Introvert Marketing in an Extrovert Market (WordServe Water Cooler)

Introvert Marketing in an Extrovert Market | WordServe Water Cooler.

Normally, the above story would just garner a link and a quick comment, but I’ve been griping about this for a long time. The fact is if you happen to be an introvert with a product to sell, you are pretty much told to either buck up and market it or shut up…especially by those not of the introvert persuasion. That’s not really all that helpful. The reality is that it’s often better to pair an introvert with a marketer (almost by definition an extrovert) than it is to try to force the introvert to become their own primary salesman.

Take Apple Computer as a shining example. The person most people associate with Apple has been Steve Jobs. Drive, charisma, chutzpah, and that ineffable something that makes someone really good at drawing people into their world view. The other Steve, Steve Wozniak, was the guy in the garage who tinkered with the computer. Like me, “Woz” is probably more Asperger-y than introvert, but the same rules apply: Apple likely would not have been Apple if Woz had been told to market it himself.

It’s a recipe repeated time and again: you have the business person and you have the creative person. One person produces, the other sells. They play to their strengths. In the modern world of multi-tasking personnel consolidation, the producer is now also expected to sell. Not only does this not play to their strength, it redirects the productive energy away from creation. It really makes no sense.

I’ve often taken it as curious that the blending of marketing and creativity is pretty much a one-way street. Creative types are told to learn how to market while marketers are rarely told to go learn how to write a novel, or paint a painting, or program a computer, or anything else that takes years to learn how to do well.

Still, I understand the intention. No one will ever be as passionate about your work than you are, the theory goes. Therefore, you are its best salesperson. On this, I disagree. Just as Woz was likely not the best salesperson for Apple, neither are many introverts the best salespeople for their works.

I think there is a huge opportunity for those who like marketing to fill that niche that so many creative types want: someone who will do a good marketing job for a percentage. Whatever the expectation might be, most agents aren’t that…or at least haven’t been that for a long time. But even if a marketing market is made, there will also need to be an entry-level way to get into the marketing machine—asking the introvert to market their wares to gain access to the marketing machine sort of defeats the purpose. The trouble is that there are many more creative types than marketers out there interested in doing this. Sounds like an opportunity just waiting to be pounced on.

In any case, I hope that the introverted among us aren’t doomed by a world filled with extrovert expectations.

It irks me no end.