Have you ever walked into a bank and felt like a faceless “next” in line? Even if you’ve banked there for years?!
Have you found yourself trying to connect with your dry cleaner, sometimes through a language barrier, just to experience something beyond your clothes?
Have you found yourself on the Internet plodding through an endless maze of opportunity after opportunity only to find yourself confused or disillusioned?
You’re not alone!
Instances like these and thousands like them have left business owners, large and small, feeling disengaged and scrambling to find the next “new” way to do business-hungering for more but not really knowing what “more” looks like.
We’ve got a secret for you…that “new” way to do business is an old one and you don’t have to travel beyond your front door.
Follow us…
Recalling the TV shows we watched when we played “sick” from school, shows like Bonanza and The Lucy Show (when she worked at a bank with Mr. Moonie), there was something that stayed with us – a real relationship between the customer and the merchant. Whether is was the general store in Bonanza, or the local bank where Lucy worked, the merchants knew their customers personally.
Today, it’s not the same.
The “information age” has bought us “more” of everything. Whether through the computer software or the Internet itself, more things, more knowledge, more experiences and an endless capacity to reach people around the world is at our finger tips. However, with all this “more,” we’ve overlooked something that is critically…less.
It’s not your fault. It’s no one person’s fault really— it’s simply a by-product of a passing age. We lost focus and let it grow unattended.
We’ve let the integrity that comes from being personally connected to our customer slip away. We’ve been blinded by the “perception” of connection rather the visceral “reality” of it.
Computers and the Internet have brought us amazing leveraged productivity and distribution. We can reach anyone at work, home on their phone—anywhere. We can deliver our products digitally and with less effort.
Does this mean we have a personal connection that enables a sense of integrity with every single person we reach? Sadly, no.
Big companies have made headlines with their scandals—Adelphia, MCI and Enron were allowed to happen due to the separation caused by a blind drive for revenue, scared company heads, and hungry stockholders. The customer becomes even further away through agencies and layers of distributors. “They” were all separate from their customer connection or its impact in the customer’s lives.
This leaves customers yearning for the days of yore…at least the deep personal connection that was present in every transaction.
As an entrepreneur YOU have the advantage. You have a shorter path to the customer and absolutely no excuse to not use the “information age” to its maximum potential.
The real secret to excelling in business today is how you create connection and maintain integrity with your customers.
Instead of holding on to the “old” model of pushing as many “things” to as many people as possible and hoping for the best…INSTEAD, use the Internet to connect to as many “people” as possible on a person-to-person basis and subsequently offer them what you offer.
This approach will bring us all back to the days of the general store when customers bought their soap from someone who cared about how the soap fit into their lives. And it will usher in a new model where a person purchases from a company they know through experience, embraces their uniqueness, and cares about the principles it reflects.
This is branding at its best. It’s what we call making business deeply personal ™.
These are the very qualities that should be coming through your brand loud and laser clear. It’s what will make someone choose your business over another.
And it’s so easy to do, if you weave this into the core of your brand.
The next time you’re in line at the bank, picking up your clothes, or even searching on the web, remember that the new face of business is really an old one. It comes down to the connection with each individual person. It always has been. It always will be. We just forgot.
Remembering this every day, whether you are a customer or a business owner will give you a leg up because EVERYONE wants to connect…with integrity. After all, the new face of business is really an old one.
Written by Kim Castle & W. Vito Montone
© 2006-2009 Castle Montone, Limited.
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