In my humble-but-accurate opinion, today every online marketer should watch:
“A Miracle on 34th Street”
(The 1947 version)
It’s about a Macy’s department store Santa named Kris Kringle who claims to be the real Santa. And as Macy’s Santa, he starts doing something that would horrify your typical online marketing goo-roo fapping to his metrics all day, and that almost gets him fired by Macy’s, until they realize what he did was making them more sales, creating more loyal customers, and resulting in a more new business for them.
What did Kris do?
He started sending customers to the Macy’s arch nemesis competitor Gimbels!
Why did he do this?
Because Kris didn’t give a crap about Macy’s “metrics.”
He only cared about Serving Macy’s customers.
And there were many cases where Macy’s customers could find something the store did not sell, or that the customer could get a better deal on even if Macy’s did have it, and so Kris told them about it – putting the customer first.
The result?
Customers ended up spending more money at Macys.
So much so, the owner made it a policy for all the employees to do as Kris did.
Obviously, that’s a movie.
But what about in the real world?
Does this paradox of sales persuasion “work?”
Let’s just say, while the online marketing goo-roo mind cannot comprehend it, yes this is a real phenomenon that does indeed work. But not as “tactic” – only as an ethic. I have experienced this exact same thing both as marketer/business and as customer. If you legitimately want the best for your friends, your peers, your customers, students, etc why would you not want them to know about those who can help – even if that business/person ain’t you?
I’m not saying to be a charity.
But if, for example, you were a doctor, and a patient with a potentially fatal condition came to you, and you KNEW he would be better served (and his life saved) by a doctor with more experience & a better track record for helping with the particular condition he suffers from than yourself, would you greedily not refer them to the guy who can better save his life?
There’s a lot of psychological resistance to this.
People will knee-jerk wonder if their customers will leave & forsake them.
First off, that’s probably not going to happen, and if anything’ll be the opposite.
And secondly, if they leave you forever, so what? There are millions of potential customers even in super obscure niches. If someone you showed actual concern for hits the bricks, who cares?
Let ‘em go haunt someone else, and make sure the door doesn’t hit them in arse.
Something else to keep in mind:
If your marketing game is tight, they’ll almost certainly be replaced with someone better soon enough. But, the reality is, if you fear these things, then that means your game is weak and you got bigger problems than some customers fleeing. Plus, that way of thinking shows a naiveté about how buyer psychology works that’s holding you back in ways you probably can’t even fathom.
It’s also pure, unadulterated Neediness.
Really, there is no other explanation.
And nothing will destroy your influence like Neediness.
Neediness is the business crusher, the brand destroyer, and the sales annihilator.
People smell Neediness like crap on a shoe.
And if you have this dreadful disease of the psyche it’ll seep out in subtle ways in not only your content but even in the way you move, look, sound, speak, write, behave, react, and make decisions.
All right have ye a Merry Christmas.
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Ben Settle
