What does Queen Elizabeth’s victory over the Spanish Armada or Julius Caesar’s conquest of Gaul have to do with sales and marketing?
According to book author Patrick Henry Hansen, history has a lot of information source that you can use for business. When you look at momentous historical events, they are usually packed with eye-opening and entertaining examples that often teach timeless principles that are suitable for application in today’s modern world. He said we can draw out history’s most compelling moments to teach principles of presenting, negotiating, and even selling. His books are injected with fascinating people like General Patton and Meriwether Lewis.
A favorite historical figure is Julius Caesar. He is a man who has conquered the Western Germans, and then defeated the Celtic tribes of Britain and Gaul. He subjugated the modern countries like Switzerland, France, Austria, Belgium, Holland, Western Germany and Southern England over an eight-year period. He even won the Roman civil war against Pompey, his son-in-law and former political ally.
This man engaged in over forty battles often against armies that are larger than his own, and in a dozen occasions almost risked losing his life. He was probably the most skilled tactician in warfare’s history next to Alexander the Great.
There is a saying that goes “Those who ignore the lessons of history are bound to repeat it.” So, strike up your fascination for reading history books. Historical stories provide a wealth of instructions that have immense importance in our society today.
According to Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., “A page of history is worth a volume of logic.” True, you may think that history and marketing may seem like an odd partnership, but author Patrick Henry Hansen said that history is such an excellent teacher because of the marketing and business values it teaches. While nothing beats personal experience, learning from others comes second best.
So what value can we get from Julius Caesar? The answer – focus on skill development. Without a doubt, Caesar was a very skilled military commander in his time. He was focused on developing legionary methods that has proven to be superior to the Celtics and German methods.
It is not that different today. Skills will always separate an elite marketing professional from a mediocre and amateur one. If you will copy the ancient Romans, focusing more on skills development will win you more sales. In contrast, those marketers who use the technique of the Ancient Celts – who just rush into battle – will not be so successful.
Traditional history books are boring, but when you use the historical events as a guide to solve problems in modern sales, marketing or business challenges, you will love to learn about historical content. Then you will soon realize that historical events provide solid marketing principles that are not only entertaining, but can also show you how to double your sales or your income.
In fact, consumer interests are now beginning to show in documentaries from the History Channel and Discovery Channel. Even Hollywood picks up on this trend by producing history movies such as 300, Alexander, Braveheart, The Patriot, Gladiator, etc.
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There are many Internet business opportunities that exploit the novelty of the Web as a lure. If you nibble, they’ll further bait you with promises of freedom, esteem, high income and the good life. For a fee, they’ll set you up with a company-sponsored, duplicate Website, along with products or services to sell. But many will also offer you incentives to recruit others to pay the fee, which is really what these so-called opportunities are all about. They are among what the U.S. Federal Trade Commission cleverly calls Dot Cons.
The real business of these types of dot-cons is not wholesaling products or services. It’s selling the concept of the scheme itself, and duping you into reselling it for them. But by law in most U.S. states, one can’t profit from recruiting, with nothing changing hands but fees and commissions for the scheme itself. That’s illegal pyramiding. To get around it, these dot-cons sell tangible, “distributorship” Websites on which to seemingly resell their products or services. But a closer look reveals that, what’s really for resale, is the distributorship itself over and over again.