Stoicism is an ancient school of thought that puts virtue above all other things. This is harder than it sounds, particularly when you must compete with others who may behave less virtuously than you do while marketing enterprise software applications to people who need them.
Stoicism took its name from the stoa, or porch, at the Agora in Athens, where teachers and students would gather to engage in discourse and listen to lectures on this enduring philosophy. Apart from assemblies and gathering, the Agora was also a hub for commerce, so it is not surprising that Stoics saw their philosophy and ethical precepts as very much binding on how they earned their livelihoods and conducted themselves in society. This is not an ephemeral, theoretical philosophy as much as a means by which an individual can remain focused on seeking the highest value for all around them--adhering to the concept of Stoic Cosmopolitanism--and maintain a positive and happy mindset even if events around them might move others to anger or despair.
Stoics maintain this equilibrium by seeing virtuous behavior--which is under our individual control--as the only thing to be truly concerned about. Externalities--money, success, reputation, even our survival--are subject to outside forces beyond our control. We should not give up our virtue to gain that which can be so easily taken from us.
Marketing of course is focused on achieving goals outside of the individual. Annual recurring revenue, customer acquisition cost, ATR-based churn rates--all of these are dependent on outside actors. How can a Stoic be happy and succeed in the field of marketing while working towards these externalities? And how should they behave when there is great pressure to dissemble, engage in dishonesty or in other ways run afoul of Cardinal Virtues like prudence, justice, temperance and fortitude?
Working in Harmony With the Universe
Even the most goal-focused marketer works in a real world that they cannot change, and which must be empirically examined and understood. The better a marketer understands the current situation and works with the facts on the ground, the more successful they will be. This discovery process is probably the most important step a classical marketing program that works and delivers results. It's critical to gather as much documentation and information as possible before committing to or communicating based on a market mix--that combination of product, price, promotion and distribution--that make up a commercial offering.
Failing adequate discovery, according to Mindtools, "you could be left promoting a car with amazing fuel economy in a country where fuel is very cheap, or publishing a textbook after the start of the new school year, or selling an item at a price that's too high – or too low – to attract the people you're targeting. The marketing mix is a good place to start when you are thinking through your plans for a product or service, and it helps you to avoid these kinds of mistakes."
Even once the marketing mix is defined, what elements of that marketing mix should you try to work with or minimize? Given what you know about the current situation, what product benefits, what distribution tactics, what pricing incentive, will be most successful?
The reason I am passionate about marketing discovery is that it is the only way to avoid the dreaded law of garbage-in-garbage-out. Basing your life and values or your marketing activities on incorrect or false assumptions is bad. The Stoic marketer understands this implicitly.
Stoics strive to recognize things as they are, without bias or wishful thinking. We must have an accurate assessment of ourselves, our capabilities and our products, tand the capabilities of competitors. Whether you're marketing capital equipment to manufacturers or are Stoic philosopher king Marcus Aurelius, outnumbered by the Germanic tribes in battle on the frozen Danube River, you must alter your thinking, strategy and tactics in light of a reality over which you have no control.
"Following nature means following the facts," writes Lawrence Becker in A New Stoicism. "It means getting the facts about the physical and social world we inhabit, and the facts about our situation in it — our own powers, relationships, limitations, possibilities, motives, intentions, and endeavors before we deliberate about normative matters."
Even ad guru David Ogilvy stressed the importance of objective understanding, opining that "advertisers who ignore research are as dangerous as generals who ignore the signs of the enemy."
Our work must be based not only on the observable universe, but as good an understanding as we can get of what a prospect already thinks and feels about a company, product category, competitors or problem they may be trying to solve.
"Most humans suffer from confirmation bias, meaning we only accept evidence that confirms what we already believe. Researchers from Charles Lord to Drew Westen have shown that when people are faced with evidence they may be wrong, they fight back against the attacks on their belief."
So we must first seek to understand and work with what is there both in the physical world and in the real territory where marketing is done--between the ears of the prospect. Then, realize that it is very, very difficult to change somebody's mind. If you mostly just try to work with what is already in there, you are walking the Stoic marketing path.
Being Honest and Concerned For Others
There are plenty of marketing efforts that seek to mislead, misdirect or outright lie. And sometimes they work! Someone engaging with these things first of all may lose their commercial appeal. But even if they temporarily win in the market, they still lose the one thing they cannot replace--their peace of mind and comfort in their own virtue.
Writes Cicero in De Officis:
"A good man sells a house on account of some defects, of which he himself is aware and others ignorant. Perhaps it is unhealthy, and is supposed to be healthy, — it is not generally known that snakes make their appearance in all the bedrooms, — it is built of bad materials, and is in a ruinous condition; but nobody knows this except the owner. I ask, if the seller should have failed to tell these things to the buyer, and should thus have sold his house for a higher price than he could have reasonably expected, whether he would have acted unjustly or unfairly ... Who does not see what sort of an act such concealment is, and what sort of a man he must be who practices it? Certainly this is not the conduct of an open, frank, honest, good man, but rather of a wily, dark, crafty, deceitful, ill-meaning, cunning man, an old rogue, a swindler. Is it not inexpedient to become liable to these so numerous and to many more bad names?"
Cicero stresses that the business person must be both good (ethical) and wise (oriented towards profit), not only to advance his own interest but to advance the interest of society. And just as the founder of capitalism Adam Smith saw the goal of commerce as lifting up not just the capitalist but the fortunes of a nation (hence the title Wealth of Nations), the Stoic marketer strives to serve the needs of all parties to a commercial transaction, as well as the broader community.
Be Prepared For the Unexpected
Again, a marketer is much like Marcus Aurelius, marshaling his troops on the field of battle. Sometimes we will prevail. Sometimes, we will not--Aurelius himself experienced early defeat. If a marketer has never just royally had their butt kicked and been sent packing, they have likely not been doing this for long.
Even if you do your homework going in, write a powerful business plan and execute on it masterfully--things can happen. A larger competitor moves into the market position you were gunning for. A recall derails your product launch and sends you into a tailspin. Or an emerging technology leapfrogs you and makes your offering less relevant.
Stoics have a way to deal with such things--negative visualization. As we go about our day, we should imagine the worst things that could possibly happen, and accept them as not directly reflecting on us. As we plan our marketing activities, this negative visualization may give us ideas on how to mitigate the risk of certain eventualities coming to pass. But in the end, we may still overstate the degree of control we have over the outcomes we are shooting for and wind up falling short of a crucial goal.
In this case, having already envisioned this coming to pass, we are less affected by it. We are in a better position to pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and perhaps take whatever lesson we can from how things have transpired. So the good people at Crowdstrike, for instance--I hope you have been studying your Stoic philosophers.
Again, Virtue is Paramount
In short, the Stoic marketing practitioner must spend most of their time listening to what the universe is telling them. Base your efforts on tangible and empirical fact.
Then, be honest and truthful in your appeal. “Tell the truth, but make the truth fascinating," David Ogilvy said. "You know you can’t bore people into buying you product, you can only interest them into buying it.”
Most people cannot deceive others unless they first deceive themselves. And even the most unethical marketers often lie first to themselves, and need to on at least some level drink the Kool Aid they are selling to others. Writes the Daily Stoic:
"Accurate self-assessment is essential. Know thyself, was the dictum from the Oracle at Delphi. Knowing your strengths is just as important as knowledge of your weakness, and ignorance of either is ego. As Zeno put it, 'nothing is more hostile to a firm grasp on knowledge than self-deception.'”
And finally, accept the limits of your impact on the world, envision exactly how things could go wrong and prepare for them both in terms of business contingency and emotional resilience. Even when we lose, we can win if we maintain a positive countenance in the face of hardship.
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