Colloquia – Learning Marketing from Politicians and Beggars

Mr. Biju Dominic
Date: 4th April, 2009

LEARNING MARKETING FROM POLITICIANS AND BEGGARS

‘Management is all about Persuasive Communication’ was the main essence of the talk by Mr. Biju Dominic. one of the basic qualities to be successful as a professional is the ability to communicate. He has learned from his 20 years of career, working with some of the best employees and professionals. If there is a junior under you, how well you are able to motivate or persuade that person is what matters. For that you might need an hour or just two words are enough.

Some of the best persuasive strategies include how Reliance Infocom was able to persuade its employees to limit its costs to the lowest level so that a phone call could be made at the cost of a postcard.

Mr. Biju also spread light on the fact that whatever you want to learn, learn it from the outside world- the Politicians, the NDA, the terrorist camps and even children begging on the streets can give you food for thought which you could go deep into and analyse. The Indian Politician, according to him is the first person who knows the fundas of persuasive communication. He considered Mr. Laloo Prasad Yadav (Lalooji) as the father of persuasive communication. Here is how the leader maintains his brand image of significance.

He said that many of the strategies adopted by these politicians will be diametrically opposite to those made by MBAs sitting in air-conditioned ivory towers. Each and every organization focuses on what is called the Target Group but a politician, at the time of election says that ‘every vote counts’. For an organization, target is an individual but for a politician it’s a community. The organization follows a top-down approach whereas a party follows a bottom-up approach.

When an organization uses the transient media constituting a 30 seconds ad, a politician uses a permanent media like the foundation stones of buildings, bridges, etc. An organization uses a lot of words and focuses on perfecting strategies while politicians focus on implementation. The fact that politicians are the masters of the art of persuasive communication is evident from the fact that the voting percentage in India has continuously risen even more than USA.

Thus, Mr. Biju has told us that a politician is a master who walks the streets and reaches out to millions of people. This single factor in the whole world can help us study a lot on persuasive communication.

By – Gowri S