Love HurtsOne of our boys stood in the office door. Samuel is 10, an amazing kid and my unofficial business partner. I steal my best ideas from him. He looked up and hit me with a 357 magnum question, "Dad, how can I make people like me?"
It was one of those Father/Son moments that are so difficult. I answered, "Well, I was always told that the only way to have a friend is to be a friend." He thought about it for a long moment, gave me a smile and left. That's Samuel.
You know it seems to me that is what we are trying to do the majority of time in marketing is "make people like us." We select the people we really want, research and analyze them in hopes of uncovering their secrets and then do anything we can to make them like us. Of course we can't just call it that - we call it engaging people.
Let's Get Engaged
Do you engage? Are you engaging? Do you practice and encourage engagement? The idea of engagement is rapidly being mutated from a basically good idea into a business buzzword and cliché de jour. Here’s the telltale hint – no one can agree on what it means or it’s various manifestations. Do you notice there's a lot of that going around now days?
Customer engagement, employee engagement, audience engagement, engagement marketing, engagement modeling, engagement lifecycle and customer engagement agencies - it goes from the five word basics to ways to measure the strength of “brand marriages.” Folks, I can’t make this stuff up.
What We’re Really Talking About
Let's agree to park the analytics, statistics and psychology for a moment. Customers, employees and audiences are all people and the only difference is in our expectation of them. Their reactions don’t change with their titles nor do their sensitivities and beliefs. Simply adding a title doesn’t change the essential requirement of engaging people or making them like you.
Engagement = People
A better way to think about it is that engagement is a relationship about a specific thing for a specific time. It’s involvement, commitment and personalization. If you see your customers as people then relationships are easier to form. The relationships draw them to your company, not the products or all the marketing. When you treat customers like people and not account numbers they will respond like people. People are loyal - accounts numbers aren't.
Think, Feel, Act, Do
One of our principles around here is Think, Feel, Act, Do. We see them as the keys to achieving critical results regardless of your communication deliver system. They are all people terms, not processes or models. Think, Feel, Act, Do is the strategy we use to approach every project because we believe that all results come from people. People expect a purpose. Engaging someone isn't an action, reaction or a programmed interaction. If engagement is a relationship then it has a beginning, middle and, hopefully, no end.
How To Engage People
Let us save you $500,000. You can spend a day searching the Internet for a simple, practical and do-able way to connect. So, at the risk of enraging thousands of consultants, firms and agencies here is how to engage people.
1. Attract people and gain their attention in ways that are interesting.
2. Involve them in an activity, dialogue or some type of participation so they can relate to you on a personal level.
3. Give them a sense of purpose, control and return.
4. Provide information, response and feedback that are specific to them.
5. Put them in the middle of the relationship as a participant and not a spectator.
6. Recognize that there is no such thing as 100% engagement -100% of the time.
Making People Like Us
About an hour later Samuel was back at the office door. "Dad I was thinking about what you said. That thing about being a friend to get a friend is really dumb. The best you can do is try to be the kind of person someone would want to have as a friend."
Samuel nailed it. We can't make people like us, our companies or our products and services. We have to become worthy of their attention.
People need to:
• Know who you are
• Understand what you’re telling them
• Care about what you’re telling them
• Value what you’re telling them
• Discover common things you both share
• Want to Know, Understand, Care, Value and Discover more - Together
I learned that from Samuel. I steal my best ideas from him.
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Andy Johnston is an multi-faceted communication professional with deep experience from strategic planning, to messaging, to marketing, to media, to events, to training, to creative direction … and there are several other ”to’s.” Andy is known for his energy, creativity and his unique ability to discover the key results that must be generated – and then to develop ingenious ways to engage and motivate audiences. Positive business results are the objective. He believes that one of the most important results is an enjoyable experience for everyone involved. Andy is a principal partner at Think! Consulting Group and The Idea Group.
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