Want to Connect with Customers, Employees and Everyone Else? Start Doing This.

Mr. Smith (obviously not his real name) is a leader at a large organization. He’s smart, he’s driven, and he’s working hard to get to the top.

But Mr. Smith has a weakness that’s creating a drag on his otherwise speedy trajectory:

• Ask him about his company’s customers and he complains about how needy they are.
• Talk to him about employees and he says he often has to “dumb things down” to explain complex concepts.
• Mention other stakeholders and he is dismissive of their lack of knowledge and sophistication.

As a result, Mr. Smith is not connecting with the people he needs to reach. Oh, he’s careful to use the right words, but everyone feels the chill of Mr. Smith’s superiority. As a result, he doesn’t close important deals with customers. His division’s employee engagement scores are low. And his colleagues are cordial, but they definitely wouldn’t go out of their way to help him.

And here’s the lesson for all of us: The only way to gain the trust of people is to respect them first. For Mr. Smith that means, of course, that he really needs to get over himself. Once he does, he needs to start getting closer to his customers (and everyone else) so that he not only knows them; he loves them.

What’s love got to do with it? If you feel separate from–or worse, superior to–the people you’re trying to communicate with, you’ll never be effective at engaging them.

Only by truly loving your audience can you communicate in a way that’s truly about them, not about you.

That means:

• Getting to know your audience–individually, not just as a group. Conduct focus groups to understand what people need. Create a profile of who your customer is and what makes him/her tick. You won’t connect with people if you only see them as a bunch of statistics. (After all, would you go out with someone who judged you just on your measurements?)
• Find out what people really care about. What lights them up? Keeps them up at night?
• Accept people for who they are–warts and all. Yes, they may drive an older car and wear shabby shoes and watch sitcoms, but that’s doesn’t make them any less smart or interesting than you.

The leap to loving brings you in touch with what matters to people. Suddenly you’re not on the other side of a chasm from your audience members: You’re right there next to them, talking softly, saving what they’ve always wanted to hear.

That’s powerful stuff. And that’s what Mr. Smith needs to learn to be successful. After all, love is all around us.