September 2008

In a world that is so full of empty promise it’s no wonder that people have begun turning away from the logical towards the emotional.

Emotion doesn’t deal in numbers or facts; it’s deeper, longer lasting and most importantly it isn’t logical.

There are a number of factors that enable a business to relate to it’s internal and external world on an emotional level. The one I’d like to discuss today is soul. More specifically the issues that act as a soul-growth-barrier to businesses.

A business soul is something of a strange concept; especially considering that, for many, a business isn’t human and therefore can’t or shouldn’t have a soul. I don’t believe that to be true. My thinking is that a business is a person, or a collection of people, working together. Doing stuff, making stuff, selling stuff to other people. So, in reality, a business is more human than most of us realise or care to admit.

If this is true, which I believe it is, why is it not easier to grow ’soul’? [We all supposedly have one so why can't we grow them?]

We face 3 predominant issues:

1. We expect it to be like lawn, instant.
2. We have no idea what goes into growing a soul. Most of us don’t have a recipe to follow. We have no clue as what we need in cups and what we need in pinches.
3. Each business is individual in its soul recipe needs. While there is definitely an across-the-board base there is not a universal recipe.

What we really need is patience, a desire to experiment and tweak our recipe and a true understanding that our business’s soul doesn’t come in a just-add-water package.

I’m sure that all of you know that our economy, the world’s economy, heck, the universe’s economy is in serious trouble. There’s no way you could miss it! It’s made the front page almost as frequently as our potential future president used to; back in the days when he wasn’t so popular.

It’s time to tighten the proverbial belt and cut out the unnecessary spending. The problem I have is in determining what’s included in ‘unnecessary’.

For years I’ve used shopping as an emotional crutch. It’s so simple. Having a good day – why not reward yourself with something pretty? Having a bad day – why not reward yourself with something pretty? See how that works.

No double standards, no confusing ‘rule system’, just the straight-forward 21st century belief that buying stuff makes it all better.

What are the emotionally crippled meant to do now?

God forbid we actually have to deal with the issues, our issues – I, for one, couldn’t handle that. It’s so much easier and more productive to bury every disappointment, every piece of anger and frustration in a pair of shoes, a bag, that beautiful dress from that hideously expensive store.

Plus it’s likely that my ego is, during this crisis, going to get ridiculously huge.  You see, I’ve used arrogant and self-important shop assistants to keep my ego in check for years. There’s nothing like being ignored and sneered at, while you’re spending your hard earned cash, to remind you of your real place in this world.

Don’t you think life just seems to be getting more and more serious? South African stress levels must be going through the stress glass ceiling. If we are not worrying about our own politics we are worrying about that busty old Republican SP. I think that we as a nation are, in our own way, addicted to stress. Is there a Stressaholics Anonymous?

But what is really so bad about stress? What is not to like? That hard-to-beat feeling alive vibe is totally moreish. Never mind the fast beating heart, potential palpitations, hair loss, eye twitches and reduced concentration.  Pish-posh those are not real side effects; at least not for the die-hard stress addicts.
We, as a nation, seem to enjoy nothing more than taking other people’s issues on board. It is somewhat ridiculous but many of us believe our hours of stressing, over the US Elections, will somehow stop them from voting for a Republican (again). If the great citizens of America refuse to help themselves then there is nothing our nations combined stressing is going to do. The same applies to the politics closer to home, but lets not even go there.

There is such a fine line between being concerned and being stressed. Concern you can leave at the front door while stress completely takes over your life. Also eye twitches, as a side effect, can be quite debilitating. Stress, ladies and gentlemen, eats you from the inside out leaving behind an opinionated, not terribly interesting, shell.

We all seem to forget, after crossing the business’s building threshhold, that we are customers too. All the good lessons we learn everyday are forgotten as we sit down at our desks and work out new ways to torment market to our existing customers.

We spend millions on advertising agencies, advisors and consultants to tell us where we’re going wrong. The end result is a new brand strategy (for internal use only), some lists and a few of those very formal looking checkboxes. I don’t believe most this works.

I don’t think that the majority get it right. People aren’t some formula, or at least their emotional responses aren’t some formula. Those responses are based on things that can’t be measured by checkboxes. What’s more is that we’re all after an emotional response to our product, service or business. We’re all looking to have our customers fall in love with us. Which is great except we spend our lives hiding behind the safe agency, the safe strategy and the safe list. We don’t give our customers anything to fall in love with. The standardised ’safe’ processes we, as businesses, choose to employ rip the magic out of our offering.

So this all begs the question - how do we get our customers to respond to and engage with our product, service or business on an emotional level?

I believe that 3 changes have to take place before any business can even consider relating to their customers of this level.

The first change is Attitude. The second change is Approach. The third change is Story.

Self-knowledge is at the root of all great storytelling. If you get that right then you can’t go wrong.

Just because it sounds simple, doesn’t make it easy. If it was easy more people and businesses would have that magic.

A business pitches their product to at me. I politely decline their offering because I.AM.NOT.INTERESTED in their product. They then in all their infinite customer relations/marketing wisdom decide to sign me up for their newsletter.

What part of that makes sense?

I can see the rationale now: I know she wasn’t interested in our product/offering but I’m sure she’d love to receive our newsletter. Everybody loves our newsletter! That sounds like a potential new sitcom.

What happens to people once they step inside the walls of their given business? It’s as if they forget their manners. Things that would ordinarily infuriate them seem totally fine. Apparently when you’re not on the receiving end it’s not as important.

The worst part is that this behaviour totally undermines the story they’ve trying to tell. They think their story is one of Professionalism, Personable Charm, Approachability, the inevitable Integrity and the totally prostituted Trust.

Signing me up for a newsletter without my permission is anything up professional, charming and it certainly doesn’t ooze integrity or induce trust.