by Anna Brindley
It’s election time and candidates are asking, “Will you endorse me?”. One such politician asked me for mine. He came to my house in person talking about things that are important to me. He told me that he felt he had to make a stand and get involved. And then he closed me – I was sold. After we spoke, I couldn’t help but notice the similarities in our worlds:
Since the beginning of September, I have been working on my promotional campaign for next spring. I took pictures, wrote clever marketing words (at least I hope they were clever), and packaged it all together in a bulk mailing of postcards. After the mailing, I started dialing the phones, essentially asking:
- What do you think of my policies?
- Do we care about the same things?
- Do you think I have your concerns in mind?
- Do you think I will do what I say?
My purpose for all of this? Of course, I want the “big kahuna” endorsement. If I could align with the big dogs – in my case Neiman Marcus, HSN, and Travel and Leisure magazine as of this writing – then I could get my message to the masses and hopefully get more endorsements. The expected return on my time is more customers as a result. So, what if I don’t get these “endorsements”? At a minimum, making personal connections is still worthwhile. In fact, it might be the best thing I get out of my campaigning efforts. Valuable feedback is another benefit of mixing with the people. For example, one “voter” told me that she loved my product, but that her “people” may not understand it. She also said she might be more willing to endorse my policies if the price of admission were a little lower.
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