Metaphors in Sales: By Natural Design

BITE INTO BETTER APPLES

For generations, farmers and horticulturists have refined the process of grafting, which combines two trees to capture the best traits of each. On a practical level, this can mean resistance to disease, insects, and temperature fluctuation; higher yield; and sweeter produce. The contributing plants are referred to as the “rootstock,” which provides the lower base and the sustaining life-force, and the “scion,” the upper shoot that is encouraged to sprout, bud, and fruit. Grafting can vary from simple maneuvers, such as peeling away bark and joining the scion with tape or rope, to complex splicing such as the “whip and tongue” technique, also known as clefting, which maximizes surface contact and requires a particular zig-zag cut. A callus will eventually form to restore the tree’s integrity and protect the graft.

So what has all of this got to do with sales? The successful grafting process typically takes three to eight weeks and requires weekly or twice-weekly check-ins.

This timeline, industrial-organizational experts have noted, corresponds to a successful process for incorporating new hires or implementing new strategies at a company. Perhaps, they reasoned, the time-tested language of grafting could be used to articulate the relatively nascent dynamic of onboarding. (If you want to extend the metaphor into a conceit, compare what happens when there isn’t successful onboarding in place. The new talent or knowledge has to grow “from seed,” resulting in a two- to ten-year delay before bearing fruit.)

The mightiest metaphors don’t just transform; they illuminate. Although new personnel and ideas can ultimately strengthen the company, they are often introduced because of an existing pain point. The onboarding-as-grafting metaphor requires us to acknowledge the “wound” to the rootstock, which fosters opportunity, and welcomes the callus to come. Real-world practice also warns us against “girdling,” which is what happens when the supportive scaffold (such as tape or wax) stays on the graft site for too long, inadvertently cutting off nutrients to a scion that’s ready to grow.

If needed, grafting gives us frameworks to describe outcomes that sit somewhere between success and failure—a given year’s abundant harvest of apples that are bigger, brighter, and taste like sawdust. Sometimes, that’s what it takes before you figure out how to cultivate the Honeycrisp.

LET IT RAIN (REPEATEDLY)

The water cycle, which tracks the continuous movement of water through Earth and atmosphere, is a standard elementary-school introduction to thinking about complex natural systems. The lesson is usually compressed to emphasize three key stages: evaporation, condensation, and precipitation. The sun acts on liquid water, which becomes a vapor recognizable as cloud or steam, that falls back to ground as rain or snow. (There’s also transpiration, sublimation, runoff, infiltration, plant uptake, and so on…okay, that’s a different blog.)

Confession time: when I first came to Maestro Group, I didn’t know what “top of funnel” meant. Fortunately, I was hired as an editor and not a marketer. But you can’t edit writing around an idea until you understand the underlying concept. What helped me grasp top-of-funnel marketing was applying the concept of the water cycle. Awareness is the sun’s rays, cast broadly over the ocean; interest is the evaporation or, rather, vapor accumulating; decision is the critical mass of a cloud at the point of storm; action is the rainfall. (Which generates runoff, infiltration, percolation…hmm. Perhaps those nuances are relevant to this blog after all.)

In addition to the water cycle serving as a useful metaphor for a company’s customer-acquisition patterns, the water cycle illustrates patterns of audience engagement. A topic tends to come “into the sun” for a period of bright, sustained attention; think of Marie Kondo and KonMari organizing. This elicits concern, which gathers, culminating in the purchase of goods or services intended to ease that tension (“I need to empty my closets—but first, I need to spend $100 at The Container Store for the supplies that will help me empty my closets”). Once the rain falls, and the donation of clothes and toys has been made, investment in the topic ebbs. But the water isn’t gone, just biding its time in the ground.

IMITATE, ADAPT, AND HOPE

For some companies, a metaphor of nature isn’t just useful for in-house tactics of onboarding, marketing, or audience-building; instead, nature provides a key breakthrough that guides their signature technologies. Founded in 2006, the Biomimicry Institute is a not-for-profit that recognizes both adult-professional and youth-student initiatives inspired by design strategies anchored in biology, chemistry, and the environmental sciences. Their “Ray of Hope” prize is named for Ray C. Anderson (1934–2011), who led Interface Inc., a company that produced the first free-lay modular carpet tile in America, and who co-chaired the 2008 Presidential Climate Action Plan. Annually, the prize recognizes a start-up with a $100K award and makes another $50K available to participating start-ups.

The institute refers to their constituency, including the ten 2022 finalists, as being “armed with nature’s 3.8 billion years of research and development,” which is then amplified through access to a ten-week accelerator program. One finalist, Mycocycle, imitates fungi systems to break down construction materials such as asphalt, resulting in on-site waste remediation and a circular supply chain that reduces the need for landfill space. Another finalist, Sudoc, has studied the enzymes of the human liver to formulate efficient chemical cleaners. An Indian company, GreenPod Labs, has drawn inspiration from the natural skin of fruits and vegetables, adapting supplies of plant-based volatiles that slow ripening and minimize microbial growth. The resultant packaging minimizes dependence on cold storage.

Mushrooms sharing roots, spiders spinning silk, the energy of wind or the strength of a beetle’s exoskeleton—wherever we look, the environment is full of lessons. I’m going to resist invoking “Mother Nature” here because, as I said last week, metaphors of family are tired. But whoever she is, she means business. You’d be a fool to ignore her in service of your sales.

Let us fill your metaphorical toolbox. Reach out at mastery@maestrogroup.co to find out more about our live trainings and self-paced learning modules.