Business owners:
You're in competition with your own marketing
Marketing robs the heroic business owner
of a sacred 'rags to riches' fantasy
I know that may sound odd. Yet, after 5 years of developing sales and marketing strategies for all kinds of budding firms, it's now obvious to me:
Marketing, PR, and Sales are not only misunderstood, these disciplines are genuinely resented by scores of emerging business owners.
Why? Business is a metaphor for the hero's journey, with pressure for the business hero to succeed in a 'pure' and innocent way. The true hero in American business always proves to the world that their vision, their product or idea, their decision to step into the marketplace, was met with instant success, an almost magical validation from others.
Without having to sell or market to others.
Unconsciously, marketing is a form of defeat, reserved for the weak, for the ones forced to beg for marketplace recognition.
It's not the fault of business owners -- that he or she forms an identity as an independent, marketing-less hero. Living deep in the psyche are influencers that perpetuate the American rags to riches myth of effortless, American business success. That myth teaches: anybody can and should make it big on their own. That myth teaches us that we're all a California roll of Steve Jobs, Clint Eastwood and Oprah -- underdog geniuses, tough, silent, and the last man standing, on a rocket to instant, television riches. Hey, you wouldn't be from this culture if you didn't think that way -- even a little. So marketing is the competitor that robs the hero of glory.
But then at some point, the adolescent hero gets killed.
And a new hero emerges from the wreckage.
The requirements for success change. The new hero discovers a deeper meaning in what they do. Business is less about 'making it big on their own' and more about the heroic process of stepping outside themselves -- to find ways to deeply benefit their buying audience. That hero slays the myopic self. Flying past the adolescent cultural or personal constructs, they have undergone a transformation -- though not an easy one. The hero's journey swings full circle, from a 'rags to riches' construct to something much more sustaining and important.
That's when the disciplines of sales and marketing are rediscovered. They become the business hero's essential allies, the voice and medium, the sword, the sacred ritual, for a higher business cause.
You're in competition with your own marketing
Marketing robs the heroic business owner
of a sacred 'rags to riches' fantasy
I know that may sound odd. Yet, after 5 years of developing sales and marketing strategies for all kinds of budding firms, it's now obvious to me:
Marketing, PR, and Sales are not only misunderstood, these disciplines are genuinely resented by scores of emerging business owners.
Why? Business is a metaphor for the hero's journey, with pressure for the business hero to succeed in a 'pure' and innocent way. The true hero in American business always proves to the world that their vision, their product or idea, their decision to step into the marketplace, was met with instant success, an almost magical validation from others.
Without having to sell or market to others.
Unconsciously, marketing is a form of defeat, reserved for the weak, for the ones forced to beg for marketplace recognition.
It's not the fault of business owners -- that he or she forms an identity as an independent, marketing-less hero. Living deep in the psyche are influencers that perpetuate the American rags to riches myth of effortless, American business success. That myth teaches: anybody can and should make it big on their own. That myth teaches us that we're all a California roll of Steve Jobs, Clint Eastwood and Oprah -- underdog geniuses, tough, silent, and the last man standing, on a rocket to instant, television riches. Hey, you wouldn't be from this culture if you didn't think that way -- even a little. So marketing is the competitor that robs the hero of glory.
But then at some point, the adolescent hero gets killed.
And a new hero emerges from the wreckage.
The requirements for success change. The new hero discovers a deeper meaning in what they do. Business is less about 'making it big on their own' and more about the heroic process of stepping outside themselves -- to find ways to deeply benefit their buying audience. That hero slays the myopic self. Flying past the adolescent cultural or personal constructs, they have undergone a transformation -- though not an easy one. The hero's journey swings full circle, from a 'rags to riches' construct to something much more sustaining and important.
That's when the disciplines of sales and marketing are rediscovered. They become the business hero's essential allies, the voice and medium, the sword, the sacred ritual, for a higher business cause.
What's really interesting is these same business owners don;t realize that teve Jobs, Clint Eastwood and Oprah are all master Marketers - they are the Jedi(s) of PR and image/brand manipulation.
Interestingly, we see them as people who haven't participated in the world of marketing, because we have a very hard time believing that successful people use marketing. Marketing is only for people who want to be, or who are striving to be successful. Most business owners cannot imagine promoting themselves; it feels dishonest. But at some magic point, business owners grow out of that notion...