Depends on the company. More importantly, it depends on how the company views the person that buys their products.
On Friday I’ll be conducting a workshop at #Optsum that will center on one key question: Why do rockstars have ‘fans’ while companies have ‘customers’? Because at the end of the day, both groups are making a product that is being sold to people. But when we go to categorize those people, we think of rockstars as almost always having fans, and we almost always think of companies as having customers. Not fans.
Why? Do rockstars simply have a natural advantage in that they are selling a type of product that somehow makes it easier for them to have fans instead of customers? Perhaps to a degree, but at the same time companies Fiskars that sell products like scissors and products like WD-40 also have evangelists. So ‘it’s the type of product’ doesn’t tell the whole story.
I think what matters far more than the type of product, is how the company views its customers. Most rockstars have fans and most rockstars view their fans as people that they love and WANT to embrace. While many companies want to keep their customers at arm’s length. Some companies seem to even take an adversarial tone toward their customers.
I think rockstars feed off interaction with their fans, while many companies fear interacting with their customers. I’ll talk more about what I think that is in Dallas this week, and I’ll share my slide deck here on next week.
But I wanted to give you that something to think about. How does your company view its customers? How do you think your customers view you? If that perception was more positive on both ends, could those customers then become fans?
This is a great analogy. It does all us business folks good to hold this image. My e-commerce skin care site is new and I know I get jazzed by customer interaction on my web business. My staff does too. Now in my established medical practice, we’ve been running that business for years and are probably more sedate. But why not get jazzed? You make a good point. I’m always mindful that it’s a blessing to have people turn to us for help, and it’s nice to remember to show it no matter how long we’ve been doing the same routine.
Hey Cynthia! I think so many companies are concerned with getting more sales and new customers, but if they simply delighted their EXISTING customers, then they would GET more sales from them PLUS new customers because the existing ones would evangelize the company to their friends!
But as often happens in life, we want what we think is best for US to come first, even if it means we miss getting the thing we want in the process.
ooooh ooooh, I love this one.
As a former recording artist and present Internet marketer in the making I think I have an idea of the difference between Rock Stars/fans versus businesses/customers.
Rock Stars, rap stars, actor’s, actresses, etc., all have one thing in common, a very deep seeded passion to please their fans. Stars get a high from pleasing their fans and their fans favorable reactions. They will go to any length to get the attention they want and aren’t afraid to take risks in doing so. You get out of something what you put into it.
Most business owners tend to be more logical rather than passionate and concentrate only on numbers or monetary benefits. A Rock star on the other hand would do the same thing they are doing for millions of dollars for free in most cases. Obviously once they have made a few million, they probably will not revert to doing it for free, but they were once doing it for free. They love what they do. They are not afraid to make mistakes and try new things. This is why business owners or businesses who combine passion, creativity and logic but aren’t afraid to take a few risks end up on the cover of Forbes.
When you are greeted in a restaurant and the waitress or waiter greets you with a smile and they care about how they make you feel, and the food is good because the owner of that restaurant made sure they served you the best tasting food possible, you become a fan of that restaurant.
….just my opinion 🙂
Hi Angela, great comment! I also think that rockstars have a natural advantage in that they start small and learn early on the importance of connecting with their fans. This serves them well as they grow because they don’t keep them at arms length like many companies do with their customers.
Love your opinion 😉
hi – is it just me !! can any one explain why when i type in the bing browser “mackcollier.com” i get a different site yet whe i type it in google its ok? could this be a bug in my system or is any one else having same probs ?
sadensy