A discussion about sales, sales tips and advice, and about those who land the deal

I foolishly assumed that only I had no life with nothing better to do on New Year's Eve and New Year's day than do bang out a couple of blog posts.

I was wrong.  Seth Godin has time on his hands, and offered this response to my take on his naming of Barrack Obama and Ron Paul - Democratic and Republican candidates for President, respectively - as his 2007 marketers of the year:

"I didn't say they were the candidates of the year! Obama has raised more than $100,000,000. He's a front runner. How? Using old marketing techniques and the old boy network? Nope.

And Ron Paul has ideas far far outside the mainstream. And yet... and yet here he is, raising money and getting talked about.

Both overcame huge odds and got on the radar. That's the marketing part. The political part I'll leave to others."

Seth added a list of criteria to his post that helps me better understand where he's going with this.  And I certainly agree that each person he bestowed the honor on has made a name for himself this past year using the Internet and some untraditional poltical fundraising methods.

Both have things working for them that I don't know how much control they had, or that they could have created using marketing.  Obama had a sweet prime time speech slot at the last Democratic national convention that propelled him into the national spotlight as a possible Presidential candidate.  Also, he is black - something that he's used as a part of his "outsider agent of change" campaign that he's running (would we even be talking about him if he were a white first term Senator from the midwest?).  Perhaps the story that he's created, and the vision that he is selling, is what attracted Godin to compliment his marketing efforts.

Ron Paul?  I sum up his marketing abilities as "Howard Dean without the votes".  But then again, Godin might have pegged Paul correctly as an oustanding marketer for maximizing the fundraising potential of his limited audience.  He recently raised millions of dollars, more than any other Republican rival.  Not bad...not enough to break through, but not bad.

I guess the point I was trying to make in my original post was that each candidate has done some good things to this point.  But bucking the traditional fundraising methods in politics in favor of online methodologies has failed rather miserably so far in politics.  Again, Howard Dean comes to mind...lots of publicity, lots of press, lots of online donors, and then a rapid fade into the sunset as a Presidential candidate.

Pronouncing their efforts thus far as worthy of being "marketers of the year" is like awarding a college bowl game MVP midway through the second quarter.  Lots can change in the next 60 days that will either validate, or blow-up, the assessments as to how good of a marketer either man ended up being.

I see what Seth Godin is getting at, and the point he is making.  But it has to translate to something tangible to be considered "good marketing", in my opinion.  And the only thing tangible in politics is winning.