Mel,
In the '80s there was this rock band called Twisted Sister.
The lead singer Dee Snider once talked in an interview about their early days as a starving garage band...
Money was tight, the hours were long, and the gigs were tough.
And out of this struggle came their best-loved songs about failure, angst and frustration.
But then "We're Not Gonna Take It" started selling, and they hit the jet stream.
Money started pouring in. They were in demand for concert appearances, interviews, photo shoots, everything.
One day Dee Snider stops and says to himself, "Dude, THIS DOES NOT SUCK!"
But he found himself in a dilemma. The pain was over. The failure, angst and frustration of being a starving artist was now a thing of the past.
He was having wine and cheese parties on in his rock star motor coach, instead of packing drums and guitar amps into a station wagon.
So what kind of anger and frustration were they going to write and sing songs about now?
"After that, I knew I could write hits, and I did," Snider explains, "but we were successful now. It just didn't have the same impact as before."
If the best market to sell to is one where you've been the person you're selling to. But slowly forgetting the aches and pains of your customers is a sure way to become estranged from them.
Take me, for example.
I've got my stories about the agony of making cold calls, but fact is, I haven't made a cold call in almost 20 years.
I still remember it vividly, but I have to stop for a minute and recall the experience. It's not something I live with anymore.
If I'm going to emotionally connect with my customer, I have to exercise that part of my imagination. You do, too.
It always irks me when I meet VIPs and presidents of companies who not only don't relate to their customers, they have contempt for them.
A symptom of the problem is that they refer to everything in the abstract. They talk about "the marketplace" instead of talking about real customers and real human beings.
Now yes, sometimes I slip into abstract talk myself, but I can't ever forget that the people who read my newsletter, read my emails, read my clients emails, are real people who wake up in their underwear, brush their teeth in the morning, slog down the expressway with hot sludgy coffee in their lap, and are constantly interrupted by emails and cell phone calls. They've got mothers-in-law and ornery teenagers and stuff on their minds.
This is the stuff of ordinary life, and it needs to be part of your communication with your customers.
The other danger here is that YOU don't forget any of this—but you abdicate your duties to plasticized, abstractified, soulless, spreadsheet-quoting consultants.
There's nothing wrong with outsourcing—and in fact it's essential. For your business to grow you have to let go of the things you're merely competent at so you can focus on areas where you excel.
But when you're looking to bring in a hired gun, remember that most of them haven't lived through the same pain and angst as you and your customers.
You only want to work with consultants who've walked a mile in your customer's shoes—or else are willing to put in the hard work to develop the empathy required.
That's why Marketers 24/7 is my first stop when I need a job done these days.
The freelancers and consultants I've met through Marketers 24/7 get that marketing isn't just CTRs and clickbait headlines.
They're professionals who can help you keep the soul of your business—by never losing touch with the real people whose problems you solve.
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You can join here.
Carpe Diem,
Perry Marshall
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