All Customers Are Not Created Equal

To refresh your memory on the first two types of people who spread word of mouth, mavens collect the information of the message, and connectors spread the message through their social network. The third type of person, however, is critical to word-of-mouth marketing. This person nudges, prompts, and persuades someone to do something. He or she is a salesman.

We all know salesmen. They have a natural exuberance and greet you with vigorous handshakes, hugs, and even kisses. They are genuinely happy to see you. There is no fakiness in their demeanor. High on life, they exude enthusiasm, energy, likability, and often charm. They believe that thinking can overcome negativity and are very positive people. They love their job, and they love their clients.

They are hard to resist. Just why is this? Since 85% of our communication is nonverbal, studies have found that in communication nonverbal cues are more important than verbal ones. Little cues can make a big difference. Even the nod of a head can garner agreement to one's position. Salesmen instinctively know about these cues and use them in ways that we do not appreciate.

You see, when two people converse, they establish a rhythm to their conversation. Salesmen differ from others in that they set the conversation's pattern and, by doing so, conduct the conversation on their terms. Without trying, salesmen draw others into their conversational rhythm. Good speakers and musicians do this. They draw the crowd into synchrony with them.

You cannot resist this draw. You will find that a good salesman builds trust in five to ten minutes. Their emotion is contagious, and they want to pass on their happiness to you. You can distill this down to that some people are more expressive and others are more susceptible to this expression. Howard Friedman, a psychologist at the University of California Riverside, developed what he calls an Affective Communications Test which measures a person's ability to be contagious. After giving this test to several people, he conducted an experiment in which he took a few dozen who were contagious and placed each in a room with a person who was not. His results showed that the emotion of the contagious person, whether happy or sad, was "picked up" by the other person after two minutes of exposure with no conversation. Emotionally contagious people, or salesmen, can easily infect another person with their mood in that short a time and, believe it or not, without talking.

That is how salesmen "persuade." They infect others with their contagious emotions about a product or service.

What does knowing about salesmen, connectors, and mavens mean for your marketing?

First of all, differentiating your customer is important. Some are mavens. Some are connectors. Some are salesmen. Some are two of these. Some may even be all three. Many are none. The result is that not all customers promote your business equally with word-of-mouth marketing.

Since they don't, it is important for you to know each of these types. When you encounter a type, recognize that person as a maven, a connector, or a salesman. Each one has a different strength, and each one has a different outlook. Mavens want to know and help others with that knowledge. Connectors want to tell and give the message to a wide variety of people. Salesmen want to infect others with their enthusiasm about your product, service, or information.

Appeal to the strength of each type of individual. Give mavens information. Make it easy for connectors to tell others. Infect salesmen with enthusiasm about your business.

Remember, all customers are not created equal in their potential to spread word of mouth about your business. To maximize your word-of-mouth marketing, treat them according to their type.

Have You Met Any Connectors Lately?

Do you remember that Gladwell not only stayed at the bed and breakfast recommended by a maven, but he also passed on that recommendation to several others after his stay? That is the result of a maven word of mouth. When a maven passes on information, five out of five recipients not only follow the advice but also pass it on themselves. Mavens epitomize the "strong tie" in relationships.

On the other hand, the next type of person that I want to address is the master of the "weak tie." These people are connectors. They skim along through society making acquaintances and place a high value in the casual meeting. Once a connector has met you, that connector knows you. He or she will happily give information about you to others. Whereas the maven endlessly researches, a connector gets information from personal contact. Mavens spend their time finding out from books, publications, and the internet. Connectors spend their time meeting people face-to-face or voice-to-voice.

During these conversations, connectors draw out information about the person with whom they are talking. Connectors have a natural curiosity which makes them interested in others. Their energy and sociability encourages others to converse easily with them. In addition, connectors' self-confidence prompts them to ask questions which give them valuable information that they remember. After a brief conversation, a connector will know more pertinent information about you than you realize.

You see, connectors are collectors of people. They genuinely like people and want to know more about each person as an individual. When you have talked with a connector, you will feel that person was interested in you and got to know you. And that is true. A connector wants to make your acquaintance out of curiosity and sociability.

It's what a connector does with what he or she learns about you that makes connectors a critical link in spreading information via word of mouth.

Since connectors are curious and love people, they tend to meet many different kinds of people. These people are from varying professions and backgrounds. Connectors will sit down and talk with anyone and find the conversation interesting. They will then file that association away for future reference. When a connector comes across a person who could use that association, the connector does not hesitate to encourage one person to contact the other.

In doing so, connectors interconnect different circles of interests and professions. Connectors take the information learned from two people of different circles and see how the two could benefit from knowing each other. Then, they act on this knowledge and introduce people who otherwise would not have met. Connectors have their feet in many circles, and they use their acquaintanceships to bring seemingly unassociated circles together.

Gladwell cites an excellent example of connectors' helping others find a job. In his classic 1974 study, Getting a Job, Mark Granovetter interviewed several hundred professional and technical workers from the Boston suburb of Newton. Not surprisingly, he found that 56 percent of these people got their jobs through personal connections. Surprisingly, however, most of these personal connections were through "weak ties" with 55.6 percent seeing their contact "occasionally" and 28 percent seeing that contact "rarely." These contacts were acquaintances. They were connectors.

Connectors' acquaintanceships affect the movement of information through different circles of people. They connect people to people and people to information that might not otherwise have been connected. As Gladwell says, "Connectors bring the world together."

Have you met any connectors lately?

Do You Know Any Mavens?

A couple of years ago I was exposed to Malcolm Gladwell’s The Tipping Point, which is a book about how ideas, products, and messages spread. In your business today, knowing how word about your business spreads is more important than ever. As technology expands the methods that we have to communicate and the ways that we receive our communications, staying on top of how to reach your customer and potential customer gets more and more challenging.

That's why I found Gladwell's book very interesting. He gives fact-based insight into how ideas, products, and messages spread and cites three types of people who are particularly important in doing so. In the next three Profitable Marketing Insights, I will introduce you to one of these types of people per Insight. In this Insight, let's start with the people who keep tabs on what's happening, the mavens.

A maven is an information junkie. An avid reader of information publications such as Consumer Reports, a maven knows a great deal about products and services and is continually expanding his or her knowledge base because this person has an insatiable quest to know everything. A maven can access information on multiple subjects. Mavens navigate Web sites and search engines with ease.

"What sets mavens apart, though, is not what they know but how they pass it along," Gladwell suggests. You see, not only are mavens very knowledgeable, but they also have the social skills to communicate that knowledge effectively. They have a strong desire to help others by telling others what they know. Their fascination with helping others keeps them alert for situations in which their knowledge may be helpful to someone else. When they find these situations, either in conversation or by observation, mavens spontaneously offer their knowledge without being asked. These are the people who walk up to you in a store and tell you to buy one product over another. They may also tell you where in a store to find a product or that a product is available at a lower price in another store.

Gladwell gives an example of a maven who noticed during their conversation that Gladwell mentioned going to Los Angeles. Without hesitation, the maven said, "There's a place I really like in Westwood. The Century Wilshire. It's a European bed and breakfast. They have very nice rooms. A heated pool. Underground parking. Last time I was there, five, six years ago, rooms started in the seventies and junior suites were a hundred and ten. They'll give you a rate for a week. They've got an 800 number."

Since this information came from a maven, Gladwell stayed at the bed and breakfast and subsequently recommended the place to several others. Giving this recommendation was uncharacteristic of Gladwell, and he realized that he had become a part of this maven's word of mouth about the bed and breakfast. In spreading the word about a service or a product, mavens live up to the Yiddish definition of a maven as one who accumulates knowledge. However, mavens take this knowledge a step further by giving it to another for the other's benefit. Once someone benefits from the mavens' knowledge, that person tends to pass the knowledge along to others.

This passing along of the mavens' knowledge gives mavens a critical role in spreading word of mouth about a product or a service.

Do you know any mavens?