I used to read a lot of business books, and I still do. But for a while I had to take a break from them. There are only so many ‘secret success formulas’ that you can read before they start blurring together.
One of the biggest things that frustrate me about business books, specifically marketing books, is the way they talk about people.
It seems pretty innocuous to refer to potential buyers of your product as prospects and it may seem like I’m splitting hairs, but this is an important point.
Labels like this are used to dehumanize and disassociate the person from their wallet. It’s as if the person is just an object to be acted upon and someone to persuaded (i.e. deceived) into giving you their money.
Instead of seeing them as individuals with their own thoughts and feelings we look at them as a computer to hack: “If I just use the right subject line or the right sales copy I can get them to do whatever I want”.
It's objectification. It is the belief that the person has no subjective experience of their own and they are merely an object to be acted upon.
This attitude is clear in so many areas of our lives that can be more comfortable to ignore.
The United States as never killed a person in war, only insurgents. And we are merely infidels.
Or think about the Pickup Artist Community where everything is about saying or doing the right thing to get your target to sleep with you.
Objectification.
The language that we use is a reflection of the way we think about and see the world. We need to understand who we are talking about and identify the fact that it is not us against them. We all stem from the same tree. And I don’t say that as an esoteric, hippie, abstract point. I say that to help you realize that the way to be effective at marketing is to recognize the humanity in the people who you communicate with.
This won’t just make you sleep better at night, it will make you more successful.