Today, the success of all businesses whatsoever, hinges on how much they are able to manage the emotional needs of their customers. You are in the motion business. Customers do business in pursuit of emotional experiences. And when they find it, they return to the same business and become devoted to the brand because of the way the business makes them feel. The real key to earnings is repeat customer. Emotion builds connection, consciously or unconsciously.
Science has partnered with the psychology of performance and has provided us with stacks of statistics that emotion drives our decision making, even in business. We make emotional choices and then back them up with logic, reason or data. That is to say, what we feel is more important than what we think. Although we might choose to indulge ourselves in the facts and try to convince ourselves that our decisions are based on logic. It’s really our unconscious emotional-side that keeps pulling us beyond our reason, demanding a connection between us and the business we patronize. Dale Carnegie was tight when he taught that, ‘When dealing with people let us remember we are dealing with creatures of logic but emotion.’ Whatsoever meets a man’s emotional need is the most important thing in his life at that point in time.
Our humanity is defined as the ability to involve ourselves emotionally in everything we do. Man, whether male or female is an emotional being. And that humanity is most evident in our feelings. Feelings are the way we personalize our thoughts, ideas, and reactions. People do things for their reasons (not your reason), and those reasons are emotionally aroused by the way they feel.
Emotional bonding is the single most important element you can integrate into your business in today’s business culture. Emotional connection always precedes economic ones, the way the heart comes before the head. If you ignore the former, you lose the later. Mind-share often comes before market-share. You can rarely move people into action unless you first move them with emotion.
‘The purpose of any business’, Scott McKain , a business executive said, ‘is to profitably create emotional connections that are so compelling to customers, that loyalty is assured.’ He also added, ‘Today’s customers are saying “good is not good enough”. If you want my business, amaze me. Knock me out. Make an emotional impression I won’t forget.’ Not only has the quality of ‘product-service’ changed in recent times, expectation of the people who buy these ‘product-services’ have changed. If you don’t understand and change the way you relate toy your clientele you are going to be out of business soon.
Everybody has a ‘product-service’; it is what you do beyond the ‘product-service’ that makes all the difference in business. How your customers feel about you in the marketplace can be much more important than what you are selling. I have come to realize that customers blend the facts about the quality of your product and delivery of your service with the feelings they have about the experience of doing business with you. ‘As times are changing, so is the standard desired by customers. No longer are they searching for excellence: now they are pursuing something that would make them go, wow! They want to experience a product or service that does more than simply satisfy them: they want to be amazed’. Those were the words of Tom Peters.
How much are you fulfilling your customer’s needs on the emotional stand point? The value of any business is measured by what it means to the buyers. People prefer and refer businesses that represent an amazing memory to them. Always remember that what people think about your business is not as important as what they feel about it. The devotion you get from your customer does not necessarily spring from your ‘product-service’. Loyalties develop when clientele feel emotionally engaged in the outcome they attain in a transaction. Whether they buy a product, bank in XYZ bank, shop in a certain store or use a salon. This even extends to ones place of religious worship. When customers feel good about your ‘product-service’, they tell their friends about it.
If you will ever track your clients’ loyalty, large sum of them came from emotional connection they have with you, more than the quality of your ‘product-service’. No one would care about you business that much, except they are emotionally linked to it. You can turn your business as a tool kit for touching you clients’ emotion while you serve them. This, however, requires some skills. Let me give you some tips:
See things from your customers’ private goggles. See what they see.
Pay attention to feelings than you would to their money. For the money to come, the feelings must be richly touched.
The primary mode of the emotion is non-verbal. We can hardly conceal our true emotions. Our faces most times tell what’s going on in us. Look at the faces of your customers. Make it a habit and you will learn a lot about what they feel about your business. Nothing could be so interesting in business like meting the emotional needs of your customers. I gave a client some ideas on how to manage their customers emotion, and the response have been highly positive. You too can achieve the same result.
The bottom line is that your customers are going to have an emotional experience because of their contact with your organization, whether you like it or not. Your responsibility and challenge is to provide them with the kind of emotional connection that will inspire loyalty; the more powerful the connection, the greater the success of your business. How are you factoring emotion into your business? You can as for professional help. It’s up to you to make your business happen.
Tony Ajah is a highly consulted Business Growth Strategist. His ideas have been helpful to businesses in Nigeria. He also serve as Creative Director, Smartspeakers Resources, a Lagos- based firm that is into soft skills development.
tony@smartspeakersng.org ajahxt@yahoo.co.uk 08051403056
Saturday, October 25, 2008
Unmasking the New Face of Business
Business is a journey; a game that has no finish line. Interestingly, the face of business has changed, or rather has been unmasked. It’s no longer the usual thing you may have known but one with a new rule. If you don’t like change, you might discontinue yourself automatically from business, no matter your level of accomplishment. If you stand still where you are in business, you get run over quickly.
Andy Grove, Intel CEO once instructed, ‘There is at least one point in the history of any company when you have to change dramatically to rise to the next level of performance; miss that moment and you start to decline.’ What does this tell us? Frank Tarkenton, a management consultant writing on Strategies for Business Success summarized the answer thus: ‘No matter how great your victory today, tomorrow is a new game with new plays and new opponents’. There is a great danger in complacency especially now that the course of ‘businessing’ has been redirected.
With the emergence of the new business economy, it has been preceded by a new business model and culture, which carries with it new strategies, new tactics, new weaponry, new approach, and new sweet result that is ‘wow-wrapped’. Better is better. And this business order is better. It’s a reinvented business that adds value in the most meaningful way. And here, whoever has the best practices rules.
What is the nature of this new face of business? This is business with total humanness – ‘the human side of business’. It’s the point where the heart marries the head to provide the best deals that enriches both parties. Business is a means of touching lives in a way that tells people (your clients) that you understand their needs, and are willing and able to meet those needs. We are human being first and every other thing else follows. Every deal should reflect this humanness shared by every one of us. Before now, we have been playing down on this salient aspect of business. Today, it’s no longer a minor aspect of business but the major.
There has been a swift and successive progression in the order of ‘businessing’ the world over. You would recall that doing business in yesteryears was centered on raw materials, then to goods, then to services, and to the rave of the moment, which I call ‘the experience-ful’ business. This shows the sequence of human maturity and degree of business sophistication up until now. (We might not exactly say what will become order of things tomorrow. The best is yet to come).
For instance, a ‘service-based business’ as we know is a pure transaction that is some what dry and often straight to the point. It may have succeeded in the time past but now it is gradually fading away. On the other hand, an ‘experience-based business’ is a terrific happening, a thrilling adventure that is worth your time and money. You get it and ask for more. It adds to your story and something to share with pals and loved ones. For instance, you receive a ‘product-service’ from an organisation, and from there a whole new life begins.
Take the example of a saloon service. If the price was the only issue, you’d simply go to the cheapest one. But you care more about the depth and stability of service offered that transcends beyond making hair. Call it a relationship, care or warmth, you are right. When you get that (s)he doesn’t end up becoming your hair dresser but a trusted friend and partner whose business progress you deeply care about. If you’ll recall, almost every business thrives on relationship and relationship thrives on trust. If you are in doubt, think on what got you hooked to those you patronize most.
Let me illustrate this using the experience I had in Accra some time last year. I needed to barb and was attracted by a good looking saloon and went in. Frankly speaking, I was given a clean cut. But beyond that the barber gave me something beyond service; he bonded with me. That was a kind of experience inherent in his brand (business). When I needed another cut, I wasn’t surprise that I went there not minding the distance. Did you get that? Even here in Nigeria, I am a fan of that saloon.
Any one who has become my trusted associate has bought my heart and allegiance, and I’ll gladly open my purse for him. What else does a business wants? Business is not just service-oriented, but also people-based, and love-engrained. It knows where to strike and strike hard.
Experience is the language of this emerged business enterprise, whether you sell a product or offer a service. Tom Peters, the Americas management guru taught, ‘Big leap takes place when the experience dimension enters the mix’. This mix is nothing other than using everything within you reach in treating your customers the way you would love to be treated. To achieve this, an outfit has to reinvent its entire business system to be people-focused. When you do, you attract exceptional loyalty from customers who would eventually lead you to your business growth and profitability.
‘The secret of success in business’ Aristotle Onassis sais,’ is to know something nobody else knows.’ The beauty of knowledge comes when acted upon. Now that you know, what will stop you from elevating your business to a new height and make it compliant? Ready. Aim. Fire!
Tony Ajah is a Business Growth Strategist whose ideas have helped businesses in Nigeria. He is also the Creative Director of Smartspeakers Resources, a Lagos based firm that specializes in Soft Skill Development.
www.smartspeakersng.org tony@smartspeakersng.org ajahxt@yahoo.co.uk +234 805 140 3056
Andy Grove, Intel CEO once instructed, ‘There is at least one point in the history of any company when you have to change dramatically to rise to the next level of performance; miss that moment and you start to decline.’ What does this tell us? Frank Tarkenton, a management consultant writing on Strategies for Business Success summarized the answer thus: ‘No matter how great your victory today, tomorrow is a new game with new plays and new opponents’. There is a great danger in complacency especially now that the course of ‘businessing’ has been redirected.
With the emergence of the new business economy, it has been preceded by a new business model and culture, which carries with it new strategies, new tactics, new weaponry, new approach, and new sweet result that is ‘wow-wrapped’. Better is better. And this business order is better. It’s a reinvented business that adds value in the most meaningful way. And here, whoever has the best practices rules.
What is the nature of this new face of business? This is business with total humanness – ‘the human side of business’. It’s the point where the heart marries the head to provide the best deals that enriches both parties. Business is a means of touching lives in a way that tells people (your clients) that you understand their needs, and are willing and able to meet those needs. We are human being first and every other thing else follows. Every deal should reflect this humanness shared by every one of us. Before now, we have been playing down on this salient aspect of business. Today, it’s no longer a minor aspect of business but the major.
There has been a swift and successive progression in the order of ‘businessing’ the world over. You would recall that doing business in yesteryears was centered on raw materials, then to goods, then to services, and to the rave of the moment, which I call ‘the experience-ful’ business. This shows the sequence of human maturity and degree of business sophistication up until now. (We might not exactly say what will become order of things tomorrow. The best is yet to come).
For instance, a ‘service-based business’ as we know is a pure transaction that is some what dry and often straight to the point. It may have succeeded in the time past but now it is gradually fading away. On the other hand, an ‘experience-based business’ is a terrific happening, a thrilling adventure that is worth your time and money. You get it and ask for more. It adds to your story and something to share with pals and loved ones. For instance, you receive a ‘product-service’ from an organisation, and from there a whole new life begins.
Take the example of a saloon service. If the price was the only issue, you’d simply go to the cheapest one. But you care more about the depth and stability of service offered that transcends beyond making hair. Call it a relationship, care or warmth, you are right. When you get that (s)he doesn’t end up becoming your hair dresser but a trusted friend and partner whose business progress you deeply care about. If you’ll recall, almost every business thrives on relationship and relationship thrives on trust. If you are in doubt, think on what got you hooked to those you patronize most.
Let me illustrate this using the experience I had in Accra some time last year. I needed to barb and was attracted by a good looking saloon and went in. Frankly speaking, I was given a clean cut. But beyond that the barber gave me something beyond service; he bonded with me. That was a kind of experience inherent in his brand (business). When I needed another cut, I wasn’t surprise that I went there not minding the distance. Did you get that? Even here in Nigeria, I am a fan of that saloon.
Any one who has become my trusted associate has bought my heart and allegiance, and I’ll gladly open my purse for him. What else does a business wants? Business is not just service-oriented, but also people-based, and love-engrained. It knows where to strike and strike hard.
Experience is the language of this emerged business enterprise, whether you sell a product or offer a service. Tom Peters, the Americas management guru taught, ‘Big leap takes place when the experience dimension enters the mix’. This mix is nothing other than using everything within you reach in treating your customers the way you would love to be treated. To achieve this, an outfit has to reinvent its entire business system to be people-focused. When you do, you attract exceptional loyalty from customers who would eventually lead you to your business growth and profitability.
‘The secret of success in business’ Aristotle Onassis sais,’ is to know something nobody else knows.’ The beauty of knowledge comes when acted upon. Now that you know, what will stop you from elevating your business to a new height and make it compliant? Ready. Aim. Fire!
Tony Ajah is a Business Growth Strategist whose ideas have helped businesses in Nigeria. He is also the Creative Director of Smartspeakers Resources, a Lagos based firm that specializes in Soft Skill Development.
www.smartspeakersng.org tony@smartspeakersng.org ajahxt@yahoo.co.uk +234 805 140 3056
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