Parenting and Marketing

It is said that among the least effective form of parenting is the ‘Threat Method’ where you compel your children to do something in return for not being penalized. It is sometimes used alone or most of the time, it is always at the end of a ‘Cajouling Method’.

“Be a good boy and tidy up your room. Or else, you can’t go and play football.” I remember a book I read said that you should have left the second part. (Even better, change the first sentence. But that is for another post).

The reason threat is not effective is that it is not making the person do something voluntarily. He/she is not doing it from their heart and it depends much on the ‘strength’ of the threat. And threats do no mean anything if they are not going to be enforced or not able to be materialized. So once the threat or the enforcer of the incoming threat is gone, so is the force causing the action.

Another reason is that threats creates a segregation; two different parties at odds, or even worse, fighting against each other. It belittles the other person and sometimes ascend into inconsideration of a person. Your child will fight or silently protests. Instead you should try to understand why your child is not doing what you say (easier said than done, I know.)

Marketing

Similarly I think a bad form of marketing is the ‘Threat Method’. An example I recently saw was a service providing insights into a company’s finance, for whatever reason such as buying their stock or others that I do not know of. What irks me was that the owner’s marketing line was, Don’t go crying to me later if you do not use my product when your shares plummets etc. This simply did not work for me, because I am not his target market, and also because he is THREATENING me with a loss if I do use his product.

Similar cases are insurance agents who scares you into pauperism if you were to have an accident and not have insurance. This is a form of threat. It shows lack of compassion and maturity. If the threat itself doesn’t turn most people off, the immature points would normally do. A better way in this case is instead to empathize more with the potential client and try to understand his/her worries that hold her down. Similar to a child, the concerns should be addressed and not countered, before a person would be joining your product.