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Marketers Must Love People

If you do not love people, get out of the marketing business. Yep. I said it. Get out of marketing if you don’t love people.

The following post is inspired from the book I co-authored, THE PASSION CONVERSATION. The book shares how to better understand, spark and sustain word of mouth marketing conversations. This post shares an idea detailed in the book.

Earlier I shared the idea of reframing your marketing perspective to be in the people business rather than be in whatever business you think you’re in. Let me be more direct:

If you do not love people,
get out of the marketing business.

Yep. I said it, you read it. Get out of marketing if you don’t love people.

This seemingly non-businessy concept of loving people to create a more successful and talkable business is woven throughout the pages of THE PASSION CONVERSATION.

We’re not saying you have be the kind of charismatic people person who makes friends with total strangers in elevators, but you do have to believe in and see the good in others. You have to believe this wonderful Earth of ours is full of amazing, beautiful people you’d love to know better. You should feel honored to spend time with your customers, not see them as a bother. You should feel driven to get to know them as people, not demographics or target markets.

At our marketing agency, Brains on Fire, we deal with marketing problems every day. Which means, we deal with people problems every day. Or perhaps a better way to say it is: We deal with people opportunities every day. Our clients look to us to help them solve their people opportunities.

In THE PASSION CONVERSATION book, we share four love stories of clients we’ve had the pleasure to help achieve greater success. Every solution these courageous companies brought to life to impact their business was driven by the belief that it’s about people connecting with people that makes a difference.

Anytime Fitness came to us with their problem:
 Not enough people are exercising at their gyms. We helped them create a community that led to a movement that inspired life-changing results for not only gym members but also the company culture at Anytime Fitness.

DeVry University used our help to connect with its people (in their case, students) on 90 campuses and in over 70,000 homes. We helped them design a platform to connect students with students that, in many ways, redefines what “social media” means.

The National Center for Family Literacy sought our guidance because not enough people understand that literacy goes way beyond reading and writing. Together, we created a place where teachers & students and parents & children can learn together to improve their future.

And, Foundations Recovery Network turned to us to help eliminate the stigma people associate with addiction.

Those are very evident and wonderful people opportunities. However, none of these organizations would have found success if they didn’t have love for people by reframing their business as being in the people business.

So, if you are ready to be in the people business—if you are ready to spark meaningful passionate conversations and find your advocates—you must LOVE PEOPLE.

People are amazing…

They form tribes.
They create communities and spark social change.
They make great discoveries.
They struggle.
They fall in love.
They are social and emotional.
They love to help others.
They want to be a part of something bigger than their own lives.
They want to change the world.

As marketers, we’d be crazy not to tap into those strong desires. Connecting people through shared passions can lead to great things. That people connection theme is explored deeply in THE PASSION CONVERSATION.