget that businesses must use logic or fact to help them make decisions as they invest mostly for a return.
Marketing and sales teams today should be helping their key audiences to understand and build a case for change, its about helping others to help themselves and keeping it human.
It’s probably the same reason that Kirk leads the team on the Starship Enterprise in Star Trek and not Spock.
Would you agree or disagree ?
