The other night I had the great pleasure of attending a Vivaldi concert in Venice. The musicians wore powdered wigs and antique garb, and the audience, consisted of people who seemed to relish every second of the stellar performance. Truly, it was an evening to remember. In a sense, those musicians are some of the luckiest in the world; if you consider that they are playing to audiences that respect their work, who completely appreciate their instrumentation and overall quality. Smart audiences and smart presenters are a match made in heaven. Which makes me wonder, why would any of us waste a moment of our lives playing before fools or before people who resist our contributions or at all thwart our efforts? Yet, looking back on my career, I can see how, literally, Ive cast pearls before, lets just say, before people who were unappreciative. Ive spent months and years developing, refining, and delivering training programs to people who didnt want to be in them, who were sent by their superiors, and who believed they already knew everything about, well, everything. And why did I do this? For a few reasons. I believe I savor difficulty, complexity, and training the nearly uneducable is quite challenging. Of course, Ive also done it for the money, but the amazing thing is that the biggest money flows to me when my audiences consist of folks such as those at the Vivaldi concert. Happily, they pay a premium price for a privileged experience. We have that in common. Anyway, I asked myself this question as I began writing this meditation: Would I be happier making a presentation to a crowd of 1,000 of the wrong people, or to a handful, or less of the right ones? And this is precisely the question marketers must ask and re-ask. Are we trying to impress the wrong people, and by that I mean people who cannot or will not pleasantly offer value to receive our value, in exchange? Before you write that next article, book, or craft that speech or seminar, do a reality check. Determine, in advance, whether the right people will be in your audience. Do everything you can do to assure that this will be the case. And if its not, try again and again, even if you have to put on a powdered wig to bring it about! |
