With a year left before we have to make a choice, the 2016 Presidential Election is in full swing. And boy, are we tired of the candidates already! Every night on the news is another story about how Donald Trump put his foot willingly in his mouth or how Hillary Clinton doesn’t understand the difference between a personal email account and a work email account. And, there are the debates.

Last night marked the second debate between the top 11 (out of 16) Republican candidates. For three excruciatingly long hours, the American public who weren’t watching Netflix listened as the 10 men and one women gave their opinion on how the US is broken and how the other guy can’t fix it.

What did we learn from the debate? Besides Jeb Bush smoked pot once 40 years ago, that is. Probably not a lot. Just the same old line all politicians have – the world is a mess and I’m going to straighten it out. Well yeah, ok, that’s swell. How are you going to do that? And then bluster, bluster, bluster. Look at Donald Trump, after all. He wants to build a wall and get rid of illegal immigrants…as soon as he figures out a plan.

If you think about it, many companies trying to sell you something have a very similar tactic. Nearly every day, your clients are receiving emails and phone calls from your competitors telling them how they can do your job better. Oh, and these guys are good. They can show you how you’re not ranking at the top of the search engines and how the pages on your website doesn’t have good enough content or even going so far to saying, “We can tell you’re struggling with your Twitter posts. Just look at these tweets!”

Pretty crummy, right? Think how the sitting president feels with all these Republican candidates saying, “He’s doing a terrible job! And we can do better!”

Cold calling is not illegal and there have been times when it can be a success. But at the same time, you shouldn’t have to insult the work of someone else. Or rather, insult and then don’t back up your claims. You say you can put out better tweets…give an example of your work with a current client.  You think you can get the client to the top of the search engine rankings? Show how you would do things differently. Say that you can do better with website content? Present a before and after of one of your clients.  Be full of integrity and character.  How a person pitches you (just like in the presidential debates) is surely a direct reflection of how their company operates.  People trust results!

And whatever you do, believe in the company (or candidate) that you pick. They have your future in your hands, after all.