One of the most pernicious and underappreciated difficulties in businesses is the fight to feel valued. But What happens when customers feel devalued? In almost all our research, three things happen: Devalued customers destroy your brand's reputation. Devalued customers don't come back. Devalued customers will make your competition...
Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great.Mark Twain[1. Gay McLaren, Morally We Roll Along, 1938.] Growing your brand can be challenging, but we don't experience...
"America is a vast conspiracy to make you happy," John Updike once said, and it was with this in mind that I took in an old debate between journalist Johnathan Kay and conspiracy theorist Webster Tarpley on the 9/11 attacks. I'm not particularly interested in the...
What makes art art? Why is art so important to humanity? These are big questions and not ones that come up often in the context of connecting more effectively with your customers. That's a shame. Understanding what art is and why recorded imagery has such a...
Marketing used to be fairly straightforward: Throw money at advertising in order to influence people to buy your products and services. If your advertising campaign was decent, the resulting sales outweighed the cost of advertising. If your campaign was excellent, your business grew like a...
In our book Customers First, we looked at some of the world's biggest brands—companies like Apple and Nike—to discover how they connect so effectively with their customers. To build powerful, profitable connections, it helps to understand that customer behavior is driven largely by a combination...
How grateful do you feel each day? To what degree do you express your gratitude and appreciation to others around the office? If the answer is “not a lot,” you’re not alone. The Blessings of Gratitude We’ve previously discussed negativity bias—the brain’s predisposition to favor negative experiences, thoughts, and...
Harley-Davidson, Nike, Coca-Cola, and Apple logos have been permanently etched into the skins of customers worldwide. Why do they do it? Why do these raving fans, or what we call Brand Lovers, scorch their bodies with a company’s mark? And what can marketers and brand managers...
Heaven's Gate, Jonestown, Scientology, Manson Family ...
As human beings, we have many different kinds of relationships. The relationship you have with your boss is probably very different than the relationship you have with your romantic partner, and both of these relationships are different from the relationship you have with your favorite...