Seth Godin has some great points in a recent Inc.com interview. His perspective is about why people buy. He outlines a concise perspective between a customer’s buying motives and needs, and their relationship with the brand or company. Basically he is clearly pointing out that today it is not about selling people something but connecting to them in a meaningful way that is relevant to them. It really is not about what the seller is selling.
We see this in both B2B and B2C markets. B2B markets need to add real valuable contribution to education in the problem solving process through content and transparency without a clear motive to sell. That is a scary thing for a company to do. As Seth points out, that takes humility.
He also points out that people connect with your brand through social media as a statement or a “badge” that says something about themselves. His strongest point is that “No one cares about them, they only care about themselves.” We can’t market by telling and convincing them they need something, we need to market by giving them what they need.
- We enable what they need, they buy.
- We help them with their problem, they buy.
- When they believe in our reason for being as a company, they buy, they share, they believe.
One of my favorite descriptions of this concept is from Simon Sinek. He clearly outlines the connection between great company leadership in his Ted talk a few years ago.
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