Tag Archives: crowd size

Why Size Matters

Ever since Saturday’s interesting press briefing about how large the turnout was at the Trump Inauguration there has been a great deal of talk about just why it is so important to him.  I think most everyone is missing the most simple and obvious answer.  President Trump is a businessman and he measures success and failure using business  metrics.  since is is mostly a Marketer/Salesman/Showman he uses the metrics he is used to.

So ask yourself the, what is most important to the entertainment impresario?  Not the performer, but the man who owns the show?  Is it not the size of the house?  Is not the size of the house how the impresario measures the success of his show? Sure good reviews are great, but only if they pull in the crowds. It won’t mater how many rave reviews the show gets if it doesn’t translate ‘gate’. Is this not what he and his people are talking about?  The press is saying he had a poor house compared to the preceding show.  How Demeaning.

 

What also is important  to a Marketer/Salesmen is the size of the crowd because a small crowd means you have to have a higher conversion rate to make the same amount on sales with a small crowd vs a large crowed.  Example for all those not conversant:

Say you need to make $1000 to break even if your crowd is 1000 people and each individual sail is $1 you will need to make 1000 sales and if only one sale per person can be made you need a conversion rate of 100%.  Now if your crowd is 1,0,000 people you need to only a conversion rate of 1% to make the same $1000.  Now most Marketers go into a sales situation with a known or expected conversion rate.  Given what you are selling you can then estimate from the crowd size just how many sales should be made and this is the sales goal given the salesman. A good Marketer wants to maximize the number of people he is selling to so he can have a lower conversion rate and still meet his sales goal.

See, President Trump is not using the traditional metrics used by politicians to measure success/failure he is using his old, familiar metrics.  The metrics he as used for most of his adult life and the press has told the world he didn’t get good crowds and he is afraid the ‘boss’  is watching, even though he’s the boss, he can’t quite shake the fear of being called out at the next sales meeting for a poor show.

So get used to it America, you asked for a Businessman to run the country just like a business.  Get used to him using the wrong metrics to measure success/failure because don’t expect Pres. Trump to change.