Thought for the day...

I think the height of hubris is the belief that your product, service, or idea is so good that you don't have to sell it. It's that arrogance that says: "You know what, we make such good stuff, we're just going to wait for them to come and ask for it, and we're going to be doing them a favour by giving it to them."

We all have encountered vendors like that. I believe that in this day and age people don't do business with us just because they like us, but they *will* choose to not do business with us, even if we have the best product, if they don't like us.

So persuasive communication says that we need to communicate in such a way that we're selling. I always like to define 'selling', because I think so many professionals have a bias that selling is somehow negative.

'Selling' is helping people make a decision that is good for them. 'Manipulation' is helping people make a decision that's good for you. If I believe in the value of my ideas, or my products, or my services, I owe it to you to express that in such a way that you'll buy it. If your service is superior, but you don't present it well, and your client goes elsewhere, and pays for an inferior service, in a way you've cheated your client.

- Mark Sanborn, author of You Don't Need a Title to be a Leader: How Anyone, Anywhere Can Make a Positive Difference

When asked whose fault it was if someone doesn't take a book when offered one in the street, Srila Prabhupada said: "It is their fault. They are envious, like a snake."

In this way he encouraged his disciples to continue to endeavour without becoming discouraged or self-critical. However, he continued:

"So therefore you must become expert snake-charmers."

So while the "blame" for people not taking to Krishna Consciousness might be said to lie with them, the onus is on expert members of the Krishna Consciousness movement to "competently find the ways and means to inject Krishna Consciousness into the dull brains of the materialistic population".

The fact of the matter is that the product is so good. It answers the problems that people are trying to solve: Meaning in life, work / life balance, relational stability, environmental damage, climate change, international relations, you name it.

We just have to give people the opportunity to experience it for themselves - a free sample - and they'll be able to see that for themselves.