Before and After

One of the common advertising strategies marketers use is the “Before and After” strategy. Probably you would have come across many such advertisements. For example, companies who sell weight loss product such as weight loss supplements, depict the effectiveness of their product by offering testimonies of people who have used it and lost weight. Generally these advertisements portray the photo of an obese person (before using their product) and another photo of the same person who now looks slim (after using their product) . Similar advertisements can also be found for hair growth promoters, pimple removal cream and so on.

So, this “before and after” strategy is something that easily catches the attention of the audience. Now let me refer this to the context of effectiveness of some of the training programmes I attend. Because most of the training programmes, almost adapt the same strategy. The programme promises that at the end of the programme your life will transform to something fantastic, unimaginable, amazing etc.

I keep attending a number of training programmes, periodically as I aspire to be updated with new concepts. Quiet recently, I had the opportunity to attend an event titled “Achievers Conference” which happened in Bangalore.  The conference had an expert panel of speakers, including motivational speakers, subject experts, book authors, trainers and the like. The crowd puller for this event was the author of the bestselling book “Rich Dad, Poor Dad”, Robert Kiyosaki.  However, in the panel of speakers were also others, who were not as prominent as Robert Kiyosaki, but were experts in their own field.

Their speeches did create an impact among the audience. All the speakers invariably used the same strategy, which I am about to elaborate. They started with their early life of how poor they were or how much of difficult time they had come across and then talked about a defining moment in their life that dramatically changed their life for good, and how their life has been transformed ever since. As they talk about this WOW moment of their life and when the audience are totally enthralled, they gently push in this desire amidst the audience by saying. “You too can achieve this level of success, if you sign up for my upcoming programme, where I will be teaching you the techniques I adopted to achieve this level of success”. With this they end making an announcement of the programme cost and special discounted offer, if they sign up immediately.

These type of programmes that they offer, are generally very highly priced. However, these speakers sound so convincing, that at the end of their speech the audience are literally running to the sign-up counter with their wallets or cheque book, to book a seat.

Well everyone is looking for a breakthrough in their life and it is natural for us to be tempted to believe that the breakthrough in our life is going to come by attending this particular programme.The speakers are also aware of this and that is why their programmes sell like hot cakes.

Well, I am not saying that these programmes don’t work, but it is wise to consider some pointsbefore we enrol for any such programmes.

Firstly, we need to understand that, what works for one may not work for someone else. So, what worked for the speaker may not work for us. It depends upon our level of passion, commitment, availability of time and resources, family support and many other factors, which are needed to make it a reality.

Secondly, in any such programme there are two parts. The first part is the learning part i.e attending the programme and understanding the techniques and the second part is the doing part i.e what we do with what we learnt in the programme. Here is where the glitch is. Quite often, with passage of time and amidst our other priorities, our enthusiasm tends to fades away. Then we just blame that the programme didn’t work, but most often the reality is that, we did not take the extra effort to make the programme work for us.

Thirdly, it all depends upon how much we immerse ourselves in the chosenactivity. We should have fun doing it, otherwise sooner or later, it would become a stress and ultimately, we would give up. So, it is important to find out how well this programme will align with one’s passion. If it aligns, I am sure, they would discover their breakthroughmomentof their life. If not, it is just more time and money wasted.

So, never get carried away by others words or promises. Your world is very different from their world.  Don’t do something, just because everyone else is doing it. Take the time to discover who you really are and what type of work, truly fascinates you and then put your heart and soul into it.  And you are sure to discover true success and happiness.

Happy Reading,

D. Senthil Kannan

Article Dated Dec 2014