Using things, Loving people (especially for marketing people)

Guys, just want to share with you this wonderful excerpt from Tony Campolo's book: "Everything You've Heard is Wrong". I hope that after reading this excerpt, you're going to have a different point of views in reaching people's need.

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In a sales conference sponsored by a large insurance corporation, the executives invited speakers of caliber to share their most successful marketing techniques. The crowd was all ears to the how's of setting up clients, of pushing the right motivational buttons, and of closing a deal while one is ahead. Supposedly the best marketing strategies, the formulas sounded more like techniques manipulating people.

Campolo himself was given the task of ending the day with a motivational talk that could psyche up the sales team to get the job done. He surpised everyone with his opening words, "Everything you've heard today is wrong!"

Disbelief ran across the faces of the company's executives.

Campolo said people are not things to be manipulated with the right techniques. People are not creatures to be used to further our own economic ends. People are sacred because the eternal God has chosen to make each one of them his home. Everyone deserves to be treated with respect.

Campolo went on to say that, far too frequently, we relate to people as though they were objects instead of subjects. People in the marketplace deserve something better. He continued, saying, "You don't have to manipulate people if you're selling something they really need. All you have to do is show them the seriousness of their need and then demonstrate that what you have to offer can meet that need."

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As for my reflection, Campolo couldn't be more right. We live in a secular world that concerns itself with nothing more important than meeting quotas and closing sales. We have considered these more pressing than meeting people's need.

While I believe in the importance of sales conference and seminars, these should not be held at the expense of making us emotionless, money-grabbing mercenaries out to manipulate innocent victims who happen to be the consumers.

During my lunch break at Asiatrust Bank. After I have eaten my lunch, I usually went to National Bookstore Crossings. As I walked passed by the "Business section" of the bookstore, I saw volumes of devoted books to techniques and schemes aimed at manipulating the customer into saying "YES" to that valued order are being displayed.

I wonder how many of our companies have already hired experts to talk about how customers can be manipulated. It's high time for us to get back to the basics.

The basics are the decent principles focused on meeting people's need. The money earned from this kind of deal is not mercenary's income. While this may mean a much lesser value, nothing can surpass the fulfillment and the joy of knowing we've done well in the eyes of men and God.

God's Word in PROVERBS 12:17 says, "A good man is known by his truthfulness; a false man by deceit and lies."

How would you like to be known?