My Morning WalkNew day, uninterrupted thoughts

The syndrome dates back to prehistoric times when men would hunt and gather food, at least that’s what we were taught in science or anthropology class. The story was always about some guy out hunting who ends up staring face-to-face at a saber-tooth tiger. Humorous in cartoons, but not so much in real life. The same thing happens when facing an opponent in a boxing ring or when two linemen square off at the line of scrimmage. Not difficult to determine what’s going to happen when it’s one-on-one. They match it up and fight it out, or, if one is kicking the heck out of the other, one person runs, thus “fight or flight”.

Ever apply this phenomenon to the marketing world? Remember when there used to be one salesperson representing one product squared off with one prospect with an unmet need? A lot of door-to-door salespeople made a lot of money fulfilling needs in this manner, and the odds were pretty good. Zig Ziglar got his start as a cookware salesman, or at least that’s what he says in his book “See You At The Top”. The days of one salesperson facing off with a prospect are over…just check your mailbox. How many pieces do you get every day for products/services that are ALL similar commodities? You’re right, I don’t want to know.

So now, instead of being one hunter facing off against one saber tooth tiger, there’s one hunter in the middle of a circle surrounded by a HUNDRED of them. How does that make you feel?

Remember the good old days when your parents were sitting at the dining room table with the insurance guy who came knocking on the door at 6:30 pm? We were all done with dinner, mom had the dishes done and counters clean and the kids were watching TV in the living room (being seen and not heard). The visitor came in and made some small talk and then got down to business. After about an hour or so, mom and dad decided to purchase that policy the salesperson had been presenting, they all shook hands and the man was off to his next stop. (We still have that policy today, by the way.)

Oh, how times change. What is YOUR family doing at 6:30 pm in the year 2010? If you’re like my wife and I, your family isn’t sitting together at the dinner table until at least 7, if they are sitting together at all. Between dance, football, baseball, soccer, basketball, band, parent association meetings, and just breathing after work, there’s barely time to make dinner (when there are even groceries in the refrigerator!) With all that happening, what is your response to the phone ringing at 6:30? What’s your reaction to a stranger who rings the doorbell at 7:00? Times have changed, right? So why do we keep pursuing “sales” in the same way we always have?

How many million people are on do-not-solicit lists? How many million people have canceled their land-line phone service? How many million people own DVR’s? How many million people watch TV on the internet instead of network TV, cable, or dish? How many newspapers have one-half the content they had 10 years ago? How many magazines are now extinct because traditional ads they used to sell became ineffective and were essentially ignored? How many SPAM e-mails do you delete from your inbox each day because you don’t want to fill out the obnoxiously long “unsubscribe” request, even though you never knowingly subscribed in the first place?!!!! How many hundred mailers do you get in your mailbox every month? Based on the trend of increasing postage prices, there should be a time coming in the near future where such mailings are cost-prohibitive. Then what??? Do all businesses just lock the doors or do they need to find a way to help people and not sell them?

Feel free to dispute any or all of these points, but in the end, change will win. Success depends on how we adapt.