In-Short
Sales and marketing today only require one thing: be a human who can authentically connect to another human. There is no more authentic person in the world than an excited kid.
In-Depth
Something happens to us when we try to sell something to someone. Something switches in us and we stop being a human talking to another human. Instead we become a salesperson or a marketer talking to a consumer.
We start to talk funny, use different words, try to be more than we are or different than we are. You know who doesn’t do this? Kids.
This inauthentic selling or marketing we do, this is purely an adult thing. Kids have an authenticity we adults can’t come close to. It’s all on the outside for them. They haven’t yet learned to bottle it up, to manipulate it, to try to please everyone.
A six-year-old starts every sentence with, “You know what?!” because they are just so excited to share that they can’t hold themselves back. This question (or “conversation starter”) primes the speaker and the listener for honest and open sharing of whatever is on one’s mind no matter the situation.
We need to be selling and marketing with the energy of a kid: by telling a story about what we did, we saw, and felt –and doing so with deep-down excitement- we remain authentic.
People are craving connection, engagement, transparency, authenticity-the antithesis of sales and marketing as we have known it. Instagram Stories is so popular because it’s unpolished, an inside look into a person or brand’s life. Many adults can’t understand this phenomenon: “You mean I just share my life?” Yeah, just be a kid.
We’re human; and as humans, we crave real connection with other humans. In fact, we’re starved for it. That is why spending millions of dollars creating, polishing and refining ad campaigns is not nearly as effective as a steady drip of iPhone videos.
Sales and marketing as we’ve known it isn’t really a thing anymore. There is only creating stories and sharing stories. That’s it. Just like being a kid.
Also published on Medium.