To listen to some people, you’d think marketing were a battle or bloodsport.
Think about all the military metaphors we use — identifying a target market, launching a campaign, and using strategy and tactics to crush competitors and win that desired customer.
Even such apparently innocuous business terms as staff, officer, headquarters, division, and operations are rooted in military terminology.
And of course, no self-respecting business leader’s library is complete without a dog-eared copy of Sun Tzu’s Art of War.
Hunting metaphors also tend to appeal to salespeople out to “land” a big deal (as if it were a whale) and in “shotgun vs. rifle” theories of direct marketing.
You may have even heard salespeople say (hopefully not while they’re selling to you) that “if they don’t kill, they don’t eat.”
Now, I won’t deny that these metaphors have their uses. And let’s be honest, they can make the whole process feel a little more heroic and exciting, especially on a wet Monday morning.
But do we really want to think about our customers as “targets” — to be attacked, overpowered, and killed?
And even that appeals to us — do our customers want to feel like prey or military conquests?
Even when it comes to other businesses who provide similar products or services, is it really the smartest approach to think of them simply as competitors — to be outflanked and defeated?
Because that’s what we’re doing, subconsciously, every time we talk about our business in the language of war or hunting.
You don’t have to be “kumbaya”
Now maybe you’re not a kumbaya marketer, and you’re more interested in turning a profit than the...
