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So I just created a short reel for no purpose other than to illustrate Theodore Roosevelt’s famous saying “Speak softly and carry a big stick.”

But then I began thinking. For product marketers, is “speaking softly” an idea that should be relegated to the early 20th century? The answer to that question partially depends on whether you are marketing in an earlier awareness stage, or a later conversion stage.

But the reel doesn’t get that deep.

An aside (overly serious product marketers skip this part)

Originally this reel was supposed to be a single image, with no stick, showing President Roosevelt to the audio accompaniment of Paul Simon’s “Loves Me Like a Rock.”

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To be honest, ORIGINALLY the President was supposed to be Nixon, whose mama loved him and was a saint.

But once Roosevelt got behind the Presidential podium, my mind traveled to earlier times in the Dakotas and Cuba, and the stick—softly—inserted itself.

Excluded from the reel but not forgotten: my earlier fictional conception of Roosevelt overseeing the construction of the Panama Canal, previously shared here.

And if you haven’t already figured it out, Teddy appears to be safe from the restrictions from Google’s guidelines on depictions of famous figures. As I said before, no picture generation of President Richard Nixon, or President Taylor Swift.

But it doesn’t matter with me now, because this post can’t just be about silly pictures. It has to have a Serious Business Purpose.

For product marketers, does speaking softly work?

So let’s talk about Roosevelt’s phrase that inspired the reel.

First, the full phrase is “Speak softly and carry a big stick; you will go far.”

Second, the phrase was not original to Roosevelt. Well-read people learn from their reading, and Roosevelt picked up the phrase from elsewhere.

“This quote often attributed to Theodore Roosevelt is actually a West African proverb. Roosevelt writes this in a letter to Henry Sprague on January 26, 1900.”

A year and a half later, after Roosevelt’s political enemies had maneuvered him into the then-obscure position of Vice President of the United States (subsequently characterized as a bucket of warm…spit), he expounded upon the phrase at the Minnesota State Fair on September 2, 1901.

(He and his political enemies had no way of knowing that later that month McKinley would be assassinated and Roosevelt would be President. Oops.)

“”Speak softly and carry a big stick—you will go far.” If a man continually blusters, if he lacks civility, a big stick will not save him from trouble; and neither will speaking softly avail, if back of the softness there does not lie strength, power. In private life there are few things more obnoxious than the man who is always loudly boasting; and if the boaster is not prepared to back up his words his position becomes absolutely contemptible. So it is with the nation. It is both foolish and undignified to indulge in undue self-glorification, and above all, in loose-tongued denunciation of other peoples.”

As Roosevelt noted, the “and” it’s important. A soft speaker without a big stick will not be persuasive.

But is speaking softly all that important?

Speaking loudly: Berliners, Crazy Eddie

There are certainly instances, both in diplomacy/politics and product marketing, in which speaking loudly is extremely effective. Avoiding the 21st century (we really don’t want to go there) and confining myself to the 20th, the masses of people at the Berlin Wall were very loud.

As was the radio guy (Jerry Carroll) who played in the Crazy Eddie commercials.

Let’s face it; product marketing is often loud to grab your attention. I should know.

Speaking softly: Theodore Roosevelt, golfers

But sometimes, even in an awareness campaign, speaking softly is an effective differentiator against the loud cacophony of everyone else.

And by the time you move to the conversion stage, you don’t want to be loud and blustery. I’m prevented by NDA from citing personal examples, so let’s look at Theodore Roosevelt again.

“The Treaty of Portsmouth formally ended the Russo-Japanese War of 1904–05. The negotiations took place in August in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, and were brokered in part by U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt….Although the actual importance of Roosevelt’s mediation and personal pressure on the leadership in Moscow and Tokyo to the final agreement is unclear, he won the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts in moderating the talks and pushing toward peace.”

Of course, everyone knew that negotiations were taking place in Portsmouth, just like everyone knew that Egypt and Israel were negotiating at Camp David 70+ years later.

But sometimes the negotiating parties speak so softly that no one knows they’re talking. Take this announcement in June 2023:

“The world of golf was left stunned on Tuesday as the PGA Tour, DP World Tour and rival Saudi-backed LIV circuit, who have been involved in a bitter fight that has split the sport, announced a shock agreement to merge and form one unified commercial entity….The bombshell announcement was slammed by many PGA Tour players who were left in the dark about the merger…”

For the moment, ignore the fact that the merger hasn’t happened two years later. The heated war between the PGA and the LIV meant that while a merger made financial sense (see the NFL and the AFL bidding up football player prices in the 1960s), no one expected a PGA-LIV merger to happen.

But the rival parties had spoken…softly.