Human beings, young and older, function in this world according to one principle: to succeed, you need others. This doesn’t mean you have to be liked by everyone, or to change everything about yourself to appeal to others of course, but it is the basic understanding that you can’t be all thing to all people. You need to be one thing to all people. Confusing? I think this may help.
In the world of business we see the functional aspect of getting buy-in from various groups whether, shareholders, upper management, or the buyer, all the time. However, what is rarely communicated verbally, is what is often at play; the power of storytelling, and selling a vision or image. For those who have children it is easy to remember the last time you sat down to do homework with your little one, and getting his/her participation was not a bowl of cherries, unless you made it “fun” so the child could be seeing the overall value from their point of view rather than your vision (a shiny report card, Ivy league schools, and scholarships)ha? What?
In the world of psychology, this is called Emotional Intelligence.
Emotional intelligence has these four components:
- Self awareness
- Self management
- Social awareness
- Relationship management
The reason social media has become so powerful within the past few years is because marketer across the world finally caught up to the idea that to sell, first you have to be liked. To be liked, you have to be understood. So we went from the era of “selling ships” to selling destinations”.
The unfortunate but real issue is that there are still many platforms out there that operate without this principle. They present their point of view in the hopes that it will fit with yours as the buyer.
The Altitude Point of View or the “Unicorn Point of View“ as we like to call it, is the perspective of looking at the Business POV, Your POV and the CEO POV all at the same time without committing to a single one, and without bias. The Unicorn symbolizes adaptability, empowerment, agility, connectivity, openness and intelligence to all, so it’s a compelling vision. It’s the vision everyone can relate to. Why do this when there is so much market research available? Market research highlights your target market, but it doesn’t mobilize them to buy from you.
Here are some statistics:
- 84% social enterprises improve sales and partnerships
- Social enterprises reduce marketing costs by 41%
- 57% of social businesses outperform their competition
The bottom line, make it relatable. As people, regardless of where we grew up, or how we got here, we place value on trust. Trust breathes from emotional intelligence or social intelligence. Being “social” is no longer a theory but a needed education as part of your business at home and at work.
