Do you love your customers? Seriously. Do you?
I know “love” is a strong word, and it even feels weird for me to type it out in this context, but what would happen if we did?
I heard a story that took place a long time ago in England.
A group of men were tearing down a wall by using dynamite. They had the wall all rigged to go. Everything was set.
They lit the fuses and were waiting for the explosion. When, to their horror, they saw a small, young boy playing near the wall!
They started screaming at the little boy, “Get away from the wall! Get away! It’s going to explode! Get away NOW!”
The boy was just froze there in fear – frightened from the yelling of the men.
That’s when something incredible happened.
The boy’s mother, who had just noticed the little boy had slipped away from her side, saw the danger he was in. But instead of yelling and screaming at her son, she did something else.
She got down low and said calmly, “Come here son. I’ll protect you. Come to Mommy!” And instantly he ran to the saftey of his Moms arm.
What was the difference?
He ran to the one who he knew loved him and would look out for him.
Business strategist and marketing guru, Jay Abraham talks about a key, fundamental mindset and attitude that he uses, which he calls “The Strategy of Preeminence“.
What is it?
It’s the mindset of constantly putting your client’s needs ahead of your own. It means that you always do what is in their best interest.
It means that you want to make their lives better through your product or service – OR any other product or service that’s best for them (even someone else’s).
Isn’t that the same mindset you have when you love someone?
If you begin to love your customers, you need to communicate your love, through your words and tone, so they know that you really care about help them.
When you do that you go from sounding like a “screaming voice” that freezes them in fear to a “loving voice” that they actually feel safe in responding to.
But love isn’t just words that are communicated. Love is shown through actions!
Jay Baer, Social media strategy consultant, speaker & author, gives a great example of this in a post called “5 Ways to Turn Helpfulness Into Marketing Greatness“
It’s a cool story about a taxi driver named Mike that Jay met on vacation in Canada. What’s so unique about Mike? He’s a taxi driver that produces an online/offline guide of local “hot spots”. He tells about the best restaurants, clubs, happy hours, etc.
It helps tourists find great spots AND helps local businesses by promoting them for free. (Check Jay’s post for the full story.)
The “golden rule” says that we should, “Do to others what we’d want them to do to us.” In other words, we should treat people how we want to be treated.
That’s what you do to someone you love! And Taxi driver Mike is living out the golden rule – showing his care for others through his actions.
- And guess what taxi driver local businesses are going to promote?
- Guess who tourists are going to ask for first?
That’s right. It’s Mike.
Why? Because we naturally have positive feelings towards someone who cares about us.
When you not only communicate your love to your customers, but show your love to them through your actions, then something amazing will happen.
They’ll love you back! And that will change everything.
It will change how they respond to your words. It will change how they feel about you. And it will change how they act towards you.
Stay tuned.
I’m going to get back to talking more about how to create engaging content marketing and to get others to create content for you (see Part 1, Part 2, & Part 3).
But before I do, I want to explore this idea of loving our customers more.
Until then…
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Thanks,
Scott @rampbusinesses
I’m a business strategist, consultant, content creation specialist, and speaker. I’ve been studying effective marketing and business methods (both online and offline) since 1999.
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Thanks for the link and the kind words Scott. You nailed it. I love your juxtaposition of screaming and loving. A lesson for all of us, not just companies.
Thanks Jay. That’s true. It’s a personal and business lesson. Thanks for sharing the story of Mike so I could point to it!