Last week while I was reading, a turn of words came to mind that was inspired by the quote most often attributed to Hypocrites, “let food be thy medicine, and let medicine be thy food.”
The idea that came to me was, Let Education Be Your Entertainment And Learning Be Your Leisure. While this perspective has been true for me for many years, the past few years has almost neutralized what little interest I still had in traditional ‘entertainment.’
So what does this have to do with your business and marketing strategy?
For some time a large segment of marketing has merely been thinly disguised propaganda, recently it’s grown into overt manipulative messaging. While a large segment might not yet understand this fact, many do, and more are awakening to this reality every day.
The natural consequence of dishonest communication is the eventual loss of trust. Trust is your greatest asset in business. Trust inspires confidence and once trust is betrayed it’s virtually impossible to restore.
It is far better to market your business simply and humbly with communication that is honest to your abilities, than to overstate your capabilities. You’ve no doubt heard the sound advice to under-promise and over-deliver. Of course if you have spectacular deliverables there’s no reason not to advertise them, so long as you’re always able to live up to your promotion.
The urgency of our present reality demands that in both business and personal communication, we DEMONSTRATE the truth while exposing error; effective truth-telling is a critical survival skill in a lie-laden world.
Learning how to promote your business is a never-ending process. If you begin to transition some of your mindless entertainment into “infotainment” you’ll likely find you have plenty of time for learning, and learning that leads to increased revenue quickly becomes entertainment in its own right.