Shy Bats Don’t Hit Homers
In the crowded markets of ancient Athens, two men arrived each morning with jars of oil. Each certain his was the finest in the land.
One, Diodoros, climbed atop a wooden crate each morning as if it were a stage. He held his jar to the sun until the golden thread inside caught flame, and he cried out to the crowd, “This is Attica’s liquid gold. It’s pure enough to light your wedding night!”
He tore fresh bread, let the oil fall like honey, and pressed samples into open palms. People smiled, nodded, and reached for their coin purses. His voice carried like a bell. His confidence, contagious.
A few stalls down, Kleon stood behind identical jars. Same grove. Same press. But when a shopper asked, he looked to his feet and mumbled, “It’s… decent.” He said it like a question, like even he wasn’t sure it was worth your time.
By sundown, Diodoros’ stall was bare. Kleon’s jars sat sweating in the heat, untouched. By week’s end, the oil turned cloudy. Even discounted, it was passed over. The market had made up its mind.
The old traders shook their heads and said, “Oil no one praises sours before it sells.”
This story comes to mind whenever I watch corporate leaders decide whether to trumpet their value or tiptoe around it. Some enter the marketplace murmuring, afraid swagger will be mistaken for vanity. Others stride in, name the good they bring, and dare the crowd to doubt it.
Almost twenty years ago in San Francisco, a thin man in a black turtleneck promised that a phone, a music player, and an Internet communicator were about to fuse. The network wheezed, the battery life sagged, but Steve Jobs had pressed belief into the moment like a seal in hot wax. He didn’t list features; he foretold how life itself would rearrange. Apple sold more than hardware. It sold destiny.
Down the street, BlackBerry executives clutched prototypes just as clever, yet fretted over “enterprise messaging segments.” They feared overselling. The market feared buying.
The following year, Starbucks was winded with too many stores and a cold recession. Howard Schultz returned, carrying a single sentence: “We are not in the coffee business serving people; we are in the people business serving coffee.” Nine words, repeated until they lit every barista’s eyes. Competitors flashed coupons; Starbucks rekindled a calling.
Conviction needn’t shout. Patagonia prints its mission, “We’re in business to save our home planet,” on every tag, then lives it so consistently that when the company refused certain corporate co-branding deals, customers nodded, “That tracks.” Quiet swagger still rings like a church bell heard through fog.
Even the ordinary is transformed when belief leads. Consider how ordinary products have been crowned by voice alone:
Old Spice turned body-wash into swashbuckling poetry: “The Man Your Man Could Smell Like.” Sales surged 125%; all they changed was the story.
Geico makes bare-bones auto insurance feel like a wink and a shortcut: 15 minutes, 15 percent, a talking gecko pledging deliverance.
Charmin spends millions persuading adults that bathroom tissue is an experience—plush cartoon bears dancing through the forest of softness.
Dollar Shave Club filmed a warehouse romp, declared its blades “f***ing great,” and sliced a space between giants with a single viral oath.
These campaigns prove a mundane truth: table-stakes products can stand taller than temple spires when voiced with certainty. Swagger, done right, is stewardship announcing itself. It says, We took the trouble to build something worthy; now we take the responsibility to believe in it first.
Great companies don’t always fail. They fade. Not from lack of merit, but from too much modesty and too little voice. Yet commerce is already a stage; silence is still a line read aloud. If leaders will not declare the value, rivals will declare it for them, usually at a discount.
Swagger must be earned nightly. Markets forgive late trains but not empty brag. Speak the promise, then meet it. If you miss a stop, own it, fix it, restate the destination. Authenticity is the price of the microphone.
So to founders, product chiefs, and marketers, let the oilmen’s lesson steer you. Get back on the crate. Raise your voice. Let people feel what you believe. Tell the interns, the investors, the night-shift custodians what treasure you’re hauling and why it matters. Repeat it until the skeptics grow bored of doubting it.
Here is the oldest rule in commerce, etched long before stock tickers blinked digital green: if you don’t believe in the value you’ve built, no one will. They’ll sniff out your hesitation, tip their hat, and walk to the next stall. Because oil no one praises sours before it sells. So does value left unspoken.