Put down that bullhorn!

I heard a fascinating metaphor that related to marketing and customer relations the other day.
In all its simplicity: "You would not take a bullhorn for speeddating, right?"
Meaning: that you should not start a relationship with a customer flooding her with loud one-liner messages about buying all sorts of stuff. You must carefully show the potential customers what you are able to do for them - and then let them decide that it would be a good idea to start a customer relationship.
And then I related it to my idea that all people basically are parts of customer relationships with one another - it may very well happen that there is no money involved, but we basically form relationships with people because we find that we are able to enrich each other's life.
So, in the same way, it's a bad idea if we bullhorn market ourselves to other people and begin to exploit the way in which they can enrich our own lives. No - we must start out showing what we bring to the common table; only if we can provide something useful to other people, we can expect to be part of a meaningful relationship.
(Translated from Lad så den megafon ligge!)

More than you know of are customers

Now I wrote the other day that all people are customers, but the truth is actually even more scary (or promising, depending on how you want to see things). At some point, I heard a lecture by American management giant Steve Farber, where an interesting anecdote was told.
It was about a man who had been on a business trip in the United States. At a point, he needed to have some documents certified . He walks past a local bank able to do this, enters and tells the woman behind the counter about his need, after which he asks what it will cost him.
Then the woman behind the counter tells him:
"It's free. It's a service we do for our customers."
"But I'm not one of your customers."
"No. But maybe you'll be one day."
Why do I have the feeling that this bank has more potential customers than one who uses any opportunity to twist a little petty cash out of random people passing by?
(Translated from Mere, end man aner, er kunder, originally published September 29th, 2013)

Property and employability

Don't worry - I will soon stop ranting about market value people being goods and customers for each other, but nevertheless, I just need to put forward a single phrase, because I think it fits so well into the context. In all its simplicity, it reads as follows:

You own your own employability.

- or in other words: you yourself are the sole responsible for making yourself interesting for an employer. We have not reached the point where I can expect my employer to find a new and interesting piece of work for me at the moment when there is no longer any need for the effort I currently provide.
I myself must control to which extent I am worth recruiting and for what - that's the freedom I have when I offer myself to the market - my market value is my property and it is my task to manage it as good as possible.
- and yes, I would like to acknowledge that this is the same as saying that one is only employed by an employer as long as the relationship between employer and employee makes sense. At the moment when this is no longer the case, the product is not good enough for the customer's needs - and then there is no longer any deal.
(Translated from Ejendom og ansættelighed, originally published September 14th, 2013)

All people are customers

In our current, highly commercialised society, with its extensive freedom of choice everywhere, we have to realise that all people are customers - in the sense that in virtually every relationship we are part of, we can consider ourselves as items that we have to make available for sale. If I want a job, I must make my skills marketable; if I want to socialise, I must make myself sufficiently interesting to be let in; if I want to enter into a relationship with a significant other, I must sell my qualities to this person.
We are however in the situation that as citizens, we do not have to sell us to the nation; just like parents in typical families have a monopoly on the product they offer to their children - and we can also be so fortunate that through an advantageous sale we have made earlier, we live on old market value - there are both employment relationships and interpersonal relationships that exist on the inertia inherent in such relationships - but basically, one can just as well come to terms with it: I am a commodity, my surroundings are my customers, and my relationships to them depend on my market value in their opinion. And, of course, the other way around - for my outside world are also goods, I am their customer, and my inclination to buy depends on their market value in my eyes.
It may be a bitter pill to swallow - and of course you can try arguments like "but my friends accept me for who I am". Of course. Because you are worth it. Or - which should be a matter of particular reflection - because you are still selling on the basis that at an earlier stage, you had a market value, which was sufficiently high for you to still enjoy its afterglow...
(Translated from Alt er kunder, originally published September 12th, 2013)