Selling Nuts To Squirrels – II

June 7, 2011      Admin

Same lead as yesterday’s Agitator post …

In Selling Nuts To Squirrels, Seth Godin argues that “most organizations shouldn’t try to change the worldview of the audience they’re marketing to.”

What if he changed “organizations” to “consultants”?!

‘Worldview’ as interpreted by Godin affects three critical things in the marketing equation: “… attention, bias and vernacular. Attention, because we choose to pay attention to those things that we’ve decided matter. Bias, because our worldview alters the way we filter and interpret what we hear. And vernacular, because words and images resonate with people differently based on their worldview.”

Godin got me thinking about the ‘plight’ of fundraising consultants trying to introduce new concepts, approaches or tools to nonprofits. Sprinkled throughout the extensive library of reader comments to The Agitator are complaints by consultants that the “clients just don’t get it” … “clients are afraid to take risks” … “clients won’t spend on testing” … “they’re too set in their ways” and so forth.

Reading Godin, consultants might conclude … don’t bother trying to sell a new idea. If the client’s worldview is set — “We’re happy doing what we’re doing … it’s working well enough … we don’t want to jeopardize our projections” — why waste time trying to introduce something new?

Now that I’ve offended the ‘client side’, let me note that their rejoinder is usually along the lines of … “We never get fresh ideas from our consultants” … “They just peddle warmed over stuff from their other clients” … “If they didn’t invent it, they don’t want to do it” and so forth.

So, when it comes to promoting change in fundraising strategies and tactics, who is more often the reluctant voice … client or consultant?

Is it worth the effort to challenge the prevailing worldview on either side of the table?

Tom

3 responses to “Selling Nuts To Squirrels – II”

  1. Susan says:
    June 7, 2011 at 8:46 am

    Granted, it is veyr difficult to change the minds of public, organizations, or anyone who had a childhood (so, everyone). However, to say that we should not try to inspire change in the world is like saying Martin Luther King should have embraced slavery, and that hurricane Katrina victims were better off without the help of donations from around the world. We are all working with not-for-profits for the very reason of inspiring change in the world, and an organization or donors mind can be altered just as any other reasonably normal person’s can. We’re in the business of change. The key is to determine how to alter people’s schemas (or, attention and bias as they are called here). We do this by making them more aware of them, and inspiring them to want to be more open minded to the possibilities. Support your arguments with hard facts and emotional appeals that are irrefutable, and change can occur.

  2. Susan says:
    June 7, 2011 at 9:00 am

    “The first step towards getting somewhere is to decide that you are not going to stay where you are.” ­‐ John Pierpont Morgan

  3. John Lepp says:
    June 7, 2011 at 9:12 am

    I’m an idealist. And ideally, the client and the consultant work together to make positive change. As someone who has witnessed more than enough “us” (the consultant) and “them” (the org) arguments, I have resolved to leave that type of mentality behind. I’m not interested in doing work with people and organizations that do not want to work side by side with us for the betterment of their org and cause. Making our relationships with our clients more like a partnership (in this together, etc) bypasses many of these types of conflicts that you address above Tom. The sooner we all realize we are all working toward a common goal and drop the ego’s, the sooner we see the results…

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