Showing posts with label karnataka election. Show all posts
Showing posts with label karnataka election. Show all posts

Thursday, May 9, 2013

Lessons for Political Campaigners from Business Campaigners

When business campaigners i.e. advertisers talk they talk about qualities of their products and services and try to differentiate from the competition without referring to the bad qualities if any of the competitor. 

They don't criticize competition but communicates how they can make a difference in the lives of their users/consumers. 

Consumers by and large are smart and they know good and bad about the competing products. 

In contrast our political parties and leaders spent large part of their election speech in mud slinging on opposition and competitor.  Consumer & Voters wants to know HOW you are going to make a difference in their lives. They need your plan of action to bring the desired change, your case studies of past performance, your views on various problems and issues need resolution. 

Spending time on criticizing others is doing NO good to any one , neither to listeners nor to speakers. Leave listeners , views and voters to decide what is good for them without referring what is bad about your competitors. They just want your support in deciding in their selection and best way to do that is to demonstrate WHAT you can do to improve their lives. PERIOD.

Congress leaders going to Gujarat and doing negative campaign against the Govt will not work and similarly Modi going to Karnataka and do mud slinging against the Congress also will not work.

In Gujarat people know what Modi has done so they don't believe in Congress and in  Karnataka people are aware what BJP has done so they will not believe in negative campaign against Congress by Modi. In both campaigns parties had to demonstrate WHAT and HOW of changing lives for better of voters from present situation. Both have failed in that and so their campaigns have also failed. People are first interested in bettering their lives and they care about corruption only AFTER that.

Communication makes all the difference. FOCUS on positive campaigning.  Political campaigners may take some clue business campaigners. 

Wednesday, May 8, 2013

Leadership Vs Front-facing Candidates & Managers


Leaders can inspire but it is the local leader at  the voters touch points who can drives votes. Only leaders without right followers cant win elections. Mass leader with right candidate is the killer mix. 


Right Candidate
(non corrupt , performing perception & great people skill)

Likely Win


Mostly Wins

Wrong Candidate
(corrupt , non performing perception )

Mostly Loses


Likely Lose


Election Matrix

(Qualities of candidates and leaders are in relation to its opponent)

Uninspiring  leader
at the top

( Incapable, uninspiring, corrupt & ineffective & non inclusive image)


Inspiring Leader at the top

( Inspiring { thought leader , communicator} , capable, non corrupt, effective, executor, inclusive image  )


The above matrix is not only applicable to political parties  but also to all businesses. Howsoever strong leadership you may have at the top if your ground level customer focus managers are failing company will be in trouble.

People will become customers if they see Richard Bronson at the top but soon they will disappear if the touch point manager/staff is uninspiring.  Only dependency on right and inspiring leadership is not going to yield the desired result.