It’s just another finger wagging in their face

Addiction recovery programs have a public relations tradition that’s based on attraction, rather than promotion. 

Members become walking, living, and breathing examples of what flourishing recovery looks like. And they simply make information available where individuals who are seeking it have possible access to it. 

But there are no promises of results. Only stories of how the program has improved someone’s life. 

This is the cornerstone on which the great edifice of the recovery movement was erected nearly one hundred years ago. And so, it’s no surprise that the program has endured. 

Because when you share a brand message person to person, if you have to darken people’s doorsteps and bother them into buying from you, it’s just another finger waving in their face. And they’re either going to ignore it or bite it off. 

This is one of the many business lessons that wearing a nametag every day for the past nineteen years has taught me. In the first decade, my interactions were based on promotion. Stuffing my story down people’s throats the moment we first met. Assuring that everyone who ever encountered me walked away with a clear understanding of the philosophy behind my eponymous life purpose icon. 

Two decades into this social experiment, however, the exchange is quite different. 

Now the nametag isn’t always the centerpiece of my conversations. Because it’s no longer the defining feature of my identity. It’s just a part of me that used to be the heart of me. 

If the topic comes up, fine. If not, that’s fine too. 

Interestingly enough, when people do learn the story about my nametag, often times days, weeks, months or even years after initially meeting me, the impact my story has in that person’s mind is that much deeper. 

Because they were attracted to it, not because it was promoted to them. On their own time. Of their own violation. 

They closed the sale on themselves, so to speak, by accepting the invitation when they felt ready to buy. 

LET ME ASK YA THIS…

Are you still marketing your brand through finger wagging?

* * * *

Scott Ginsberg

That Guy with the Nametag

Author. Speaker. Strategist. Inventor. Filmmaker. Publisher. Songwriter.  

[email protected]

www.nametagscott.com

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