Marketing Lessons from the Political arena… what went wrong and right

One of the rules that we always talk at Board meetings, closed doors, is how do we get our team NOT to look into the competition as the beacon to look at what to do, how to react, how to gain market share.  Always trying to convey the message that you should be aware of them, but you should go after your clients, customers, stakeholders, and make what is best for them and the company, disregard what your competition does or not.

I learn this when I was a kid and my father used to wake us up at 4:30 am, jump into the club swimming pool, and be very competitive.   I really never made it more than what expected, because – my father dixit – I was too focused on the other lanes, on what the there people were doing instead of trying to beat myself every day, every new stroke by stroke….

If you look at why the candidates that are gone, are gone, is mostly because they stop worrying about their constituents, the voters, their public; and they focus on what was the competition doing.

Listen to them all :

Ted Cruz  and Marco Rubio even teamed to “bring down Donal Trump and make sure he never gets elected …” annd now even the Democrats are doing it; Bernie Sanders just made this his central speech .

Will Hillary Clinton be the last one to say it ?   So far she has been the smarter of all, dismissing her “competition” and stating that she focus on the people that follow her and that wants to listen to her.  But her campaign managers are not  : “We can’t have Donald Trump in the White House “ Hillary Stop Trump

My advice to whoever ends up been the candidate : WORK for YOUR votes, talk to your constituents, be strong in your points, this is NOT about not letting Donal Trump become President, it is about WHAT the voters want.