Unveiling the Soft-side of Business-Part 2
The Connection
We have learned that customers do business in pursuit of the emotional experience they seek. They return to the same businesses and become loyal to the brands because of the way these businesses and brands make them feel. And when customers feel good about your ‘product-service’, they tell their friends. Put yourself in their shoes, they want reason to buy and keep doing business with you, and even share the experience with those dear to them.
People buy certain products, bank with certain institutions, and select their favorite stores, enjoy the services of a particular company because these choices evoke desired feelings. Let me point it out once again: loyalties develop when clientele feel emotionally engaged in the outcome they attain with a particular brand. This is the first idea of the soft-side of business.
The second side of this concept is centered on connection. Emotion builds connection – emotive connection. The emotionally engaged customers are connected to you and your organization; they are not only satisfied but established relationships with you.
We are relational beings and need to connect to feel life satisfaction. The bottom line of business transaction is for both parties to become mutually interdependent – that I know what you need and can provide it in a way that makes you feel great about doing business with me and that you can reciprocate the gesture. You need my product and service, and I need you as a special client.
The ability to connect is paramount to human being in every situation whether at home, in work place, in social gathering and in business. And the need increase everyday.
Relationship in business is the core of all business skills. People do business with you not certainly because you are the best but because you are the preferred. They like you and enjoy the rapport they have with you. I can personally attest to this. I’ve won more clients for my organization through relationship than all other things combined. When I meet you for the first time, it almost comes to me naturally to connect with you.
Get this; those you see everyday are the business opportunities you are waiting for to turn you business around. You don’t have to be selective. Do you ever wonder why your business isn’t growing as it should, check your relational skills.
Get intimate with your customer especially your lead customers – the 20% that delivers 80% result through eye contact, warm and firm hand shake, listening, smile, physical touch where appropriate, the very things that represent our humanity; technology shouldn’t come in-between that. Brian Tracy has this to say about it: ‘People are the only asset that can appreciate in value by giving them warmth, respect, approval and by creating a climate of positive expectation.’ With connection, you create warmth and memory afterwards, which you will live to benefit from.
The better you connect with your customers, the more devoted they become and the better positioned your business will be. Connect to them to the extent that you get into their head. Simply expressed; give them love; you get loyalty, at least from an appreciable number of them.
Build this relationship with a deep level of trust. The more genuinely you care about your customer, the more gladly they will gladly open their purses to you. So, spin your business web out using business connection. This is the business bridge that leads to a great business future.
On a final note, soft is hard, very hard. The surest business sophistication is found in soft business, as it will continue to affect the future of businesses in Nigeria. You can hardly win without it in the present business economy. Soft business is everything. Any organization and business outfit that nurture this will emerge as the business leader. I don’t mean to be harsh; you either measure-up, or fall-off.
Why not make this unbeatable business concept your distinctive brand and enter into the mind of your clients? Watch it, they will give you their best self and create more business opportunities for you.
This amongst other things will raise your significance, build and strengthen your personal and business trade name, make you own and have market attention, turn your customers to your business advocates.
What are you waiting for? Hit it hard on the soft side of business. It’s truly then that you will ‘carpe diem’ (a Latin word, which means ‘seize the day’). Welcome once again to the soft-side of business!
