Small Action, Big Impact
Small Action, Big Impact Have you ever considered the impact that a small action or decision can have on your audience? Something you consider minor can have an enormous impact on a customer, client, or anyone else who is paying attention to your brand. Here’s a real-world experience that may give you something to think about. So What Actually Happened? Last year I was invited to perform for a corporate client’s holiday party at a beautiful venue in Nashville, Tennessee. Despite unprecedented amounts of ice, snow, and multiple transportation obstacles between my home in Atlanta and the venue in Nashville, I still made it and let me tell you — I have never been so happy to get to work! (The story of overcoming those obstacles is a story worthy of an entire post of its own. Stay tuned!) For this corporate event I provided background piano music, strolling close-up magic, and an after-dinner cabaret magic and mentalism show. That stand-up magic show included a number of pieces that required help from the audience. Choosing assistants from an audience is part art and part science. As the performer, you are observing and evaluating countless characteristics. Is this person smiling and open? Refusing eye-contact? Have they enjoyed the show so far, or have you sensed some kind of tension? Are they obviously having a bad day? Are they wearing glasses? Do they need a cane? Does their behavior seem predictable or erratic? Will the stress of being onstage with you excite or terrify them? Will their participation give the audience more enjoyment, or will it create tension? You may not always be able to know the precise answer to all of these questions, but over time you develop a gut instinct for what makes a good fit in each “guest star” role of your show. I was looking for an audience assistant for a part of my show near the end, and as I scanned the audience I caught the eye of a young girl. She was anxious to help, and might have been a good fit if I were doing a show that was designed for young assistants… but in this case, she wasn’t quite what I needed. I smiled, said as politely as I could that I was going to need someone else, and moved on in my search. I was packing up after the show when she and her dad came by to speak. They were super polite and he simply said that she wanted to talk with me. It was clear that she was disappointed, but she mainly just wanted to interact with me. I thanked her for her willingness to to help and got an address. Later on, I sent her a pack of my personal playing cards as a souvenir. She sent back the thank-you card pictured in this article. Three Decisions and Their Aftermath Let’s look at some decisions that were made and what impact they had. First, no matter how politely I moved on from that moment, I consciously chose not to use this child in my program. In my work I either choose or don’t choose hundreds of people in every show. To me, the moment I decide to move on is a drop of water in an ever-flowing river, and I have very good reasons for those decisions. But to a person in my audience, they might never have been at a show with a performer who was using audience participants. They might catch my eye only one time during the show, and if I don’t choose them… that feels very different. If they have invested emotionally in the moment, it can be truly disappointing. Even adults know how disappointing it is to feel that we’ve been “passed over” for an award, or a promotion, or even a sale. We may have more maturity and more emotional tools for dealing with that and building on it, but it’s still a downer. My small action, no matter how necessary it was, nor how unintended any offense, had a disproportionately negative impact on that young lady. Fortunately, they told me about it rather than keeping it secret! Next, after finding out that the young lady was disappointed, I took action. I chose to send a gift and a short note of encouragement. This was another minor decision, as I have decks of cards on hand and it cost me next to nothing to put together a little gift. But the act of doing so was about more than my own reputation management – it was also intended to help a real person feel real joy. It is almost trivial to take a moment to attempt to bring genuine joy to someone who you know needs it. (Psssst — everyone needs it!) Finally, the young lady responded to what I thought was a trivial gift with a thank you note that she made herself! Clearly, my small actions had a big impact, but her thank you note also did – it was the impetus for this article, and a great illustration of core customer service and branding principles that everyone can learn from. What Can We Learn About Customer Service and Keeping Our Brand Promises? Here are some questions to consider: – Do your business processes have built-in decision points that can generate genuine disappointment for some people? (Pssst – the answer to this question is always “Yes.”) – Do you have channels open to find out about those situations? – Are you willing to evaluate those concerns, prioritize them, and address them? – Are you celebrating the successes of doing so, so that others in your audience can see your brand honestly trying to live up to its promises? In any business, you will sometimes have to make decisions that mean some people don’t get exactly what they wanted. However, with thought and effort, you can take some disappointing outcomes and still frame them in ways that emphasize your organization’s commitment to
12 Amazing Audience Engagement Ideas I Learned on a Cruise – Part 3
12 Amazing Audience Engagement Ideas I Learned on a Cruise – Part 3 We’ve reached the conclusion of this short series – better late than never! Though the cruise itself is long past, the memories and lessons learned in each port remain. Out of curiosity – are you paying attention to the experiences you have to see what branding and audience engagement lessons can be learned? If so – let me know of a tip or technique you gleaned from an experience in your own life! Amazing tip #9: Put something awesome out of sight to reward the devoted. Holyhead, Wales – What do you know about Holyhead, Wales? That’s about what I knew, too, as we went ashore for our first visit to Wales. The town is centered around St. Cybi’s Church, which is actually built in what was an old Roman fort. There are lots of nooks and crannies to explore, but the real treasure here isn’t in town. You have to take a cab or a tour to get to South Stack Lighthouse, but even when you are able to see it, you can’t experience it without hiking down 400 steps and walking across an aluminum footbridge. Then you get to climb the 400 steps on your way back. But the reward is a tremendous view of coastline cliffs and the lighthouse itself… an experience you won’t ever forget. Put some not-so-obvious rewards in place for those willing to seriously engage with your brand! Amazing tip #10: Make sure your brand has attentive, observant ambassadors. Liverpool, England – Rosemary and I arrived in Liverpool on a relatively gray day. Cloudy morning, scattered showers, and a blustery wind. We decided to brave the elements and so we made a trek to Liverpool Cathedral. This impressive building – the largest Anglican cathedral in the UK – was full of interesting and beautiful art. It was reverent and inspiring. But it became an unforgettable experience when I was approached by Brian Jackson. A smiling gentleman with a long robe quietly asked how I was enjoying my visit. We began talking about our experiences in church and found common ground instantly. He took me and Rosemary on a private tour, unlocked a walkway across the expanse of the interior, and told us numerous little stories (including a great one about the chairs where the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh sit). This visit was unforgettable because an ambassador perceived my interest and probed effectively, then delivered an exceptional experience. Does your brand have attentive, observant ambassadors on site? On the phone? Online? Amazing tip #11: A fresh approach can make old things new again. Inveraray, Scotland – Inveraray Castle in Scotland looks like a fairy tale with its conical spires on towers. Since the 1200s the site has been the ancestral home of the Duke of Argyll – yes, the same family from which we derive argyle sweaters and socks! While the castle is centuries old, it recently enjoyed a renewed interest when it was used as a location for the 2012 Christmas episode of Downton Abbey. The popularity of a current hit translated into additional visibility and tourism for a site that was relatively unknown to many outside Scotland. By the time Rosemary and I arrived, we were primed to be receptive to much more of the real history of the location based on our interest in a fictional story! Can you connect your brand to something in the news, or some phenomenon in the popular culture? If so, you have a golden opportunity to boost sagging interest in your message. Amazing tip #12: Craft a presentation worthy of your content. Dublin, Ireland – Dublin is home to St. Patrick’s Cathedral, the Ha’Penny Bridge, and a thousand pubs. It is also home to one of the best universities in the world, Trinity College Dublin. Here, at the alma mater of Swift, Burke, Beckett, Stoker, Wilde, you can view the Book of Kells and marvel at a unique object with artistic, philosophical, and historical significance. But while the pages of that book inspire reflection and introspection, when you walk into the Long Room you will find yourself awestruck. This vast, expansive space houses only 200,000 of the library’s roughly six million volumes. Even so, the presentation of this subset creates a feeling of near infinite knowledge. The levels, the arches, and the sheer visual impact create an experience that inspires respect for the work of masters whose thoughts are recorded in these pages. Presentation doesn’t replace the knowledge in those volumes, but it certainly inspires a high level of respect for whatever you might find in there. Just as the theatre in St. Petersburg primed us to appreciate beauty, this room primed us to respect intellect. When your brand is unveiled for a new audience, what feelings does it inspire? You can read the other entries in this series via the following links: 12 Amazing Audience Engagement Ideas I Learned on a Cruise – Part 1 12 Amazing Audience Engagement Ideas I Learned on a Cruise – Part 2
12 Amazing Audience Engagement Ideas I Learned on a Cruise – Part 2
12 Amazing Audience Engagement Ideas I Learned on a Cruise – Part 2 This follow-up is long overdue, but worth the wait! Here’s part 2. Amazing tip #6: Encourage your audience to walk through your experience on occasion, instead of always streamlining everything. Dover, England – With London only a short drive away, people often skip Dover as they are embarking or disembarking. But Dover Castle has a charm of its own and it’s worth the trip to the top of the hill to see the view. It was worth it to walk up rather than take trolleys or cabs – we climbed a beautiful staircase in the woods. While walking through the city toward the castle, we found a number of shops and a great place to eat when we came back down. Once in a while, it may be worthwhile to buck the trend of hyper-streamlining an experience and encourage your audience to walk and take the stairs. It was strenuous and we had to catch our breath, but the experience was richer and more memorable than a taxi to the front door. Amazing tip #7: Make it worthwhile to look past the surface. St. Peter Port, Guernsey, Channel Islands – Castle Cornet on the island of Guernsey is, for some travelers, just “ABC” – that is, “another bloomin’ castle.” But taking the time to explore yielded multiple intriguing stories ranging across centuries. There’s nearly always more to “ABC” than you might think, which means it can be rewarding to explore unknown brands. At the same time, it’s incumbent upon the owner of the lesser-known brand to take whatever it is that they’ve got, frame it effectively, and communicate it to the audience in a way that makes them curious enough to dig one level deeper. Amazing tip #8: Effective branding overcomes a change of context. Waterford, Ireland – When you think of Waterford, Ireland, you probably think first of Waterford Crytal. In addition to their worldwide fame for making crystal dining ware, they are also well-known for their creation of art objects and trophies such as the crystal football BCS trophy. The city is also home to Reginald’s Tower, a relic from the town’s Viking history. In the midst of all the things that Waterford is best known for, though, I have another unforgettable memory of Waterford, Ireland that has nothing to do with its history. As I crossed a busy street, I recognized the logo of my alma mater on the jacket of a gentleman crossing in the other direction. I greeted him with “Hail State!” and we have stayed in touch since then. That recognizable brand did its job, allowing fellow fans to establish a connection even in an entirely unrelated context. There was no reason for me to be looking for that logo or thinking about my alma mater, but the sight of the school colors and the logo instantly transcended the context of the environment. Not every brand has a goal of facilitating interpersonal relationships among alumni, but every brand can aspire to the powerful goal of being instantly recognizable even in an unrelated context. You can read the other entries in this series via the following links: 12 Amazing Audience Engagement Ideas I Learned on a Cruise – Part 1 12 Amazing Audience Engagement Ideas I Learned on a Cruise – Part 3
12 Amazing Audience Engagement Ideas I Learned on a Cruise – Part 1
12 Amazing Audience Engagement Ideas I Learned on a Cruise – Part 1 I recently returned from performing magic on a couple of European cruises which combined to fill nearly the entire month of August. My wife joined me on this adventure as the dates overlapped our 19th wedding anniversary. We started with five days in Stockholm, Sweden, where we saw the sights and I visited a friend who had been an exchange student to my high school many years ago! We concluded with three days in Dublin, Ireland. While we were in Russia, I was inspired by one experience to make a change to the way I think about my business, my performances, and my keynote presentations. As I gave it more thought, I realized that each stop along the way taught me something important about providing amazing and engaging experiences for my audiences, both at live events and for my brand’s audience. What did I learn in each port? Here are some of my takeaways. The rest will appear in the next post. Amazing tip #1: Guide your audience to an experience that most people miss. Stockholm, Sweden – In the five days we were in Stockholm we covered a lot of ground, from visiting royal palaces to shopping in Gamla stan. But the most amazing experience to me was the opportunity to reconnect with my friend Anna, whom I hadn’t seen since high school over 25 years ago. Her insights and advice led us to explore a part of the city we might otherwise have missed. Amazing tip #2: Put a hidden gem somewhere in the experience for your audience to discover. Tallin, Estonia – This wasn’t a port we expected to love, but we were tipped off by Rosemary’s aunt that it was a hidden gem. It didn’t have the name recognition of a St. Petersburg or Helsinki. But it turned out to be a favorite stop – lots of history, interesting things around every corner, and easy to walk and explore. Amazing tip #3: You don’t have to be “on” all the time; create multiple ways for your audience to explore your offerings on their own. Helsinki, Finland – This port had name recognition, but our visit was on a Sunday and so we encountered a lot of closed stores until later in the day. This meant that we had quiet streets and little traffic all morning. We couldn’t get into every location because some places are closed on Sunday morning. But we got to peek inside a Russian Orthodox cathedral during a service and that was a beautiful experience. Amazing tip #4: In every possible interaction, prime your audience to appreciate the beauty in what you will share with them. St. Petersburg, Russia – Rosemary and I spent an evening at the ballet. We saw “Sleeping Beauty” at the Alexandrinsky Theatre. I was intensely moved by the beauty of the building, the sets, the costumes, the music, and of course the dancers. The moment we entered that theatre, we knew something special was going to happen. We were primed to appreciate the beauty to follow. I was inspired to add something beautiful to my presentations – something that gives my audience a chance to appreciate art for the sake of beauty. Amazing tip #5: Make sure the experience you deliver stands up to repeat engagement. Add layers if necessary. Copenhagen, Denmark – This was my second visit to Copenhagen, and it was easy to pick up right where I left off on last year’s trip with my daughter. Since my wife and I had only a single day in port, though, we had to budget our time. We chose to limit the number of attractions and explore more thoroughly, meaning that even though I visited Rosenborg Castle last year, I actually got a bit more out of the visit this year. There’s more to come in part two! Stay tuned! You can read the other entries in this series via the following links: 12 Amazing Audience Engagement Ideas I Learned on a Cruise – Part 2 12 Amazing Audience Engagement Ideas I Learned on a Cruise – Part 3
4 Must-Have Components of Effective Magic (and Branding!)
4 Must-Have Components of Effective Magic (and Branding!) It pains me to say it, but there’s a lot of ineffective magic out there. Magic that people don’t get, don’t like, don’t remember, and ultimately don’t want. Very often, performers may nip at the edges of amazing experiences. Sometimes, some audiences may be engaged for a moment, or think a performer is clever, or be fascinated by great skill, or even enjoy the temporary spectacle of a show… but the overall experience somehow doesn’t quite qualify as “magical.” Why is that? I suggest to you that there are 4 necessary components of truly effective magic, and that they can be summed up in one sentence. No matter how well I perform a sleight, operate an apparatus, or do some other secret action, it’s not really magic until an audience experiences something impossible that means something to them personally. The Magic Side That’s a statement that is going to take a little unpacking. Here are the four criteria, each spelled out in a bit more detail. 1. Magic requires an audience. It can be fun and rewarding to practice a technique to perfection, or to develop a new routine, or to work out a new plot. Rehearsing can give you exciting glimpses of what you may be able to accomplish with the art. But it’s not magic until there’s an audience to experience it. In fact, “performing magic” is somewhat misleading phrase. Magic is a witnessed phenomenon, not a performed one. Magic is not performed until it is witnessed. 2. Magic requires mystery. It can be fun to solve a puzzle, or to engage in some clever wordplay, or to peek behind the curtain. But once it happens, the sensation of magic is destroyed. It’s not magic if the illusion is penetrated. Poor technique, equipment failure, or a lack of good design can all endanger or eliminate the magical experience. Magic explained is not magic. 3. Effective magic has a meaningful context. Walk onstage, push a giant needle through a balloon, and walk off. You might get a smattering of applause. But even the simplest illusion, given some dramatic framework or connection to the world, becomes more powerful. Is the illusion about your comic failure to make the balloon burst as expected? Is it about challenging expectations? Is it about surprising strengths? If it’s just a puzzle, it’s not really magic. Presentation counts as much as technique. Give magic a “why” to heighten its impact. 4. Effective magic connects with people personally. Good magic has a context that gives it a meaning, answering the question “Why are you doing that?” But to go even further, great magic connects to something the audience values, answering the question, “Why should I care?” Whether you are physically doing close-up magic in a spectator’s own hands, or scripting an illusion to perform for a thousand people, find a way to relate what you’re doing to something the audience cares about. Give your audience a reason to care about the magic. The Business Side Interestingly, if you consider each of those points, I suspect you’ll see that they apply just as much to branding, marketing, and customer experience issues as they do to the performance of magic. • You have to gather an audience for your message. • The more of your process that the audience perceives, the less magical their experience. • You increase your impact by giving your audience a framework through which to interpret what you share with them. • You maximize that impact by making that framework something that they care about. What can you do today to change the way you communicate and engage your audience so that their experience with your brand is more magical?
7 Things About Magic That You Should Have Learned In Business School – #6
#6 – Your props should be in great condition, but they shouldn’t be the star of the show, either onstage or in business. Unless you’re performing a theme act set in a junkyard, there’s not really an excuse for performing with props that are in disrepair. The poor impression they make will be a psychological barrier between you and the effect you’d like to have on your audience. Audiences don’t care to understand the economics of purchasing unusual materials, nor the particulars of trying to fit multiple performances into a day. All they know is what they experience during the show that they have paid to see. If you are giving them wrinkled silk scarves, peeling paint, or badly-fitting costumes, then even the best illusion you perform will have less impact than it should because part of the audience’s attention is being spent on noticing those flaws. While the props shouldn’t be in bad shape, they should also not steal focus from the performance. Some performers – usually those of little experience – have a tendency to think that enough paint, prism tape, or varnish will make a prop so attractive that it will do all the work of sustaining an audience’s interest. But the props can never do that job, because props are not the star of the show. Whether you’re on a stage or in a retail environment, an office, or some other business, your audience wants your tools to be in good shape, but they are far less interested in the tools than they are in what you will build with them. You certainly can’t build a quality product without using tools, but you can’t sell a shoddy product because you built it using a great tool. What about you? Can you think of an experience where the tools or environment were great, but the delivery of the service or product was still lousy? What is your “lipstick on a pig” story? Let me hear from you in the comments!
7 Things About Magic That You Should Have Learned In Business School – #5
#5 – When it comes to polishing your secret move, in magic or in business, smoother is usually better than faster. “The hand is quicker than the eye” is a useful misconception. One of the great myths of magic – and business – is that it’s all about speed. The very word “prestidigitation” means “fast fingers,” and many people think that the magic is produced because magicians can move their hands too quickly for you to follow. The truth is that the hands don’t have to move at superhuman speed in order to create magic. In 1902, a man using the nom de plume “S. W. Erdnase” wrote about secret actions in his classic book The Expert at the Card Table. His discussion of cheating included a segment on palming cards in which he wrote, “It is very simple to to place one or several cards in the palm and conceal them by partly closing and turning the palm downward, or inward; but it is entirely another matter to palm them from the deck in such a manner that the most critical observer would not even suspect, let alone detect, the action.” When executing the critical action, Erdnase knew that the goal was to do the move smoothly and within the natural experience of the situation so as not to arouse any notice or suspicion that an action was happening at all. Smoother is better than faster. Sure, a secret move shouldn’t be executed without the speed that comes with competence and expertise, but once that is achieved, the truly polished performer looks at smoothness as the goal. Why? Because a fast, jerky movement jars the spectator out of the experience of the effect. Even if the sudden movement doesn’t generate suspicion or an attempt to decipher the method, at the very least it has reminded them that there *is* a method at work, and that undermines the experience of magic. What about you? Have you interacted with a brand or a business whose process had so many stops and starts that you lost the experience of service? Have you gone around and around with a business as they explained their internal business processes to you for no apparent reason? Let me hear from you in the comments!
7 Things About Magic That You Should Have Learned In Business School – #4
#4 – Just because your process is boring to you doesn’t mean the result will be. The details of the process aren’t important to the audience, who only care about the end result. But the process is critically important to you, the producer of the effect. You have to be judicious about which methods are best for your capabilities. You have to be realistic about what methods are either within your current capabilities, or learnable with the kind of investment that you’re willing to make. What’s more – despite your best research, you may invest time and effort in learning a method that doesn’t produce what you ultimately want, and not know until it’s too late. Yes, it will require some tedious practice to develop the skills to execute the methods so that they feel like magic to the audience. They don’t really care, of course, but you do — because those ten thousand hours of rehearsal of that little movement with your ring finger will elevate the audience’s experience from “process” to “magic.” What about you? Were you in a business that invested in building a given process or implementing a given solution, only to find out afterward that it wasn’t what you really wanted? Let me hear from you in the comments!
7 Things About Magic That You Should Have Learned In Business School – #3
#3 – If it doesn’t look like magic, it still needs work. The most important thing to your business audience is not how hard you worked on the technique. The most important thing to your audience is not whether your back-office software is the coolest. The most important thing to your audience is not how many degrees your team has, or where you all worked before, or which group is providing your capital. The most important thing to your audience – at least in the context of creating the sensation of magic – is that you deliver an amazing business experience in a way that makes it look natural and effortless. If they can see you struggle to execute your business process, then they may respect your effort but they will not experience “magic.” If it doesn’t look like magic, then it still needs work. Your goal is for your audience to experience the final effect and have almost no perception of the process or method that got them there. Every bit of method that your audience perceives is a bit of lost impact. What about you? Can you think of a brand who makes it look easy? Apple used to have that mojo, but it seems to have dissipated. Who is the top brand in the world today that makes delivering high value look like a natural gift? Let me hear from you in the comments!
7 Things About Magic That You Should Have Learned In Business School – #2
#2 – Mystery is valuable. It’s one of the primary rules of magic: don’t reveal the secret of the illusion. If you tell the audience your secrets, then the wonderful moment you created for them only seconds ago will lose a lot of its impact. Mystery, in the context of magic, is not about lying or deception. Magic is not about “fooling people.” The whole point is to create an experience that doesn’t seem possible. That unexpected mystery is a captivating element that engages interest and it should not be squandered. Mystery is too valuable to be squandered. In business, if you create an experience in working with you and in experiencing your product or service that surpasses expectations of what people generally consider possible, then you will have created a rare and beautiful mystery. Don’t spoil it by letting the process become the narrative. Keep your secrets secret, and let your customer focus on what you made them feel, not how you made them feel it. What about you? Certainly the secret formula to Coca-Cola is a classic example of a valuable business mystery. Can you think of any others? What about your own business – without exposing it, do you have a secret that helps you preserve some mystery for your audience? Let me hear from you in the comments!
