When I was a kid living (briefly) in Oklahoma, one of my favorite times was the local “Pioneer Days.” Everyone dressed up in pioneer clothing, old Conestoga wagons were brought out of barns, and re-enactments of the early days of the town were carried out in the town square and at the fairgrounds. Everything was “old-timey” — the way it used to be. Some of the men would even grow their hair long and sport the old fashion handlebar mustache and side lamb chops.
I’m convinced that we are now in the pioneer days for marketing. If I’ve read one article about how push marketing doesn’t work anymore and that it is now all about building relationships with the consumer, I’ve read twenty. And every time I read one I shake my head and wonder why no one writes that this is back to marketing’s pioneer days. We now have “Pioneer Marketing.” It’s what our forebears did in every single city and town, and what the best and wisest businesses still do.
Pioneer Marketing (I think I just coined a new term) has one main tenet, and that tenet is infallible. It works every time because it is based on a law of human nature. What’s the law? “People respond positively and in a timely manner when they are treated with respect, courtesy, honesty, and in a way that has their best interests at heart.” That one law, rigidly adhered to, will win out every time. Your attention may be diverted by aggressive and shiny marketing for a while, but in the end you will go where that law of human nature is adhered to.
Simply put, our prospects and existing customers don’t want to be sold into a product or service that serves the seller and doesn’t serve the buyer. They are tired of push marketing coupled with shoddy goods and lacking customer service. And this is one huge reason that you, as an entrepreneur, have it over the big guys. The big guys have used push marketing, shoddy goods, and lacking customer service for so long that they are scrambling right now to turn huge, bloated, bureaucratic businesses around to save their sales. Meanwhile, you and I can “float like a butterfly and sting like a bee,” meeting and forming relationships with our prospects, selling our expertise, servicing our customers, and making the transaction into a win-win rather than a win-lose. We have memorable and recognizable faces. Large, bloated businesses give you a new and usually non-caring face every time you walk in their door or buy from them online.
Family-owned businesses, solo professionals, and entrepreneurs can step up and capture market share right now. Most of us have a familiar face to our prospects and customers. Many of the big guys don’t, and now that they realize that, they are all about “relationship marketing,” thinking they have discovered a whole new world. It isn’t a whole new world at all, it’s the world that many small business owners never left, the one that our pioneer forebears lived in. Everyone knew the business owners up and down the street and how they treated customers. Everyone knew who to avoid and who to buy from. Business was good or bad depending on the business owner’s savvy and her ability to form and keep relationships. Reputation was everything, and was based on something real, not something manipulated by copious marketing.
People respond to Pioneer Marketing because it is in our human nature. We are wired for relationships. On the frontier, relationships and trust in others meant survival. In the marketplace, it means survival for you, the business owner. And it is coupled with a sense of trust and satisfaction in our customers, as well.
You don’t have to put on a pioneer costume or grow a mustache to use Pioneer Marketing. Just plaster that one law of human nature up where you can see it, and build your business from that place. Let your marketing, advertising, customer service, and sales be aligned with that law. Couple that with good business skills, and you are good to go. The next time you hear about the new “relationship marketing” just smile. You are already there. So hip, so pioneer. That’s you!
Hi Sue,
I totally agree with your article. It’s much more natural to just be yourself and come from a place of integrity and service.
Thank you so much for sharing!
Ellen Martin
Sue – This is so true! We are undergoing a huge change in how business is done and how value is perceived. The “standard” corporate business model that has dominated the last 125 years is – in my opinion – almost irretrievably broken, since so many of them fail to follow the Pioneer Marketing path.
Small, nimble businesses run by conscious entrepreneurs are perfectly positioned to positively impact the lives of people and their community!
Thanks for a great post!
Phil
Sue –
I LOVE this article and I love the concept of Pioneer Marketing. I agree with everything you said. It is such an exciting time to be an entrepreneur, and especially one of the little guys. I’m with Laura — wildly excited about what we can each and all accomplish all by getting back to basics and real relationships and real connections with real people. I’m so glad the day of push marketing is gone. Thank you for this inspiring and encouraging post!
Warmly,
Jessica
Thanks, Jessica. I do believe that smaller businesses can lead the way to a less frantic and more customer service oriented way of selling, it’s exciting for me to think about, too!
Sue Painter
Sue,
I second Terry, Stick with the basics, be yourself and this is what people connect with.
Mitch.
This is excellent. And another example of how going back to the basics can always feel new and fresh.
Pioneer marketing – I love it.
Sue, you’ve really connected the essence of marketing with the pioneer. I enjoyed how you identified it in story form and brought it back to basics. When we stick to the basics and building relationships, that’s when we all flourish.
Great article. Isn’t it amazing how the words change, but the concept is basically the same if it is a BASIC.
Thanks so much!
Anita
Welcome, Anita.
Sue
Applause, applause, applause! I’m giving you a standing ovation Sue. You are so wise. This is the absolute truth. We are so sick of the business-winning promotional attitude. And people wonder where our cynicism came from! Now if only the politicians would catch on! Thanks for this!
Lynn
Thanks, Lynn!
I agree, we are in a position right now to completely reinvent the way we do business.
This is wildly exciting!
From my perspective, as a creative spiritual person, I feel that by including more spirit, more creativity, more feminity, and more genuine connection we can take business and marketing to a whole new level!
Love your wild excitement, Laura.
Sue P.
Sue,
Funny how the small business owner is so in touch with this concept and the large companies are clueless as usual!
Entrepreneurs rule! Amazon may be the only large company to practice this! Thanks for your insight!
LInda
Yes, the larger companies who manage customer relationships well are popular with people, like Amazon. Others, not so much, LOL!
Sue P.
I’d like to see photos of you as a little girl in a pioneer costume!! Great new term for the marketing basics! And, I sure am glad that “You don’t have to put on a pioneer costume or grow a mustache to use Pioneer Marketing” — especially the mustache!! 😉 XO Katherine
Life Blossoming Systems
LOL about the mustache, Katherine.
Sue P.
Well said Sue! I live in CA and pioneering to us folk if creating the next high tech chip so no wonder people forgot about relationship building. I love your analogy and as weird as it seems I think we need to be reminded that it was, is and always will be about the relationship. Pioneer On!
Julie Hawkins
Thanks, Julie. CA sure does have a true pioneer history, way back before we had microchips! 🙂
Sue Painter
MOST excellent! especially since I am hardwired for relationship. Seems the ‘big guys’ are realizing that relationship is the most important thing about passionate repeat business… and we knew it all along!
Thanks for your wisdom, Sue!
Grace
TOTALLY AGREE! Too bad we can’t get rid of the “outlaws” completely and just keep the good guy “pioneers” around. – Carmen
My daughter and I walked through Old Sacramento yesterday, experiencing the wide, cobbled streets, and the high, wooden sidewalks. So I totally can connect with the pioneer theme!
I think you’re absolutely right. The days of ‘one size fits all’ marketing are over. It’s now about connecting with customers and
prospects individually.
Thanks for this great article!
Sandy
Pioneer Marketing – I like it!
“People respond positively and in a timely manner when they are treated with respect, courtesy, honesty, and in a way that has their best interests at heart.” This is one of the concepts I teach my leader clients; because marketing for anyone inside an organization follows the exact concepts you teach – it is called networking. Whether we are a leader in an organization or a solo professional, we should spend 50% of our time in our target market and 50% of our time sharing and learning with colleagues – networking. And now we know we are Pioneers at heart. I think I’ll go dig out my old Stud Gambler hat that I wore camping as a teenager (purt near back in the pioneer days).
Thanks, Jeff
I’d like to see that Stud Gambler hat on you, Jeff. Thank you for your thoughtful comments. I agree there is really no line between “marketing” and “networking” as it is all relationship, inside or out of an organization.
Sue Painter
Sue,
GREAT points. I find that the tried and true have and will continue to work for business regardless of business type (brick and mortar or Internet based).
I love how you also touch on the values of good business and Pioneer Marketing.
Write on!~
Lisa
Thanks, Lisa. You’re already SO good as a pioneer marketer!
Sue
Building relationships is so natural to me, I love getting to know people and what they do. But you are so right about the “big dogs” just now realizing that this is the best form or marketing and getting in front of customers.
But I think it would be fun to put on a corset and crinoline under one of those big flowing dresses and walk down the center of town to the saloon and….Oh, guess that’s enough daydreaming!! 🙂
To the saloon????? Hello, Miss Kitty!!!!! 🙂 Thanks, Terri, for your comments.
Great article – indeed the concept of building relationships and knowing your target audience – or tarket is critical – as they say the who is more important than the what.
Great picture to go with your article too!
hugs Heidi Alexandra
Thanks to Google images for that picture. Can you even imagine heading across the US in that with all you owned in the world? Well, heading across OZ – it would be about the same distance!! 🙂
Sue Painter
Sue,
I knew there was something special about you. I live in Oklahoma…why did ya’ll move? Relationships are key to building a successful business. I like your coined phrase…’Pioneer Marketing’…very Oklahoma:)
Dr. Robert Fenell
LOL Robert, I lived there as a child for a few years, my father worked as a civilian for the Army Corps of Engineers and was there to manage the construction of the missile silos around Altus. When the job was done, he had to move on. Glad you liked the article.
Sue Painter
What a great point. It is all about relationships. It is so much easier (and not as scary) to send emails or write something on a Facebook wall, but there is nothing more valuable than picking up the phone and actually talking to someone. Whatever happened to the days of meeting for lunch or chatting over coffee? We are all too busy doing stuff instead of connecting with people and building relationships. Pioneer Marketing, I love it!
Thanks, Kristina. I like the idea of you as a pioneer. 🙂
Agreed! I love this, because this way even those of us who don’t think we know how to market get to be pioneers! I know how to be kind and respectful. I know how to build a relationship. And, even more important (IMHO), I have others’ best interest at heart. The other thing i really like about ‘pioneer marketing’ is that I can be congruent and in integrity. Bravo, Sue!
Melanie,
It is just so cool to think of using the skills you already have, applied in a slightly more specific way.
Sue Painter
Thank you, Sue–I well remember Pioneer Days from my days in Nebraska! This blog post is SO true. Sometimes I get discouraged because of not having the big advertising budget (let alone a clue about what would work if I did), but I do know that I have formed some great relationships with people. And that is what I look for in people I hire. I don’t care how good a product is if the customer service isn’t good. And if integrity is missing, I don’t care how great the program, I’m out of there. Thank you for the reminder about what is really most important. Sometimes we think there’s some “magic” to marketing, but often it is what is right in front of us–human relationships.
Hi Linda,
I truly believe that we are wired for that relationship thing.
Sue P.