Ever wish you were a powerful business wizard? You might be more of one than you think. There’s a name for people who’ve mastered that type magic…Marketers! Marketing is a mysterious art known for converting average wares to gold. Just follow the steps, recite the incantation and you too can be the seller of shiny junk! Its not really magic so much as skilled sleight of hand. By it, a regular guy from Omaha was able to become ruler of Oz.
Like Dorothy and gang, I’ll go where I must to get the product I want. But given a choice I’d rather do business with friends. And there’s the catch. Enormous, disembodied heads don’t get invited to the corner pub and no one cares when they go out of business. Most of the processes that pass for marketing these days make us less human. They turn our organizations into machines instead of groups of people. So how do we step out from behind the curtain and become human again?
Enter Joseph Jaffe and Mitch Joel, two like-minded friends standing back-to-back addressing different aspects of the same issue. Joel speaks to the potential of marketing done well. He informs us that “smart marketing is what creates great customer experiences”. Jaffe reminds us that good marketers are “trying to resolve human to human connections”. Taken together, the point is this: business is in essence a particular type of human interaction. Good business practices, i.e. sound marketing, facilitate the relationship.
We prefer the magic version because genuine relationships are hard. So we practice our sleight of hand and daydream of somewhere over the rainbow. We need to realize our troubles will never “melt like lemon drops”. But working together we can make a difference. And perhaps with the efforts of you, me and the regular guy from Omaha, the dreams that we dare to dream really will come true!
Want more? Check out:
Six Pixels of Seperation by Mitch Joel
Flip the Funnel by Joseph Jaffe (affiliate links)
Photo credit: www.flickr.com/photos/22087304@N07
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“Good business practices, i.e. sound marketing, facilitate the relationship.” Exactly! Thanks for the resources, too. I will have to check those out sometime.
Thanks Steve! Glad you found it helpful.