Reprinted from The Fast Growth Blog with the author’s permission.
Now that this year’s round of holiday rituals is past, it’s worth stopping for a moment to remind everyone that empty ritual is meaningless. The last thing I want to be perceived as is “Grinch-like,” but I can’t help but remark on all of the inane, silly and meaningless cards and holiday emails I received.
It reminds me of a lesson my mom taught me. As I child I was known to be slightly impulsive. My act first, think second habit caused more than a few things to break. I learned (quickly) that if I apologized quickly the punishment would be far less than it would have otherwise been. I became really good at saying “I’m sorry.” Eventually my mom taught me that merely saying I’m sorry didn’t mean anything if I didn’t act sorry. At that point saying I’m sorry no longer had a positive effect. I learned that empty words were worthless.
Which brings me to this email message:
Dear Doug,
Thank you for your loyalty and support in 2009.
We look forward to 2010 being a successful and prosperous year for you.
What’s wrong with this you ask? I’ve never done anything with them, I don’t think about them, and I have no loyalty to them. All this message did was highlight how little they actually care about their customers.
Now, if this were just happening just during holiday season, I wouldn’t comment on it. However, these empty acts happen all the time, and in today’s attention deficit world, businesses can’t afford empty communication.
- They happen when you send out a newsletter that your readers don’t find relevant.
- They happen when your salespeople call on your customers and your customer gets no value from the call.
- They happen when emails go out with all data and no context.
Buyers are constantly making decisions about how relevant you are. Your challenge is that 99% of that decision is made subconsciously. As people have less time and less capacity to deal with information, your #1 communication job is to ensure that you make the cut. Resolve to make every communication meaningful, relevant and valuable.
Douglas Davidoff is Founder and CEO of Imagine Business Development, which helps small and mid-sized business enterprises throughout North America achieve fast growth.
