Is your company a selling and marketing bully?

From my experience in organizational development, I describe culture as a virus because it infects everything. One of our most difficult tasks on projects is avoiding culture’s infective nature.?

How an organization sells and markets has an enormous impact on its culture and customers.

?The following quotes are from Peter Drucker:

• The aim of marketing is to know and understand the customer so well the product or service fits him and sells itself.
• Marketing is not a function; it is the whole business seen from the customer’s point of view.
• Because the purpose of business is to create a customer, the business enterprise has two--and only two--basic functions: marketing and innovation. Marketing and innovation produce results; all the rest are costs. Marketing is the distinguishing, unique function of the business.

?Today’s society has different expectations of everyone.

?From the Parenting Resource Center (https://americanspcc.org/bullying/)

?Bullying is unwanted, aggressive behavior that involves a real or perceived power imbalance. The behavior is repeated or has the potential to be repeated over time. Both kids who are bullied and who bully others may have?serious lasting problems.

?In order to be considered bullying, the behavior must be aggressive and include:

• ?An imbalance of power:?kids who bully use their power, physical strength, access to embarrassing information, or popularity, to control or harm others. Power imbalances can change over time and in different situations, even if they involve the same people.
• Repetition:?bullying behaviors happen more than once or have the potential to happen more than once.
• ?Bullying includes actions such as making threats, spreading rumors, attacking someone physically or verbally, and excluding someone from a group on purpose.

?The business term for bullying is high-pressure tactics. Before software and social media, high-pressure tactics were usually limited to the realm of sales.

?When you think of high-pressure sales tactics you may think of car dealerships, funeral homes, water filters and softeners, insurance salespeople, and door-to-door sales organizations. People do not like feeling forced and a single negative experience can turn them off from an entire industry.

?The viral impact of high-pressure sales tactics destroyed organizations within industries and still plague industries today.

?(You can’t make this up. I went downstairs for lunch on the front deck and my neighbor pulls up and starts telling me about the bait and switch tactics and misrepresentations of law at a car dealership in Carson, California where he was helping his adult daughter buy a car. Welcome to the Twilight Zone.)

?During the last few decades, the new arena is high-pressure marketing by collecting data through cookies. Recent laws passed around the world are meant to curtail the practice.

?It is a shame because I don’t mind a trusted company gathering data so they can refine their messaging to me. As AI technology improves, I expect refinement of messages for my enjoyment and time and see a win-win for me and the company.

?The problem are companies which always function as a bully.

?Here is my recent personal experience with HubSpot. And maybe it’s not HubSpot directly – possibly an organization HubSpot is allowing to market for them.

?I did a search for CRM software for small business. And this link came up:

?https://compare.tech.co/best-crm-software-us-1/?cid=61e941ae545c3&utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=13709692469&utm_content=142529223051&utm_term=cheapest%20crm&campaign=13709692469&adgroup=142529223051&targetid=kwd-382364769590&keyword=cheapest%20crm&matchtype=p&ad=599319103647&network=g&device=c&devicemodel=&target=&placement=&position=&aceid=&ismobile=0&issearch=1&geo=9031543&geointerest=&feeditem=&gclid=Cj0KCQjw1vSZBhDuARIsAKZlijQQRaEGSNotp7M8jAfBRPhgwCdBaMWE8p2wM6GjKmI9ldwryEW8r2UaAiXuEALw_wcB

?It loads the page and says Accept / Decline Cookies and I decline. The page then disappears and keeps trying to reload – maybe trying to gather as much data as it can while I wait. I close the page and reload with another browser.

?This time after I decline it, the page loads and gives me an option to download a demo of four HubSpot software offerings. A chat window opens, and the engine types, ‘Before we start so I can direct you, can I have your email?’

?I answer ‘No.’

?To which the engine writes ‘I didn’t understand that, can I have your email address.’ The chat will not move forward until I supply an email. I close the page.

?Shutting down the page if I don’t accept cookies and not allowing me into the chat are examples of bullying and strike me as attempts to neutralize the new privacy laws. The address in the browser indicated it is part of the HubSpot website so this must be okay with HubSpot.

?This market bullying is happening all over the internet. Which reminds me of George Santayana’s words from the 1905 series Great Ideas of Western Man, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”

?Is your organization a marketing bully? Remember, culture is a virus without a vaccine. If you are a marketing or sales bully, it will corrupt your entire organization like it appears to have corrupted Uber. Despite expert organizational development advice from two very smart women, they still have a host of problems which Lyft seems to avoid.

?Two weeks ago, while I was trying to go from LAX to home, Uber was dealing with driver issues by spiking prices. The Lyft ride was $80, and the Uber ride was $240. Seemed everyone on LAX’s shared ride shuttle was talking about it.

?Hmmm, I’m a little worried that American Express is tied into Uber with their reward programs. Viruses know few boundaries.

? 2022 Jeffrey Hansler

??Jeffrey Hansler, CSP, CMP, is expert at organizational development, leadership, and persuasive communication, which includes skills of innovation, influence, negotiation, sales, body language, micro-expressions, finance, and authority. ?

Rona Lewis and Jeffrey are hosts of the Biz-Souls podcast, a podcast delving into the heart and soul of business and the people who make it happen. Biz-Souls is fast paced, funny and informative. https://www.biz-souls.com