ELLEN MNDIMA CREATIVE CONSULTANT- WEF GLOBAL SHAPER

This may have happened to you before as a marketer; you are in a room with several people and you are “figuring out the room”. From a safe distance, you silently observe a healthy debate taking place in front of you. Both parties defend their logical argument with a passion that is not too fierce to be perceived aggressive, but firm enough for it to still hold. This is attractive for you because it’s more than just their conversation that grasps you, but how they believe that they are correct in defending it. You draw in closer and get noticed and you show interest. They bit and you are part of the conversation. Why was this a more interesting and captivating situation to learn more about than the other things happening in the room? Why did the back and forth of a healthy debate perk your interest?. Well, I like to believe that, like me, you want to know what others are already thought to understand how to address them with what you have to offer. Now, I am no mind reader, but with most “natural marketers”, such as myself, we are more inclined to prioritize understanding other people than we are about being understood first. This is because we understand that out of all things, people love to be understood. And so, any form of a clash of perspectives invites us to dwell on our deep desire to learn more about people. Before I jump into my easy read, I have to state a couple of very important things about myself. First off, I did not study marketing and I don’t know if I will.

I am a marketer simply because when I was asked at a Toastmasters event if I was after successfully selling last year’s diary to an elderly Asian man (we all know why I had to describe him the way I did!) without cheating him in any way in just under two minutes, I responded with a resounding “Yes”. Second, I have always had a deep desire to understand people, and I work on this religiously daily because I find psychology to be deeply interesting, if not disturbing, which is why I I didn’t study it either. I just happen to know enough about the subject to be invited to share about it in several small communities. What I will share, therefore, is solely based on experience, lots of reading and podcasts, talking to people and testing my learnings in my work. As a young marketer, I quickly learnt that most people don’t use logic to purchase goods and services. Even the odd shopper is being influenced by several factors around him. Later on, I came to read a study that took place in a supermarket to identify how people make their choices of purchasing alcohol.

The study was simple; they had German beer and French wine available at the same place, then they alternated the soft music playing in the background between a German beer advert and French wine. Lo and behold! Is it surprising to you that when the German ad was on, more people purchased the German beer and vice versa? Of course not! But here was the strangest part.