Marketing Shoes

There is a Dutch saying about marketing that goes along the lines of “If you want to understand a man, walk a mile in his clogs”.

We ignore it nowadays because it is both sexist (after all, who wants to understand a man when there are far more interesting and complex beings to learn) and politically incorrect metrically. (Am I allowed to say ‘mile’ some 40 years after the country started using kilometres?). We disregard it at our peril, both financially and mortally.

A simple example will illustrate. It’s a great morning, and I’m en route to work on the highway. I had a brief fight with the missus this morning, and it still rankles. And then this fellow comes out of nowhere at high speed and dives into the 4 cm gap between me and the car in front.

I don’t take it well. At this point, I know NOTHING about this fellow. (And if this fellow is from a different race group – which in my case would be anything other than lily-white – I know even less.) I know just one thing: this insignificant act of seeming rudeness has spoiled my day enough for me to feel the need to re-assure this upstart that his behaviour is irreconcilable with the new spirit of ubuntu that I have recently read about.

As I start fuming I develop my own storybook for why this toad is driving with such arrogant disregard for others on the road. The fact that he is obviously younger is confirmation of the blatant disrespect that modern young folk show their elders. (Or if he is older, it manifests that the old duffer needs new glasses, and should not be behind the wheel of anything faster than a wheelchair.)

My bottom line is that someone ought to remonstrate with this self-important buttock-aperture (at this point insert your favourite insult involving body parts) and the Great Pumpkin has thrust me into this important role. I gently attempt to attract the dude’s attention by sounding my horn for 30 seconds to bring his attention to his unseemly actions.

The entire sequence of events has taken a mere 33 seconds – including my melodious contribution. I know just that the fellow is male and the car is from Bellville. But that does not stop me hauling out my 49 years of accumulated ‘knowledge’ (as gained from newspapers, TV, braais, and accumulated bad experiences) and I enhance my ‘understanding’ of this person by dumping all of this in his lap. (And if the guy in front is black or white, or old or young, or bald or hairy, or whatever other small insignificant factoid I can glean it simply adds grist to the mill of my prejudices.)

But I do not know, for example, that the fellow in the car ahead is diabetic and is having an anxiety attack, or that he may be running from the scene of the bungled murder of his wife with an entire arsenal on his back seat, or that there may be somebody on that same back seat in desperate need of a hospital, or that the guy in front has just been diagnosed with HIV, or that he has just been told by his wife that she wants a divorce because he has been messing around with Lola next door (and all her friends of both genders) – or indeed that the guy in front is currently experiencing all of the above. This makes him a real bad dude to pick a fight with today.

We South Africans are particularly sensitive when it comes to perceiving the bad behaviour of others, and this is particularly in vogue right now as the country faces a crime crisis (or not, depending on who you listen to). (I have done a few weird things on the road in the UK over the past 6 months, with only one fellow venting his spleen by flashing his lights to indicate how remiss I was – and I just know he was a South African.)

So when the guy in front slams on his brakes, and emerges from the driver’s side looking like Rambo with even bigger tools, about the only thing to say is “Oh Poo!”

The moral of the story is that we should try and walk a mile in the clogs of the fellow in front, to try to imagine what might make him behave so strangely before we sit on the hooter.

What does this have to do with sales and marketing I hear you cry?

Marketing and sales life is about empathy – about us understanding the concerns, fears, wants, and challenges that our clients and prospects face – and then offering solutions based on the products and services we supply. How on earth can we begin to have any understanding if we do not take the time to walk those miles in their shoes?

The most successful time of my sales life was when I wasn’t selling. I would make an appointment to ask questions because I genuinely knew nothing about the data communications field I suddenly found myself in. So I would spend 30 minutes with an IT manager trying to understand what his business was trying to do, and what ideas he had. And then walked away with the sale because I seemed to be the only person dumb enough to have to listen without being able to override the IT manager with a solution after 90 seconds of investigation.

Contrast that with a wonderful German gent selling into the SA automotive industry, who would inevitably end an unsuccessful sales session by telling the buyer that he was unfit for his job and that in Germany he would be fired for crass incompetence, and that selling in SA was so difficult because all South Africans were so incredibly stupid and lazy. (Delivered in a strong Teutonic accent with accompanying volume.)

I think the empathy route is much more fun. And a lot more successful.

The next time you see some weirdo driving badly, relax. He has bigger problems than you today! And then slow down so that you are within the speed limit.