Guy working the counter at my gym made me feel like a total dumbass yesterday. Of course as a marketer and coach for high-profile, high-octane refractive and cataract practices, my first thought was “let me tell my people about this.”
(Because if you can benefit from my minor embarrassment, I’ll make that sacrifice for you…)
By the way, there’s a video version of this lesson on my IG right now if you want to check it out here.
Alright, story time:
I work out at the same gym 4-5 times a week. No frills, lots of weights and good machines, and the price is right.
I wrap up a taxing arm workout yesterday, grab my stuff and hit the road. Or so I thought.
I head to the door, push on it, and it won’t move. So I push again, and then pull. And my first befuddling thought is “Why are we locked in here?”
So the guy behind the desk notices me, and says, “Hey you gotta unlock it.” I look down, and sure enough there is a deadbolt. It’s situated on the left side of the door, so I did the natural move of trying to turn it right.
The guy says “No, you gotta turn it LEFT. Read the sign…”
So now I look and sure enough, there’s an InkJet-printed, ClipArt-style sign on the door instructing me to turn the dead bolt left to escape.
Mind you, I’ve exited this door 150, 200, 300 times? And never had an issue, never dealt with deadbolts, never needed a sign.
In fact I’m generally very good at door exiting. I wouldn’t say I’m perfect, but I’m elite. If there’s a door and I need to get through it, 99.99% chance I’m gonna figure out the path forward in a matter of seconds.
Yet here I am, looking like a doofus. Having put down my keys, water bottle, iPhone and AirPods, and now working the door with one hand and the lock with the other, I finally break free.
Dude says, “Yeah, you got it!”
I gave him a look. “So we’re doing this EVERY time now?”
“Yep!”
Fantastic.
Why was this so frustrating to me? Because I know with a few tweaks, the situation could have been so different. So let’s talk about the context:
- This guy sees me there all the time.
- He knows I am accustomed to their old way of opening the door.
- He also knows they just updated the door opening procedure to a new way nobody is familiar with yet.
- He also knows no patron / customer / client / guest has ever had to turn a deadbolt to leave a public/retail establishment.
Armed with all this valuable information, he could have created a completely different experience – and feeling in me – if he had simply leveraged the CONTEXT of the situation.
A common saying in Marketing is “Content is King.” Blogs, emails like this, videos, etc. And sure those things are important.
But Content does not rise to the level of Kingliness.
So if not content, what rules the Communications Kingdom?
Well… in marketing, in sales, in communications, in your everyday life, the secret is… “CONTEXT is king.”
For example in this situation – Context (which we just discussed) should lead him to think oh, here’s one of our valuable members who hasn’t messed with our weird new door lock yet. Let me show him how…
And he could simply say “Hey bro, we’re actually doing some security updates so we’ve swapped the lock mechanism. Let me show you real quick.” And give me a 10-second tutorial.
Bonus points if he commiserates with me using a line like, “and just remember to turn it left. I keep wanting to turn it right because of the side of the door it’s on, but it’s a lefty turn.”
So if he does this, what is he doing?
- Understanding the context of my situation
- Creating context for me so I better understand what’s happening
And if this hypothetical exchange happened vs what ACTUALLY happened… it would have been a night-and-day difference in the experience I had.
Yeah, I’d probably still think it was a little silly to unlock the door when I have to leave. But I wouldn’t have felt like an idiot, wasted my time or gotten frustrated.
And this is why context is king. Because today, your team will have 100s of interactions… large and small… on the phone, via SMS and in person…
And the CONTEXT of the situation informs (or SHOULD inform) the approach you take in your communication.
We touched on this in our Jam Session live coaching meetup earlier this week. So if you’re a Green Room member, check that out. (We’ll be doing more of a deep dive on it next week, and also discussing in our Role Play and other live coaching calls.)
Understand context, create context. This is a key element of leadership (and falls under the “Educate Into Awareness” pillar of our E3 Conversion System), and it ties directly into converting more leads to consults and consults to surgery.
For more info on our coaching programs, hit reply and ask away. I’ll have a few questions about your current situation, then once I know the CONTEXT, I can steer you in the right direction.
Go forth and practice leveraging context today, and enjoy your weekend.
T-Cole
PS – Bonus for you – a brief look into the context of the guy behind the counter.
He has his normal duties, and also had seen 200 people fiddle with the lock that day. He was probably tired of talking about it.
At the same time, it’s like… ‘solve your own problem.’ Test a more efficient, more friendly way of informing people on what’s going on. It’ll save you time and make the job more enjoyable AND create a better experience for everyone.
ALSO, tell the boss “Hey this new process is causing a lot of confusion. Here are some ideas can we do to change / educate / fix it?” Plenty more to say on that from my many in-office observations, but we’ll save it for another email…