This is Article six of six in a series of lessons for small business marketers from Malcolm Gladwell's Blink. This is the last in our six part study of how Blink can apply to small business marketing. Of course there are many other lessons you can draw from this insightful book. We've just outlined a few you may find useful as you push your small business marketing out beyond its present limits. Chapter Six: "Seven Seconds in the Bronx : The Delicate Art of Mind Reading" is a tough read because it deals with the unfortunate and unjustified shooting of an unarmed man by four policeman. Gladwell delivers a fantastic quote near the end of this chapter: "Every moment--every blink--is composed of a series of discrete moving parts, and every one of those parts offers an opportunity for intervention, for reform, and for correction." (p. 241.) This is true for the way your customers make decisions. What seems like a snap judgment isn't at all--it's deliberate, even if the customer can't articulate all the reasons behind the purchase decision. Sometimes your marketing can significantly influence the decision; sometimes the effect will be minimal, but you always have a hand in it. Sections Two and Three of Chapter Six deal with the power of "mind reading"--of 'decoding' what's on a person's mind by understanding their facial expression. After reading these intriguing sections, don't despair that you'll never be able to train your staff to be efficient mind readers. That's not the point of focusing on this section as it applies to small business marketing. Instead, pay careful attention to what Gladwell says about the effect of facial expressions on researchers (pp. 206-208) and then think about how important it is to help your staff keep smiling when they are dealing with customers. A smile won't just make the customer a bit more at ease--it will also boost up the staff person. A second lesson is the need for "white space"--more distance--(p 230) in giving a bodyguard more time to react. For small business it's important to figure out what the optimal amount of white space to give a customer. This is a function of how much time to give the customer to think before sales staff engages the customer, as well as a function of how much distance to give the person as they move about the store. This can also relate back to issues of lighting, how to layout the waiting area by the dressing rooms, how you design the area they stand in at the service counter...the list of ways to apply this very simple principle from the security industry goes on and on. The bodyguards that protect the US President are among the best in the world, but if they don't have the space--and hence the time--to identify the threat, they fail. It's the same with your staff; the interplay between the store environment (Package) must allow your People enough time and space to do their job. Lastly, there's a great section called "Arguing with a Dog". This section details how a person's heart rate, in the heat of the moment, can go way beyond normal heightened awareness and actually cause the person to behave like an angry dog. Pages 225-227 are valuable in understanding how to help staff deal with an irate customer. (OK, it's not necessarily marketing, but it is an important customer insight for small business.) Should you read the rest of Blink? Of course. These little reviews of ours are merely a few ways in which understanding the "power of thinking without thinking" can help you as a small business marketer improve your business profits. More ideas on Chapter Six are at the following link from Malcolm Gladwell's website: http://www.gladwell.com/blink/guide/chapter6.html Remember: Brand (who you are) + Package (your Face to the Customer) + People (customers and employees) = Marketing Success. 2006 Marketing Hawks |
