“A single move in the right direction can change your entire life.”
We are not robots, we are human beings with emotions, feelings, and personalities, and sometimes you will clash with people in your workplace. I think it’s OK to say, “I don’t know!” As the illusion of knowledge is more dangerous than ignorance. There’s no shame in that as the only shame is to pretend that we know everything.
Our behaviours are driven by our emotions, our emotions are driven by our perception and our perceptions are driven by context. I think if you change the context by which someone sees the same thing, they perceive it and emotionally respond completely differently. It's almost like tweaking the angle of a mirror; the reflection changes with just a slight adjustment. By altering the circumstances or offering a different perspective, we have the power to change how someone perceives and reacts to the same situation, encouraging empathy, understanding, and even altering behavioural outcomes.
Marketing often involves embracing counterintuitive approaches, and one of the challenges in marketing is the necessity to incorporate elements that defy conventional logic. It's essential to continually test unconventional strategies, as your competitors may not be doing so. Rather than immediately altering the core reality of a product or service to enhance consumer perception, consider the intricate layers that shape how people perceive, interpret, and emotionally connect with that offering. I think the process is multifaceted, involving the objective essence of a product, the context in which it's placed, the perceptions that arise from that context, the emotions or meanings derived from those perceptions, and the emotions ultimately driving consumer behaviour. Unlike the neat and predictable mappings seen in physics, human behaviour encompasses a more complex, non-linear journey through several stages. One has to recognise and harness the complexity of human behaviour and perception can be a key to successful marketing, even if it requires embracing counterintuitive strategies.
Culture refers to the basics of how people work together to make decisions and how quality is maintained. I have observed that in several organisations the implicit attitude at work demands that professionalism means the employees ignore their emotions. I think that it’s important to create time and space to talk about what’s on people’s minds and I have found that if the team does this then there’s a large positive payoff - smarter questions and better understanding.
“The biggest communication problem is we don’t listen to understand. We listen to reply.”
c/o Harvard Business Review
How do we balance the need to be rational, cautious, and sceptical with the benefits of being curious and open minded to new ideas?
I think our emotions influence all types of decisions, both big and small. By nature, we are wired to pay attention to our emotions whereas we only listen to our thoughts, so when we feel something, it engages so much of our body. We are emotional creatures by nature, we are not the rational thinking animals we like to think we are. Marketing gurus know how to communicate and appeal to the animal in us, as people buy things based on emotions and not based on rational decisions. Consider how advertising can sometimes make unhealthy activities such as smoking or eating unhealthy foods seem both positive and appealing. These ads can sometimes influence the emotions of consumers, which can lead to poor health decisions and risky behaviours that can have serious, long-term consequences.
What can you do to prevent emotions from contributing to poor decision making?
Heuristics are efficient mental processes that help humans solve problems and learn new concepts and these processes make problems less complex by ignoring some of the information that’s coming into the brain, either consciously or unconsciously. The affect heuristic is a type of mental shortcut in which people make decisions that are heavily influenced by their current emotions, in other words, your emotional response plays a critical role in the choices and decisions you make. I think the next time you need to decide during an emotional moment, take a moment to talk silently to yourself using the third person. It might help you stay calm, collected, and level-headed, a strategy that may prevent bad decisions made in the heat of the moment.
Communication is a craft, it will serve you so well at home and in the marketplace, it will server you so well in your career and making your fortune. Here’s the combination; well-chosen words mixed with measured emotion. Not only do the words have to be well chosen, but the emotions also have to be well measured. I mean do not place too much power on a minor point, for example, nobody would get it, if you have a powerful point and a little bit of emotion. It wouldn’t make sense, therefore. adjust your style to fit the occasion and the emotional content.
Effective communicators spend a lot of time getting to know the product's target customer. Whether it’s working on a job or advancing your career, whatever it is, craft your communications and become a little more aware. Effective communicators ask themselves:
•. What is the customer's pain?
• What does the customer find frustrating with current products?
• What will surprise and delight this customer?
The better you know your customer, the more effective you'll be at crafting messages that resonate with them. This is a craft, and the payoff is so great when your communication makes sense. Just ask yourself the question: Could we possibly get better at affecting people with our words and language? What about with style and emotion content? And if the answers are yes, contact me via e-mail for creating a framework that ensures it consistently works.
Many business people believe that their success is solely dependent on their product and services. What I have learned through my experience is that what is going on outside of the organisation also matters. I think positive emotions are consistently associated with better performance, quality and customer service, and this is true, irrelevant of the industry or roles within the organisation.
Try adding the following words to your vocabulary:
I can
I will
I know
I believe
I dream
I am confident
All things are possible
I recently had a 1:1 meeting with a CEO who was looking for a Sales Director. As we spoke I thought that this would be a great challenge for a hungry and driven sales leader who can grow, lead and nurture an enthusiastic sales team. Someone who could divide their time between the operational challenges and strategic support of the sales team in a fast-paced environment without losing sight of the mission. I used my knowledge about market developments and customer needs to help the CEO articulate the strategic initiatives for the organisation.
Humans engage with things they care about, and no one cares about something they don’t understand. Do you know your story? Why you do what you do? How you do it and what are you selling? If you are not clearly communicating this to your buyers, then unfortunately, they will never hear it. Dale Carnegie said, “When dealing with people, remember you are not dealing with creatures of logic but with creatures of emotion.” Contact me via e-mail for sales training or workshops.
Sales persons need to always show up in the moment and when I say moment, I mean showing up in a positive and curious state of mind for the sales performance. Sales is the transference of emotion that the solutions you are selling makes sense for the buyer and in order to do this, you must arrive with clarity, confidence and courage. Here are a few sales tips below, please contact me via e-mail for real world strategies, sales training and workshops opportunities.
1. Learn how to sell yourself
2. Know your products and services
3. Show empathy for your customers situation
4. Believe what you are saying
5. Be open to feedback
6. Learn from master sales persons
7. Learn the psychology of sales
Art by Emily May Rose
Continuing the Q+A sessions with industry professionals that may inspire organisations to think and act accordingly. This week we have the former Customer Experience and Marketing Director at Metroxpress, Mie Bilberg.
1. What are the industry trends affecting your business?
Well, the marketing industry has been disrupted, just to use a well-known expression. The challenge is that somewhere in between technology and human behaviour we may have lost the clear picture of what is the role of marketing. Everything from creativity, data, insights, technology, media and communication is now under the marketing umbrella. Marketing is expected to be here, there and everywhere and the big problem is that one day, we risk eliminating the marketing role. Right now, the Chief Marketing Officer has the shortest lifespan in the management team, probably because the role is no longer clear.
2. What are you doing now that you feel good about? Is there anything that you could be doing better?
There is always something I can do better, I believe in lifelong learning. I am on a mission, spreading the words of why we should listen and involve our customers. I am learning every day myself, but I believe in customer experience as a growth strategy, because I have seen it work and it makes sense in 2017 with the technology, we are lucky enough to have.
3. When you start a new project, how do you set yourself up to win?
With a positive approach and evaluating what works and starting from there. We tend to focus on the negative, but I think, there is a lot more to win if we focus on the positive! To win - it takes a clear goal, a specific plan and a team who are willing to learn and navigate from the learnings.
4. We know that feelings and emotions drive human behaviour, but why do you think that storytelling is a powerful tool to build culture?
This is because we remember feelings better than words, stories make us feel and relate. Therefore, if you want to tell me, why I should change behaviour or run after a new ambitious goal, you should start telling a story, to make me understand why this makes sense and which scenarios we are operating within.
5. Based on a prism of what's working and what's not from the customer’s perspective, how can your organisation realign to meet your customers' needs?
Well, in a way it´s easy as the customer will not buy if it doesn’t make sense to them. The street fashion brand Zara came up with a smart and agile way of testing every time a new collection comes out. They start with a small quantity of each item and then they observe the response of their customers. If it sells well, they push the button and produce more, if not, they take it off the market. In my opinion, this is a smart way to lower the inventory and increase the sales.
6. How does trust relate to the customer experience and customer relationships? And what about its impact on employee engagement?
Branding is about trust! We pick a brand instead of a no-name because we trust a friend more than a stranger. When the market of private labels is huge is it because we trust the store behind the private label. When speaking about employee engagement, trust is quite basic, e.g. would you feel excited and engaged if you didn´t feel trusted? You should bear in mind that trust is something which must be earned, as an employee, external consultant or brand, you are chosen because people believe they can trust you, but you still must prove that they were right in trusting you.
7. How do you use customer experience in the battle to win the hearts and minds of your customers?
Customer Experience is basically about making sense for the customers. If your new app or your new shampoo add value to the customers, then you have nailed it. If not, well then you will just be another one in the line. The best products and strategies in 2017 are developed with the customer in the centre of the decision-making process, and how we do that is the biggest difference from the past. It's not new knowledge that creating great products which your customers consider useful is a good idea. But it is new, that you cannot just speed up your sales or marketing campaigns, and then eventually you will hit the targets. We have way too many options today and we don´t want to waste time on things that don’t make sense or add value to our lives. I have worked with customer experience for more than 3 years now and the reason why it´s so hard for the most people is, that it goes against our human nature, as we are born to think of ourselves first. Being customer-centric means that you must think with the mind of your customers, and this means you should spend time with them, listening and learning.
8. In your experience, are external consultants better suited to engage employees in dialogue when discussing risks and benefits of customer experience management?
No, but an external consultant brings an extra hand, new eyes and ears and they are not limited by historical internal issues. It can be a very good idea, to have external consultants to bring new perspectives, and they also have experience from a range of other businesses and tasks which brings needed knowledge to the table. I have used external consultants to help me when we were changing from being a brand-centric company to a customer-centric business when I was working in the media business. It was a great help, as they added value, knowledge and they revealed our blind spots. So, it was not only me who had to tell people that we needed to change because no one likes that, but it is sometimes needed. Sometimes, an external consultant can bring an authority to the table which in a way an internal leader cannot.
An external consultant is a trusted advisor, therefore, we selected our consultants very carefully, because a bad consultant is a waste of time, money and leaves you behind looking like a fool!
9. Engagement is a challenge, but in your opinion, when you bring the suggestion to hire an external consultant to your bosses, what questions do you expect them to ask?
I think the most important is the experience and speciality which an external consultant brings to the company. What value are they able to create and what is the framework of working, is it valid and realistic? And, also which resources would be required from the company's side? I personally don´t care if they work day and night, all I care about is if they take us to a better place and make it easier for us to deliver results.
10. If your boss asks – "What extra value will this service bring?" How will you prepare for that from a business justification stand-point?
It depends :)
Mie Bilberg’s blog: www.miebilberg.dk
