Charisma on Command VS The Power Moves (ie.: Charisma VS Power)
The title is provocative.
But I think it's an interesting topic from a business, strategies, and power dynamics point of view.
The Charisma on Command pocdcast's curator picked my question to ask Charlie and Ben:
Me: Would you have a guest over who's a competitor. The interview would be interesting, but you'd be indirectly favoring that competitor by giving him space.
Their answer:
So basically they say that:
Yes, they would, and having a competitor is good for them because the space -the "pie"- gets bigger for all if more people are interested in charisma.
Plus, they say they "own" the term "charisma" on YouTube, so it seems like they sub-communicate that anything that goes into the social skills / charisma space benefits them first and foremost.
Of course the guys didn't know who was asking the question, so they had no idea how to properly address it.
They ran with the assumption that the guest would be someone talking about "social skills" and charisma.
Power & Charisma... Or Power VS Charisma?
In part, they're right.
COC and TPM talk about a lot of similar topics, and there is plenty of overlap.
So it's entirely possible they'd gain by giving space to TPM (and the "novel" approach to self-development and social skills that is power dynamics).
But there is also a different angle to it.
I think that TPM poses a potentially threat to COC that wouldn't necessarily make the pie bigger.
The danger is that it can become a question of charisma VS power.
Or charisma OR power, for those who have to decide which course to purchase and which and learning path to follow.
These are both in the self-development and social skills space, so in that sense the pie does get larger.
Yet there are important differences.
So that might not make the pie larger for everyone, but instead frame the discourse in terms of "one VS the other".
And people might think:
Is it better to learn charisma, or power dynamics
And some people might think "charisma is the way to go".
But some others might think "uh-oh, power is more important and foundational than charisma".
And that might make the charisma pie smaller, not bigger.
Plus, of course, there is power dynamics, value exchanges, and egos:
- Value exchange: the bigger dog (COC) hosting the far smaller dog (TPM), would give much more than it takes. Would the bigger dog be willing to be OK with that lopsided value exchange?
- Power dynamics: would the bigger dog even want to dignify and acknowledge the smaller dog, and thus risk making it bigger and more threatening? It would much easier to pretend it doesn't exist
- Market strategies: would the leader of the social skills space even want to open a thorny discussion on power, and risk that people would conclude that power might be more foundational than charisma?
That's a can of worm they have little to gain opening, and more to lose - Egos & psychology: They could easily think "that TPM guy did our Charisma University course review and it wasn't the glowing 10/10 that we prefer. Plus, he mimicked our course name and molded his sales page on our sales page. Fuck that guy".
It would be a common, human, and even understandable reaction
If anyone has any thoughts on this, happy to read!
I completely agree with the PowerDynamics analysis.
These are just my thoughts, and it's likely I haven't thought this through myself. When I saw your comment on the podcasts' comment section after they answered your question, I wonder what your strategy is.
If your goal is to collaborate or discuss with them, it would probably have been more effective in my opinion to taking them up on it and offer a specific setting or a range of topics instead of basically disagreeing with them that you are a threat to them before any discussion started.
So another approach would be:
"Great news you are open to discuss with a competitor with a different perspective, a true sign of confidence in your knowledge.
That's certainly an awesome starting point to have a debate with lots of insights.
How about we go straight to the juicy stuff and talk about [...], is that something you are interested in?
What do other viewers think of this, does that sound interesting to you?"
The downside is that they could simply not respond (or even read it) - but other viewers could, and comment on it and like it, which could be a leverage in that situation I think. After several likes of others you could write them personally and offer a short call or something.
You could also make a short video addressing them directly and inviting them to a discussion, either on your or their channel.
But again maybe I'm missing something or am naive in my assumptions (that's quite likely actually). But either way the chances are still not particularly great in this situation I guess.
That's some awesome feedback, Anon, thanks!
Yeah, my answer was just plain honest, without any strategy to "trying to get on their podcast".
I'd gladly talk to them actually, but more because I think it's a cool podcast and I'd gladly talk to them -as people- than for the exposure (several reasons, including: it might be a plus for TPM, but TPM doesn't strictly need it; at 5-6k views, their podcast isn't that big: that's fewer visits what TPM's gets every day; the people who watch it are probably a bit different than those who watch their channel; attending might also be a risk for TPM in some ways).
Still, after your post, I amended the comment.
That kind of talk is better here than YB comments :).
Hello Lucio,
and what about interviewing them on your channel?
I think it’s a great win-win. Or proposing one interview on each channel where you would be interviewing each other in turn on charisma and PD?
I think it might be worth it 🙂
Thank you, John!
Yeah, that's a great point, direct quick message, see if they're interested, if they are great, if not no real loss.
Will probably do that.