Business Theater

April 23, 2009

• Marketing Power – Stand Out To Shine and Think Big, Charlie Seymour Jr Says

  

  Marketing Power – A Good Theater Background Helps!

  I was six and it was my first theatrical production. OK, so I sat quietly licking a lollipop in one courtroom scene at the local Little Theater, but I must have done something right because they asked me back year after year and I went on to create a musical theater group at Tufts University (Torn Ticket, now with the name Torn Ticket II) and worked professionally in theater after earning my MBA from Wharton Graduate of the University of Pennsylvania.

  Theater – that team sport of people in the spotlight. And whether directing or acting, it taught me some very important lessons that I use in my marketing today.

  Sing Out, Louise

  That classic line from the Broadway Musical, Gypsy, is instructive for all of us:
  
  You must stand out for people to notice you!

  Have you ever taken the Sunday newspaper (well, it's like that here in the USA) and flipped to the real estate section. Squint a little so it goes out of focus and what do you see?

  Nothing.

  Everything is exactly the same. It's as if no one wants to stand out and get noticed. It's just a blur of black and white with no stars singing out.

  If you make a presentation along with other people; if you give your 30-second "Elevator Speech" of introduction at a business meeting; if you make a proposal to earn some local business and you look like everyone else you will get what everyone else gets: normal results.

  Normal. The norm. Average.

  And who the heck wants THAT?

  Timid you say? Then ACT the part of someone who is not.

  Hey, I really don't care that Donald Trump jumped all over one of his Apprentice candidates who said something like "fake it" until she was ready to make it.
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