Are You a Conversationalist or a Conman?

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Cultivating genuine value from business relationships requires more than well branded sales slicks, promotional emails, press releases and the occasional “reconnect” call. At the highest point of the Ars Venditiones (Art of Sales) the client seeks to connect without prompting and urges others to do the same for a very simple reason:

To continue a good conversation…

Marketing is the term used to describe the craft of creating this conversation. The most skilled practitioners carry on disembodied conversations with captivated audiences that can include millions of participants. The marketer effortlessly encapsulates and heightens a few key commonalities and sculpts a conversation that can reach across the most stalwart cultural and synaptic barriers.

Why then has the image of the marketer become so tainted? After all wasn’t Shakespeare in some sense merely hocking valuable cultural capital when he wrote Julius Caesar? Et tu Guy Kawasaki?

Molecule and Model

The difference is one of art and technique, of a molecule and a molecular model. The best contemporary sales and marketing professionals are technicians and cultural fashion designers of the highest order. They are not artists. Efficient technique and the living embodiment of an art form are two different playgrounds.

Shakespeare was a successful Elizabethan propagandist whose PR work became a center point of English literature. Even as a solid politico for Queen ‘Liza and her ladies, he was still a highly evocative, illuminated and urbane Enlightenment playwright. Shakespeare knew the art of conversations well and was a master at selling his audience.

Performance Art

Contemporary marketing professionals can’t boast this kind of reputation. No one is, nor will they be, performing Guy’s blog posts in public parks and it’s highly doubtful that anyone getting info off Alltop is experiencing the heights of existential expression. (Actually this might be a good idea for avant-pop college thespians to get some viral traction on YouTube…but is it worth it?)

The majority of marketing leaders are simply technicians and creators of fast fashion. In the same way that a good mechanic can fix your engine, they are adept at fixing your messaging. He can tighten the bolts, diagnose problems and will give you the proper oil, but he isn’t going to break into universal sublimity. Marketing has fallen into the hands of fashionistas bent on prettying the outside at the expense of a deeper meaning. Mais ou sont les neiges d’antan?

Wise Words from the Departed

Michel de Montaigne (1533-1592) remarked that “fashion is the science of appearances, and it inspires one with the desire to seem rather than to be.” When food looks good people eat it, and you can make your brand look as tasty as you want, but when the people you feed start getting dysentery they’re unlikely to come back for more. Foster a conversation that lasts and encourages your client to bring others to the table. Don’t force feed them cardboard until they wise up and leave.

Take some time going into the new year and ask yourself…

Are you a conversationalist? Or are you just running a con?