Pollination and beautiful accidents

We know from biology that there are two types of pollination seen in certain plants: self-pollination and cross-pollination. We also know that cross-pollination creates stronger plants. Likewise, in marketing, we want our work to spread outside our echo chamber, to meet new people and ideas and niches, and to make things better.

Another thing we know: That cross-pollination happens accidentally. When a bee spends some time in a flower and collects all that pollen on it, it becomes an unknowing agent of change for that flower species. The flower is the ultimate Trojan horse, offering nectar when, really, it’s about the pollen. The bee isn’t there for what the flower actually wants it for, but the bee leaves equipped to help the flower.

And it’s all an accident, it happens without the bee overtly trying to make it happen.

Beautiful.

The language of marketing implies that we believe we’re more in control of the cross-pollination of our ideas than the flower. We talk about marketing as if we’re not the beneficiaries of beautiful accidents, as if we control the entire process.

But before we analyze the language we use, let’s first look at how this idea of accidental spread applies to our work.

Our agents of change — our audience — often don’t know they’re spreading our message. Were they to find out it was happening, they’d welcome it, because we’re not hucksters, cheats, or hacks. We’re offering a generous amount of value, and we’re upholding and advancing a mission they agree with and want to see succeed. But the fact is, they largely spread our message implicitly, through the actions they take and the words they use, not explicitly, by telling others about us by name.

Like the bee, they chose us, they spent time with us, and now they’re going about their day slightly changed, having picked up certain things that fade to the background in their minds but, inevitably, come out in the way they interact with others.

Now let’s back up a step. What about that language marketers use? We say things like “demand generation” or “driving results.” We talk about growth “hacking” or customer “conversions.” The language we use implies that we are in control and, in station-to-station, proactive fashion, dictate the outcome. But more often than not, we’re not.

Arguably, the way this stuff works is the way pollen works: Others choose us and, more importantly, choose to spend some time with us because we’ve offered them some kind of nectar, some value. In exchange, they allow themselves to be changed. They’re open to our message, internalize it, then carry it with them wherever they go (provided we’re offering them a message worth carrying).

Our message spreads most and spreads best not when someone recommends us by name but when they see the world the way we see it, think how we think, and act how we act. One by one, these agents of change help us create the world we want to live and work in — a world we’re in position to help steward.

After all, it’s far easier to build your business and create your movement in a world where more people just “get it.”

The dissenters will say no, this is wrong, we absolutely control the spread of things because, look, we have the technologies, we have the data, we have endless channels to brute force our way through. But this is like a flower trying to grab a handful of bees, rub up against them, and point to another flower and say, “Go rub on that one now.” Sooner or later, the bees evolve, and we’re now in the business of tricking others until they figure out the trick.

Cross-pollination is a beautiful accident. It’s one we should be aware of and open to, but we can’t hope to control the entire process. That said, we better control the one thing we can actually control: providing the value that brings people to us, that causes them to invest time with us — because great marketing isn’t about who arrives, it’s about who stays. So how do we create our own beautiful accidents? We control the one thing we can, the value we provide, the content that changes them for the better, and then we watch as they leave, equipped to help our cause simply by existing and interacting in the world as changed people, from the moment they fly away.

Beautiful.

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