Pithy? Or one mandated? Perhaps even, one pinned up to ward off the thought police?

Early UK snap general election skirmishes continue to throw up selling tidbits.

Here’s one from a hired hand that helped guide the 2010 victors home.

He revealed that prominent on their hq Wall was a quote from Tony Blair’s autobiography. Vacuously entitled A Journey. This is doubly surprising. Said former PM was from the other side. Despite having won the previous three in a row, was considered a polling liability. Some might have suggested toxic, given “sexed up” non-existent Iraqi WMD.

The aide suggested the idea was to keep candidates focused on what mattered. Big picture rather than boggy details;

“for most people politics is an irritating fog that they push into the corner of their lives”

The nearest text online I found came from this lengthy citation;

“The single hardest thing for a practicing politician to understand is that most people, most of the time, don’t give politics a first thought all day long. Or if they do, it is with a sigh… before going back to worrying about the kids, the parents, the mortgage, the boss, their friends, their weight, their health, sex and rock ‘n’ roll.”

The pronouncements of Blair are not something I’d advise anyone to follow should they seek success.

Yet there’s this 2010 case. Causation or coincidence?

I’d say the latter. But there is something steely in their thinking.

It would have been so easy to have huge wall real estate given over to a luminary from their own ranks.

Margaret Thatcher springs to mind as an obvious source.

Even a mission as encapsulated by something Cameron had said (if indeed, any such utterance existed).

They Chose something from outside. They chose something counter-intuitive. They chose something from the devil.

So what marvellous messages cover your salesroom walls?

Chief Exec purrings? Ad campaign straplines? HR deepisms?

Maybe it’s time to look beyond. From your competition, industry names or (target) client base.