What Are The Tricks of Your Trade?

Over the years companies have developed the “tricks of their trade”. Most of the tricks have been centric to sales and marketing. Using print, Television and on line techniques the self proclaimed professions of “tricks” have prospered from selling their “tricks” to companies.

The typical objective of a “trick” has been aimed at capturing a potential customers attention, getting their information and then pressing them for a sale of whatever is being offered. Bombarded by spam, banner ads, telemarketers, junk mail, forced registrations aimed at capturing our data and the host of “techniques” to grab a customer, consumers, people, have become tired and annoyed by the tricks of the trade.

People have been targeted as dumb objectives who can be manipulated into spending money impulsively.

Many have only to suffer the consequences or irritation of a product or service that doesn’t fulfill on its promise. Everyone has been affected, or infected, with a distaste and distrust for media, marketing and the latest sales technique.

The new models of entertaining and creative ads are just that, entertainment. Beyond the entertainment experience consumers still fundamentally don’t trust “the story being told”.Everyone is looking for something and someone genuine.

What About Employee Relations?

Businesses who have adopted the tricks of the trade have internalized the tricks and subsequently communicated with employees with the same spin as they do with customers and the market at large. Promises for bonuses only taken away due to poor operating results out of the employees control. Employee contract terms and conditions broken. Power struggles internally resulting in unsettled work environments and favoritism. Employee survey after survey asking for feedback and then nothing suggested gets implemented. Those that speak up and suggest change with a loud voice get displaced or terminated in time. Consider the following:

• A Gallup study indicates that “actively disengaged” employees – workers who are fundamentally disconnected from their jobs – are costing the U.S. economy between $292 billion and $355 billion a year. This finding appears in the inaugural issue of Gallup’s new quarterly, the Gallup Management Journal (GMJ).
• These estimates are based on a recent Gallup “Q12″ employee engagement survey of the U.S. workforce, which calculates that 24.7 million workers (19%) are actively disengaged. The survey found that actively disengaged workers are absent from work 3.5 more days a year than other workers – or 86.5 million days in all.

Given that the above examples represent a systemic problem in media, marketing and management, people have found power of expression within the social web. The very dynamics which cause the social web to grow are the results of years of spin from media, marketing and management. People are connecting with people and enjoying the freedom to relate and converse without restraint or cultural barriers. The youth has rejected the old and the old has rejected the youth. Those adult market, now discovering the power of the social web, are flocking in swarms from the very same discoveries that drew the youth but some are still thinking of it as a trick.

The tricks of the new trade are now being built on relational conversations that are open, frank and without restraint. The tricks are no longer tricks except for those that try and use the medium in the old ways. The conflict is that the majority of users get it and will quickly reject a “trick” and in response tell an entire community, one to one to millions, to watch out for your trick.

For those corporations and media jumping in and considering the old tricks,beware, you may hurt yourself and your brand. Creditability can be lost at the click of a mouse from one to one to millions

What say you?

Tagged as: blog marketing, brand marketing, business change, business relations, business solutions, business transformation, innovation economy, Relationship Economy, social commerce, Social Media, social networks