BACON – Chapter 11: Persuasion Versus Thought Leadership

We Are Surrounded By Persuasion

You may not think about it, but we are surrounded by messages and ads all day long. In today's digital age, the average person encounters between 6,000 and 10,000 ads daily. We are bombarded with billboards, snail mail, radio, and TV, not to mention all the social media content, spam emails, and robocalls.

All of that noise has one goal. To get you to spend or give your money to them. The never-ending battle for your attention and your dollars are being waged relentlessly daily. This works because we are personally tied to our beliefs, egos, and needs. We all want to be right, liked, and sustained without being taken advantage of. We face a lot of noise that is trying to persuade us. We tend to pay attention to what we find relevant. For example, we turn it up when one of our favorite songs comes on the radio.

That may work in the consumer world, but in business-to-business, decisions affect not only you but also your team, your customers, and the company at large. Targeting the individual when they need to hear your message is more challenging and requires a more personalized and timely approach when the person is focused on the specifics of what you are selling. It's a more complex and targeted song than all the background music we hear all day.

“Reinvention requires fear and hope but is foundational and built upon change and instruction. That means that reinvention involves thought leadership.”

On a Musical Scale

As a musician and a recording studio owner, I hear things differently than most people. I doubt most people are waiting at a stoplight with the radio blasting, trying to decipher how the drummer accentuates the hi-hat and what the kick drum rhythm is doing to move the song along. I sing the harmonies to see how they bring out the melody. I am listening to see if the reverb was gated or natural.

The infamous Quincy Jones is credited with highlighting the significance of notes in music. He emphasized that there are only twelve notes in music, and it is up to each individual to create their unique sound by combining rhythm, harmony, and melody.

Those twelve notes are then broken down into scales. The most famous scale is from the “Sound of Music”: Do, Re, Me, Fa, So, La, Ti, Do. Scales define whether the chord pattern is major or minor, which notes are melodic, and the foundation of patterns of the melody, harmony, and other parts of music theory we feel, remember, and enjoy.

The two Dos are the same note but an octave apart. Octives are the high and low notes, but the patterns still go up and down between the Dos.

Economies of Scale

Like music, our economies have a start and peak, and the flow forms a melody and rhythm for business. If you think about it, economies and companies have a start, adaption, peak, decline, rebirth, and a new peak, kind of like the flow of music in a song.

The industrial revolution was created by machines taking the place of people. Then Ford changed it back to a people focus by creating the assembly line. Machines moved the parts, yet people were needed to craft the assemblies. While some jobs were replaced, others were made maintaining the machines and managing the assembly lines.

The computer revolution was created by technology taking the place of machines. Computers had to be programmed by people who wrote the code and innovated the hardware and software. While some jobs were replaced, others were created, maintaining the machines and managing and updating the lines of code.

Technology replacing computers created the Internet revolution. Online, on-demand services like cloud computing and new software replaced hardware. While some jobs were lost, others were designed, building new platforms to transmit, store, and transfer data.

Now, we are at the precipice of the Artificial Intelligence revolution. People and some tasks will be reimagined and replaced by cloud machines and software. Yet, new jobs will be created to integrate, maintain, and enhance what these computer brains can and will do.

Each of these revolutions is like a musical scale and has formed the song of business that dictates these economies. Yet, none of these have replaced people; they just created new opportunities and change.

Revolution vs. Reinvention

If you think about it, each change in our economy has created new opportunities while the status quo has deteriorated before our eyes. People who refused to reinvent themselves and their businesses fell by the wayside, while others saw their fortunes explode.

America was built on agriculture and finance. Then, it was transformed by the Industrial Revolution. The information economy replaced that when the production and management of information overshadowed manufacturing. Some people tout that the information economy has been transformed into the attention economy. That means the overwhelming amount of information had to be segmented and promoted to help us find and make sense of all that information.

Think of the rise of Google, which dominated search and turned the advertising business into the primary form of information segmentation. Facebook and YouTube started to make individuals and businesses the stars. Think of the rise of social media influencers like the Kardashians.

The AI revolution is scaring the crap out of some people. I am not sure if it's the perception that AI is going to take their jobs or if they feel this is the beginning of SkyNet from the movie Terminator (or a mix and combination of both).

As with the musical scales, we have reached the Me portion of the rise of the machines (as in Do, Re, Me). Some of us Mes are scared, while others are building new businesses (like “Why NOT Me?”).

We are still deep into the Attention Economy, and all of those businesses (and people) will have to work hard to get the attention they need to stay relevant.

It's People

Just like the assembly line maximized what people could accomplish, AI should enhance what humans can do. Yet humans remain complex beings that survive and thrive in tribes. Tribes have a flow like a musical scale. We all enter at the bottom and some rise to the top of the scale. Being louder does get your attention, but to lead a tribe, you must have original ideas and be adaptive, innovative, and communicative. In other words, revolution is nothing without reinvention.

What separates us from other animals is our ability to communicate emotion. As a pet lover, I have learned to read the feelings of our dogs, but no matter what words I use, it's touch that they truly understand. We humans have learned to maximize the verbal and visual aspects of emotion, but touch is reserved for intimacy. Regarding business, marketing is about maximizing verbal (voice and audio) and visual (written and video) communications.

That helps make the loudest voice in the space or room the one that gets the most attention. What truly makes communication impactful is how it makes people feel. Because loud voices are heard, they tend to project fear and hope in ways that would make a carnival barker or snake oil salesman proud. That is the foundation of the revolution.

Reinvention requires fear and hope but is foundational and built upon change and instruction. That means that reinvention involves thought leadership. These messages have to be built on the emotion of hope, with the process of change and the effort and struggle that will ensue. In other words, if it were easy, everyone would do it, but it is not.

Closing Thought

Revolution is based on promises. Promises are like music that we have already heard. You may have an emotional connection, but the next song forms a new connection once the song ends. It's a sugar high that peaks and falls.

Reinvention is based on results. It requires critical listening and critical thinking to understand the subtleties. You can hear how the bass drum and bass guitar build a foundation while the strings on the chorus lift the message to a different level. It has to become a habit of consuming fuel that drives you forward to success.

Hopefully, this helps you define the decisive difference between persuasion and thought leadership.

Comment below and share your thoughts, ideas, or questions about business-to-business sales and marketing today! Do you have a sales or marketing communications strategy that works for you? What tips or techniques can you share that work for you and your business?

To learn more about this and other topics on B2b Sales & Marketing, visit our podcast website at?The Bacon Podcast.