One comment made by a recent panellist, real estate diva Barbara Corcoran infuriated me and made me realize that a wake-up call is needed.

 

WAKE UP, BARBARA! WAKE UP, AMERICA! This is your chance to learn something valuable and increasingly important to business profitability and bottom lines … BUYERS (Your Customers, your Employees) ARE NOT LIARS! And you need us more than we need you!

 

Barbara Corcoran and many more people just like her are at the helm of big business and they still don’t get it!

 

Do we think BUYERS ARE LIARS! NO!

 

We think Advertisers ARE LIARS! TRADITIONAL MARKETING LIES and BIG BUSINESS LIES … because guess what? They have a track record of spinning things to suit themselves. They have proven through their actions that they don’t really care about us. The most important thing to big business is PROFIT! Not us, we Buyers are Liars, an inconvenience that must be endured in the all important pursuit of money.

 

Comments like Barbara’s,  “Buyers are liars” and others like them, (Buyer Beware) promote and feed an underlying misconception that business is war, an us (buyers) against them (businesses) mentality. And there is still a huge amount of money being spent on training today that continues to feed this rampant misbelief.

 

Barbara has carved a very successful profit and lifestyle in real estate dealing with people’s hopes and dreams of home ownership, investments and careers. Her buyers are all the people who have bought into the dreams, products, and services she has sold very successfully. Are they liars too, Barbara?

 

We are a world of Consumers (Buyers), we love to spend and yet we hate being sold to! The world is changing and becoming increasingly transparent as Web 2.0 technologies grow. Consumers (BUYERS) harness the power of publishing and mass communication and use their voice to influence who and where we spend our dollar, and show us the companies we will love partnering our talents. When we are ready to buy, do we readily believe what we are told by advertisers and controlled marketing? Not anymore.

 

Now we are turning to other buyers just like us and finding them on social networking sites and review sites. We Google people to find real comments about them -- from others just like us,  we start and participate in discussion boards and  we are asking  more and more questions both on and offline to help us decide where we want to spend our hard earned dollars and  who we want to work with. We want to do business with people we KNOW, LIKE AND TRUST!

 

We look for people who are just like us, who have been where we are considering a purchase, and we can see the outcome of their decisions. We want to know if they could go back with the benefit of hindsight, would they make the same decision again or go elsewhere.

 

Would they recommend that business or do they wish they had chosen differently?

 

We value Honesty and Transparency and we know we aren’t getting it from Big Business and Advertisers, who are always looking for the next angle; the next way they can spin things to their benefit and who think like Barbara that we (buyers) are liars. We are sick and tired of businesses and corporate heads that talk Customer Service but don’t deliver it!

 

So, Barbara and Corporate America,  it’s time to change and get with the program, stop wasting time and money trying to control transparency, realize we are not LIARS, recognize we are your most important partners, that our feedback is your most important measure of future viability and continued success.  

 

Keep your promises, listen to us, learn about what we want from you, meet our needs and if you can  - exceed them!  If you make a mistake, apologize and thank us for the lesson and learn from it, make us feel important, and leave us better off for having taken the risk of getting to know you and help us want to  do business with you and tell our friends about how wonderful you are.

 

We are not the enemy; we want to believe you, to know you, like you and to trust you! We want to recommend you and be your biggest fans.

 

Some corporations do get it and are already operating this way and are reaping the rewards and loyalty of consumers. Just look at Maxine Clark (CEO, Build a Bear) another guest panelist on “The Big Idea” who said, “I could never understand when you wouldn’t want a customer coming back” For the record, I love Build A Bear and Maxine and send everyone with children there, If you want an education in customer experience, go to a Build a Bear store anywhere, and buy a bear or doll.  You will love it, your kids will love it, and your kids’ friends will love it! Even the company’s online experience is fabulous, and filled with fun games for your children www.buildabear.com  

 

I stumbled upon Build A Bear for the first time late in 2007 and have been a huge advocate ever since and a big customer! Smiley (our bear) even has his own pawsport (passport in non build a bear talk) and been travelling the world with us and collecting stamps in his pawsport as we do.

 

It’s time to stop thinking and believing that Buyers are liars. Start embracing a culture of trust and advocacy within your team and with all consumers. I believe it was Einstein who once said the most important question we can all answer is, “Do we believe the world is friendly or not?” I know it really is, so embrace this abundant mentality and lose the scarcity and fear mindset once and for all. We are all in this together, it is not an us-and-them situation.

 

We are all at some time buyers and sellers, we are all people, we all have needs, wants and challenges, we want to spend, we want to trust, we want to grow, we want to be respected and valued, we want to help, we want to work in great companies and to have fun and to smile every day . We are people just like you and we are now VOCAL. Listen to us and learn.

 

Luvyaa,

Karin Hanna