Radio Sales Café

This week I was exposed to a Ted Talk (www.Ted.com color="#000000" face="Arial">) about the Death Penalty in Texas.  You are probably scratching your head asking what could the Death Penalty and executions in Texas possibly have to do with marketing?  Read on and I will explain how my eyes have been opened to looking ahead by looking back.

In this talk it was explained that the basic process of a person arriving in the death chamber follows four basic steps. First there is a murder and an arrest.  Following this there is the trial where the defendant is found guilty and sentenced to death.  Following this is the automatic state appeal, followed by the Federal Appeal.  

Texas is known for the number of executions it carries out.  A lot compared to most states.  That being said there were those who decided that they system needed to be looked into to figure out why.

The first thing that was noticed was that at the State Appeal level, the convicted killer was not represented by Legal Counsel.  This was changed.  What happened to the rates?  Not much.  It was then disclosed that the same thing happened at the Federal Appeal level.  When this was corrected, nothing much happened to the number either.  So as you look at the problem and the steps taken you have to ask yourself what more could have been done?  Think on this a second before you read on….

Yes there are four steps that start with the murder which explains the high number of executions in Texas,  But pull the lens back a bit.  We now see that 79% of people who were executed for Murder in Texas were in the state's Juvenile correctional system.  Pull back further and you see the number of Juveniles who left school before being introduced to the Juvenile system.  Pull back further and see parents who may have been in trouble with the law, drug abusers, teen moms, missing fathers and so forth.

I am not writing this piece to pass judgment on social issues.  I am talking about Marketing a business.

Those of us who sell advertising believe the process starts with the “Cold Call”.  It is followed by research, creative, writing, production, schedule building, contracts, on air and renewal.  Done correctly this model has about a 33% success rate.  But what would happen if we pulled the camera back for a minute and looked deeper? What would we see?

We see a person who has a business problem.  In most cases that problem is not enough of the right kind of customers buying enough of the right things.  But before that we see a business person opening a business, knowing that their concept is Unique enough for people to come bang down the doors!  Word of mouth will make them a success!  Or they were a successful business but a competitor came in and took part of their pie.  Before that we had someone raising money from friends, borrowing from a bank and mortgaging everything they had to get into business.  Before that we had someone working for someone else who had an idea.

Today take some time and think on this:  How could I help earlier in the cycle?  Would my contacts in Real Estate, Banking, City government and the like help this person with the idea?  Would my knowledge of business and marketing give them a more realistic view up front, or help to keep them from making mistakes?  And if I did intervene earlier, how would I be seen by this business person as compared to all of the other people who sell what I sell?

Today sit and ask yourself....am I someone peddling marketing, or am I a resource for people who want to be in business?

Chris Rolando

http://www.ft15.com/blog.html