It Wasn’t Always So Easy

Viewing Primaries as a Sale

It’s an interesting primary season in the USA. There’s nothing unique about it if you have a decent education in our history, or world history. But people want their own lives to be momentous and unique, and they will cling to that illusion in the face of a mountain of evidence to the contrary. That’s the problem with logic. It doesn’t provide as much adrenaline as emotion does. Trade, the process of buying and selling, is what emotionally engages most people.

I’m an odd duck, by my nature, training, and experience. When I complete an exam and end up with superior diagnostic views of a difficult patient, the doctor and I trade “high fives”. I get the same rush as if my home team won the Super Bowl. But before and during the actual exam, I’m in a logical headspace, calculating radiation dosage, distance, part thickness, tissue composition and photographic factors needed to produce the best images. Because I’m hyper-focused on the math and science, things like a wounded patient’s cries, or the wiggliness of a five year old with pneumonia don’t distract me. I do the job. It’s a kind of meditation exercise.

I tend to employ similar methods when I vote. I do research, read and watch interviews, carefully go over candidate web sites, trying to extract facts from the sales pitches. I’m not immune to appeals to my emotions, but they had better be smart, backed by facts, and honest. When candidates employ half-truths, I hold the behavior against them, like a grudge. I don’t like feeling like I got “sold” a candidate. I want it to be my unfettered choice to support or oppose them. But I think I’m atypical. I believe most people enjoy it when candidates give them attention. And it affects their vote choices.

Political campaigns are not run like scientific professions. They try to employ some science, internal polling, demographic strategies and such, but most of the money and effort go into persuasion, marketing, branding and affirmations of allegiance – all ways to appeal to emotion. In sales, this is the IQPC Model: Intro, Qualify, Pitch and Close. These are “Four Steps to a Sale” practiced by millions each day. There are other versions of this concept, but this is the one I learned working in retail sales many years ago:

1.) INTRO – You manage and control the first impression, greet the customer (voter) warmly with a word or two about yourself, establishing your desire to be helpful while inviting them to engage further.

2.) QUALIFY – Through questions, you (the seller) gain a quick understanding of the customer’s (voter’s) desires, needs and their budget. This allows the seller to separate those most likely to buy from “looky-loos” (uncommitted browsers).

3.) PITCH – The seller presents the product in a way that most closely matches the goals of the prospective buyer (determined by the qualifying questions).

4.) CLOSE – The seller asks the prospective customer to commit to the sale. Closing is the most important step, and there are different styles and methods for closes.

There are lots of ways to derail a successful sale. The seller may offer a poor INTRO, after which all efforts will be more difficult. The QUALIFY may be mismanaged by asking questions that do not provide enough information about what the customer needs, wants, and if they are willing and able to buy. The PITCH will not be persuasive if it ignores the customer’s goals, or can’t fulfill them. More sellers fail when CLOSING than at any other point in the process, because asking for the sale is harder than chatting and getting to know each other.

There are lots of ways to analyze political candidates. You can view them through the IQPC lens too, since voting is a type of transaction, a sale. Here are my short performance reviews of some recent and current presidential candidates, according to the Four Steps model:

Carly Fiorina, businessperson, former candidate for Senate

INTRO = 50/50. Good backstory that was partly deceptive.

QUALIFY = Poor. Failure to judge customer needs.

PITCH = Poor. Misjudged voters interests based on poor Q.

CLOSE = Could not close after two previous missteps

 

Ben Carson, retired Neurosurgeon

INTRO = 70/30 Excellent backstory marred by probable deception.

QUALIFY = Poor estimation of customer goals and desires

PITCH = Worst of entire field of candidates

CLOSE = Unable to close due to previous mistakes

 

Chris Christie, Governor of New Jersey

I = Poor. Entered transaction with reputation as a bully/RINO

Q = 50/50 Misjudgment of customer interest in aggressive policy approach

P = 50/50 Adept in debates but off-putting behavior soured the sale

C = Passed customer off to another salesperson

 

Ted Cruz, Senator from Texas

I = 70/30 Good resume impacted by co-worker dislike

Q = 70/30 Good rapport, but over-focus on select clientele

P = 70/30 Good pitch for target clients, bad for general custom

C = Making the sale is possible, but not probable

Donald Trump, Real Estate tycoon, TV performer

I = 50/50 A mix of obvious virtues and obvious flaws

Q = 70/30 Good customer evaluation, mistreatment of browsers

P = 50/50 Oversimplification, only convincing to some

C = Best closer of any GOP candidate. Sale (nomination) likely.

Bernie Sanders, Senator from Vermont

I = Good intro. Consistent

Q = Good qualifying questions

P = 70/30 Overly narrow focus on some customer needs, not all

C = Possible sale, if able to broaden appeal of product.

 

Hillary Clinton, former Secretary of State, former Senator

I = 50/50 Lots of positives and negatives (see Trump).

Q = Encyclopedic understanding of customer needs and desires

P = 80/20 Tendency to oversell, diminishing effectiveness of message

C = Probable sale, definite if able to refine pitch

These are my perceptions, but my readers are “above average”. I know you don’t see everything exactly as I do, and I celebrate those differences. Nothing would please me more than if you offer your own opinions of how these or other candidates have done, according to the Four Steps model. (That was a quick pitch and close.)

 

Film Festival Report

(Click on photos for full size.)

Until this year I have been at work when my little town’s film festival occurred. I’ve been to film festivals in big, medium and small cities. I don’t think population correlates to quality. A small town festival can sometimes risk showing edgier films, and the special guests are more unusual choices. The 16^th Annual Port Townsend Film Festival just ended. In three days I saw a dozen features, an equal number of shorts and hosted screenings with Beau Bridges, Chris Cooper and Marianne Leone Cooper.

Terrorism in the Old West

The murders at the offices of Charlie Hebdo didn’t surprise me, because of an odd personal coincidence. One of the very first movies I remember affecting me deeply as a child contained a similar incident. I have replayed this act of onscreen brutality many times in my mind.  When you’re a child, you believe what you see. To me it was history, a real incident, not drama. As a result, I have understood since then that there are “bad guys” who will kill because someone prints things they disagree with.

Essential Cuban Films You Should Know

Getting Back in Tune

It’s a dangerous world, but when bad things happen I’m usually somewhere else. I don’t plan it that way by avoiding all risk, but I do try to proactively move toward the light.

The Miraculous Power of the Beatles

(This clip will probably disappear when Apple discovers it.)

I was working as a children’s photographer at a Sears store. It was unfulfilling work. I had a pal I met in high school whose name was Terra. She was very pretty, was one of the prom queens, and had been in “swim timers”. She was also interested in service work. In high school I took photos of all the clubs. That’s how Terra and I became friends.

I Am 60 Today

In the 1950s:

We had a 19” Black & White TV.  I watched this and laughed.

A Life of Integrity

“I like to say I’m more conservative than Goldwater. He just wanted to turn the clock back to when there was no income tax. I want to turn the clock back to when people lived in small villages and took care of each other.”

— Pete Seeger

Sad Thoughtful Mysterious Intimate Reverent Merry Redeemed

2013 Christmas Clip Show

Cute Little Devils

Invisible Mikey

When I was a child, kids went out “Trick or Treating” with other kids.  Adult escorts were only employed to take infants door-to-door so they could also participate.

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Coexisting With the Deer

In my back yard

Cleaning, Feeding, Preparation

Forget about the wars, revolutions and the gubmint listening in on your cell phone calls!  You’ve found a peaceful spot where you can sit and listen to birds sing, where gentle waters flow as you read.

I am fixing some problems I have procrastinated about, and feeling dumb because I didn’t address them before.  We didn’t cook much until I began dieting.  We didn’t know how to clean the oven.  We are now entering our third day in the process of cleaning the oven

Loud & Clear, Big & Fast, Slow & Just Right

A newsy, catch-up post

When the world is full of danger, fear and catastrophe, it’s a good time to plant.  At my house, we make improvements slowly.  We’ve been looking over our property borders for two years, considering what might make them more inviting to our senses, and to neighboring wildlife.

A Perfect Day Out

It was time to shake up my routine.  I decided to take a half-day off to do fun, unusual things my wife would also enjoy.  We began by arriving for the Grand Opening ceremony of our little town’s Farmers Market.  All the newspaper said was “9am Goat Parade”

Weird, Retro, Whatevermas!

You can’t look good in that sweater.

 

You guys know I’m a fairly traditional sort of holiday observer, right?  No, really, it’s true.  STOP LAUGHING!!!

Fear Not: For, Behold

The Gun Control petition I reprinted yesterday went viral.  It gathered more than 200,000 signatures in support, and the author, Staci Sarkin, will be going to Congress in person to present it.

There’s some current woo-woo about the world ending on December 21^st, because that’s when the Mayan calendar “ends”.  I wouldn’t put much stock in the prophetic abilities of the Mayans.  They stopped calculating their calendar because they were too busy dealing with the invasion of the Spanish, and two centuries of drought, both of which decimated their culture, neither of which they saw coming.

Getting in the Spirit

A Newsy Post you can Sing Along With

Life is Beautiful (1997)

The time between Halloween and New Year’s Day seems to go by faster every year.  I’m doing less than I used to, on purpose, but it still feels like activities, responsibilities, even the passage of hours speeds up.

Happy Thanksgiving!

I have a bad cold, so I have to stay in alone while my pals are feasting together, and I’m kind of grumpy about it.  I had the good fortune to help restore a truly remarkable film, Giant (1956), a decade ago.  It’s full of honest, meaningful glimpses into the contradictions of American life.

Election Day Trivia

Archie Roosevelt, with Presidential pet badger Josiah, who bit visitors.

WOO-HOO!  It’s OVER!  Those suffering from arrested development will continue to whine for a bit if their man or woman didn’t win, but the wisest will progress to more important matters.   Like raking leaves, cleaning the gutters, and throwing out those stupid lawn signs.