Marketing for Rainmakers

I’ve never been a big fan of self-help books. They always strike me as preachy and self-indulgent. So I was decidedly skeptical when a good friend recommended Eckhart Tolle’s, “A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose.” Not only was it a spiritually oriented self-help book, it was — OMG — a selection of Oprah’s book club. It was two strikes and counting. But then I began reading, and a torrent of insights swept away my skepticism and captured my attention.

As a student of rainmaker marketing, I found much in Tolle’s book that related to creating and strengthening relationships with clients. In particular, I was struck by this passage:

“The ego may be clever, but it is not intelligent. Cleverness pursues its own little aims. Intelligence sees the larger whole in which all things are connected. Cleverness is motivated by self-interest, and it is extremely short-sighted. Most politicians and businesspeople are clever. Very few are intelligent. Whatever is attained through cleverness is short-lived and always turns out to be eventually self-defeating. Cleverness divides; intelligence includes.” (page 112)

Tolle’s words get to the key difference between traditional salespeople and true rainmakers. Salespeople use clever techniques — e.g., “smoke and mirrors” — to attract prospects and close sales. Rainmakers use their innate intelligence and market intelligence to create solutions that engage and benefit the audience.

Rainmaking is not about demonstrating how clever you are, but rather helping clients to live and work more intelligently. Cleverness is a shortcut and a monologue, while intelligence takes the higher road and nurtures a dialogue.

Clients may date cleverness, but they’ll marry intelligence.

Phil Fragasso — February 18, 2008

No one turns a phrase better than Texans. And my favorite Texas saying, “All hat and no cattle,” refers to cowboy poseurs who talk and dress the part but would shriek like little girls if they accidentally stepped on a cow pie.

The same malady runs rampant in the business world among rainmaker-wannabes. These individuals are “all style and no substance.” Their style is store-bought and often derived from the business book du jour. They forget John Wooden’s advice to “Be more concerned with your character than your reputation. Your character is what you really are, while your reputation is merely what others think of you.”

So where am I going with this? Directly to the one sacrosanct principle of rainmaking: Integrity. True rainmakers stand for something. They do the right thing at the right time for the right reasons. They say something because it’s the right thing to say, not because it sounds right.

Frances Hesselbein, President of the Drucker Foundation, defines “leadership” as “a matter of how to be, not how to do it.” The same can be said of rainmaking — it emanates from one’s character not from a catalog of clichéd platitudes.

Take a moment to consider your own hat-to-cattle ratio. Do you confuse character with caricature? Do you sidestep tough decisions? Do you do what’s right or what’s expedient? Do you shriek at cow pies, or do you realize that they’re an inescapable part of being a cowboy?

Phil Fragasso — February 10, 2008