Hey Jude...

Yes, I do mean the “Hey Jude” of Beatle fame. I went to a Beatle tribute concert tonight performed by a band named, The Fab Four. I liked the Beatles in 1964 and I still do. A quick look around the venue and it is obvious that I am not alone in my appreciation of John, Paul, George and Ringo.

The auditorium was crowded with a wide spectrum of age groups. This was definitely an 8 to 80 fan base. Personally I was very happy to see that I was not the oldest in the audience. Everyone was having a good time rocking out to tunes that were more than 40 years old. That included my good friends Ed and Helen who were my hosts for the evening. This was the eighth time they had attended a concert by this band. They told me they thought The Fab Four was the best Beatle tribute band out there.


I’m thinking they “really like this band” to pay to see them eight times. I have never seen the same movie eight times, let alone the same band eight times. OK, so maybe I did see Caddy Shack eight times, but that is different, isn’t it?


But, I was wrong, or sort of wrong. You see Ed and Helen do love going to The Fab Four concerts but they also have gone to Rain and other Beatle cover groups. What they really love is the music of the Beatles. And so did about a 1,000 others in the auditorium tonight. What I witnessed tonight were people reacting to the messages in the songs. Love songs, fun songs, touching songs about life.


Because many in the audience were not alive during the Beatle years it could not be a generational thing. It was the fact that the lyrics touched everyone there, no matter what their age. Everyone there could relate to the songs. Songs with emotion. Songs about people.


About now you are probably saying to yourself, “I thought this was a business blog? What gives?”

I will get to my point. I think it is vital to understand this lesson from the Beatles when it comes to communicating. Whether the message is crafted for your customers or potential customers I think that it must include emotional content. A sales message that is strictly about price or product specifics is missing the mark. No matter how high tech the product offering and no matter how attractive the price if you are not connecting with your customers on some emotional level you are falling short. You must remember that in the end it is about a human being making a decision to buy your product, try your restaurant or contact you for more information. Find a way to connect with people and you will find that price, product specs and everything else is secondary.


The Beatles said; “All you need is love.” Remember that the next time you create a message to you customers. Find a way to touch them and to show the human side of your company.


Do you have any examples of how you communicate with emotion?  Please share your examples by posting here.

Pickles On My Burger.

I had been thinking all day long about eating a juicy cheeseburger. Have you ever had a day like that? A day when you seem fixated on one thing. I admit that it would more politically correct to have my psychic energy focused on world peace or finding the cure for cancer, but sometimes "A Cheeseburger in Paradise" is just that. Paradise!.

On my way home I pulled off into the drive-up lane of my favorite hamburger stand. I ordered cheeseburgers for Vickie and me. Hers without pickles and mine with. I like pickles.

I got to the house and immediately went to the kitchen. I pulled out our burgers and made sure Vickie’s was sans pickles and then chomped down on mine. Instead of biting into the burger I had been dreaming about I got a mouth full of pickles. Like I said, I like pickles, but upon inspection I found all the pickles on this burger to be stacked like poker chips in the middle of my burger. I rearranged all the pickles to cover the patty and settled back to eating my dinner. While I was eating I came to two conclusions.


The first was that I ordered a burger with pickles and I received a burger with pickles. Though my burger was complete as ordered there was something wrong. I kept thinking, “How hard is it to put the pickles on the burger the right way?” Slapping a handful of pickle slices on my burger demonstrated to me that the person that made my meal did not care much for the quality of his/her work, the reputation of the burger joint or my satisfaction.  As a customer my expectations were not met.


The second conclusion was that I must be equally focused on delivering not just the ”pickles” to my customers but pickles just the way my customers want them. How do you do that? This sounds like a tall order.  The reality it is pretty basic stuff.  It starts with asking, then listening, then finally delivering.


This is applicable to whatever business you are in. Are you just filling orders, or all you giving your customers what they want, how they wanted every time? Small details like how the pickles are put on a burger can be the difference between losing and keeping a customer because it shows how you feel about your product and how you feel about your customer.  It is all about meeting expectations of your customers.  You created those expectations via your marketing efforts.  The question is are you delivering on your promises?


What examples do you have of little things like the pickle that can make a difference? Let’s hear from you. Please post your comments.