Two World Views

Seth Godin is one of the most admired and respected minds in marketing today. He is the author of more than a dozen books and publishes a daily must-read blog that can help anyone who runs a business. What makes Seth special is that he looks at the world through different lenses, constantly challenging the status quo to take fresh new approaches that often work. He was among the first marketing minds to understand that the way people purchase had changed and recognized that it is necessary to change messaging to effectively respond to the paradigm shift that had taken place.

Today’s marketing requires telling stories that resonate with the people you want to reach, because when the story is meaningful to them, it will make a difference in their lives. The challenge, according to Seth, is to change your worldview. Many of us are still living in a world that says all people want as much stuff as possible for as cheap a price as possible. That’s why we have Black Friday sales, self-storage units, and believe that offering discounts is the right way to convince customers that your showroom is the right one for their kitchen remodel. There is always somebody happy to push you to buy something you don’t need because the object of the game is for you to have more stuff. That’s a world based on scarcity with the belief that most people don’t have enough stuff and are always questioning how do I get more stuff?

But there’s a different view that is not so obvious. It’s a view not based on scarcity, but rather on abundance. In an abundant economy, it’s not about acquiring more stuff because when we are honest with ourselves, we know we have enough stuff. What we don’t have is connection and time. We’re lonely. Study after study finds loneliness as a pressing and disturbing societal problem that has been exacerbated by social media.

Think about your customers. How many of them are lonely? How many of them have excess free time? Think about your team and yourself. Do you have too much time on your hands? If you want to create a tribe of raving fans in a world of abundance, you need to provide your customers and team members with connection and meaning where they can be at their best.

What does this look like at a kitchen and bath showroom? It’s not about specialty finishes, quartz versus stone, or a touch faucet versus a convention one. It’s not about how much margin you need to cut to make a sale. Those are all nice, but will focusing on pricing and product mix provide connection or meaning? What will? Start by answering these four questions:

1. Who are your next customers?
2. What are the stories they have told themselves before they visit you or your showroom?
3. How do you encounter your next customers in a way that they trust the story you want to tell about what you have to offer?
4. What changes are you trying to make in them, their lives, their story?

 
What can you and your team do to change your prospect’s life, provide meaning, or build connection?