It’s hard to overstate the commercial importance of engagement.
Engagement is the sensation we experience, when someone connects with us in a positive way. It creates a bond between us and them. It fosters trust and forms an extremely resilient foundation on which to build a relationship.
And it’s of immense value to you and your business.
Why am I sharing this with you?
Rather than create powerful engagement and connection with their clients, customers or prospects, many business owners accidentally destroy engagement. And they do it multiple times every day.
For example.
- They send us impersonal auto reply emails; rather than reply in person when they’re available.
- When we call them, we get a call tree (those automated messages with multiple options).
- Their social media accounts primarily broadcast famous quotes and sales pitches, but very little inter-personal communication. No dialogue. Just monologue.
- And of course, the only time we hear from most prospective vendors is when they’re trying to sell us something… rather than staying in touch with us with useful information, so we know where to go when we actually need them.
The list of engagement-destroying tactics is vast. And it’s expanding daily, as business owners rely increasingly on technology, to handle human interaction.
Choosing our bias
It seems we have a choice to make as business owners.
- We can either develop a bias for engagement, which fosters connection, loyalty, relationships and trust.
- Or we can develop a bias for the impersonal approach.
We can choose to go narrow and deep or wide and shallow. To build meaningful connections with engaged prospective clients or push surface level, automated interactions to strangers.
True, the impersonal approach is cheap and quick. That’s why it’s so popular. But that cheapness needs to be looked at in context.
If we think it’s expensive to take time and engage with our clients and prospective clients, we often haven’t fully considered the cost of being disengaged.
After all, if we choose to disengage from our marketplace, the very lifeblood of our business, we set an extremely low ceiling on our potential.
In a nutshell: Whenever possible, try to engage. No, it isn’t always possible. But when it is, and it often is, see it as an opportunity to build a deeper engagement.
IMPORTANT: If you want to make more sales, boost your profits and grow an amazing business, this will help you!