As a small business consultant I spend a large portion of my time prospecting, going after new customers, selling. I absolutely love the process of selling, especially being able to close on tough customers. On a few occasions I took my kid to important sales meetings where my kid listened to the whole interaction, and after leaving the meeting I would hear: "Dad, I don't know how you do that; I could never have the patience..."
The reference was in reaction to a situation where a person unfamiliar with the sales process, listening and observing a sales call, hears the potential customer say something that appears at first blush to be a rejection or the dreaded "NO." For those normal folks, then next natural step is to say thanks for the time, and say goodbye, and bolt towards the door, feeling rejected.
OMG, if the kid only knew! That's just the warm up. I love the whole interaction, the psychology of it, right there in the moment, turning a reluctant and sometimes seemingly hostile person into a happy and willing paying customer.
I won't go too deep into it, but the key things to be a successful salesperson are, first, you have to find a way (psychologically) to completely ignore the concept of rejection; meaning that regardless of what happens in that sales call (or process), your self-esteem and your confidence will remain intact, whether the customer decided to accept your offer (at that moment) or not.
Second, you have to truly believe and have total confidence (and knowledge) about the product or service you are selling; about it's usefulness and utility. And third, you have to be passionate about it; a true believer.
One other very important aspect is that you have to understand that if potential customers get a little hostile, or hesitant, the reason almost always is that he or she is struggling with the decision of putting their hard-earned money on the table (or in your bank account), wanting to be absolutely sure they are making the right decision. It is your job to dissipate those concerns. Their "duress" is basically a cry for help: "Please assure me that I'm making the right decision here."
Needless to say, I'm a big fan of Mad Men's Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce, and of course, especially of Don Draper's character...
What I enjoy the most about the show is the psychology behind it; the character studies; the tough sales calls/presentations, and the personalities behind them. Many of the situations ring true to me. One of my favorite things to see is when Don Draper assesses a situation and decides that at that very moment is better to walk off the table, letting the prospective customer know that his time and knowledge are valuable. You always have to be ready walk off the table...
But I digress... I'm sure there are a lot of hard-core fans of Mad Men out there, but the main reason I'm writing this is to share an idea about a very different type of ad agency. I'll share the concept, and hopefully I'll get some feedback.
Here we go... In the U.S. advertising universe the main effect of it is to convince "consumers" to act in such a way that results in an increasingly larger transfer of wealth from the populace to the rich.
As a consequence there is a constant erosion not only on the level of wages and benefits for the average worker/consumer/citizen, but also of constitutional rights, which then fuels the speed of transfer of wealth to the rich, at the expense of the people.
In essence, the corporate conglomerate advertising model is able, through psychology, to turn reality upside down.
So that got me thinking: Imaging if someone was able to come up with a concept to set up an advertising, public relations, and marketing outfit that didn't have to turn reality upside down, but that instead was tasked with explaining the tangible benefits of understanding reality as it is.
For example, imagine if this agency was capable of convincing "consumers" that if they took certain market-related decisions, their wages/salaries could grow to an average of $95,000?
Imagine if this agency was very successful in communicating certain messages related to the allocation of knowledge, education, local resources, sustainability, in relation to their local communities?
Imagine if groups of people started trying different market concepts, like setting up employee-owned companies/corporations, or find ways to divest and defund oligopolies and conglomerates, slowly, little by little, thus transferring wealth and power back to the communities?
Imagine if people came to be aware of a much larger set of market and economic options, and it became relatively easy for them to make those decisions, and to see the benefits of those decisions?
A lot of this work is currently being done by an amalgamation of progressive and activist organizations around the country, but I argue that applying a standard (highly professional) mainstream consumerist-themed advertising and marketing nationwide campaign could maximize these efforts, tenfold!
And imagine the bewilderment from the established mainstream media conglomerates. I would give anything to be able to call a local NBC station and talk to an ad executive and tell them about my advertising campaign: "Well, the overall objective is to take down the oligopolistic powers that now control much of the economy, but we want to do it step by step, with a very careful strategy and messaging. We want to launch the campaign with this type of ad..." How would they react?
Imagine you're watching Mad Men, and during the commercial break, you see a very professional ad about a new Benefit Corporation that's helping people setup very successful employee-owned businesses around the country?
Well you get the picture... Crazy? Well, some of us hard-core salespeople have to be a little crazy to do what we do. Either, way, just look at the title of the diary...
I'm forming a think tank to bounce off ideas: Please contact me here at Daily Kos, or contact@raypensador.com