If I have a “core value” around marketing, it’s probably the principle of positive reinforcement — the same technique you might use to train an adorable puppy dog.
Sometimes folks get concerned when I talk about applying puppy-training principles to business, marketing, or productivity.
The worry goes along the lines of:
I don’t want to turn my customer into some kind of trained seal that jumps through any hoop at my command.”
There are two pieces of good news here.
- You’re a decent human being who’s not trying to control or manipulate people.
- Even if you were a supervillain who wanted to mentally enslave your audience, as marketers we honestly don’t have that kind of power.
Before we start our new series on how positive reinforcement (what trainers sometimes call R+) can help you reach your goals and do amazing things, it might be useful to do a little mythbusting about what these techniques can and can’t do.
Positive reinforcement isn’t something you do “to” someone
R+ isn’t about you imposing your will on your kids, your customers, your dog, your goldfish, or anyone else.
It’s about finding a mutually rewarding exchange of behavior.
For example:
- My puppy sits, I give her a treat
- My son does his homework without me nagging, he gets free time on his computer to code his personal projects
- You sign up for this series, I send you the ideas and strategies that I think you’ll find beneficial
- You sit down to write your blog post without procrastination, you get to take a beautiful walk to the park and enjoy the fresh air and sunshine
In the dog training world, R+ is making huge inroads into “traditional” training that was based on pain and fear. Getting any being to do your bidding in order to escape pain is coercive.
By the way, you can use R+ with yourself, too. In fact, it’s an underused — and smart — way to improve your habits.
What’s wrong with the traditional way?
If I smack my puppy when she “does something wrong,” she may learn to “do it right.” She may also learn that I’m untrustworthy. Rather than learning the behaviors that make her a good member of the household, she’s as likely to learn to misbehave behind the sofa or under the bed so she doesn’t get in trouble.
In the same way, if you call yourself a million nasty names because you procrastinated this morning, you might buckle down for awhile. You might also develop an even bigger, uglier block against working until the last possible second.
And the example I could use for customers? About the closest I can get is the relationship we have with cable providers. Getting cable service or dealing with a billing problem is often an exercise in rage, wasted time, and frustration.
So what do an increasing number of us do? Find an alternative. I’ll pay Netflix or Amazon to watch shows on demand rather than spend another hour of my life on the phone with a cable company.
And because you’re not the cable company — you probably have direct competitors, for example — you simply can’t get away with treating people poorly. It’s too easy for them to find another option.
Besides … it’s no fun to be despised. It’s much better to become a welcomed, happy partner.
Positive reinforcement changes how you see the world
A cool side benefit to using R+ is that you start to see the world very differently.
Instead of what most people do, which is scanning the world looking for problems, you start to look for the good stuff.
That’s because R+ works by reinforcing what you want to see more of — so you become more attuned to it.
- You think about how to turn challenges into games
- You think about how to deliver more value
- You think about partnerships, rather than exploitation
It’s just more fun than trying to make people do what you want … and it works about a zillion times better.
So have no fear. We’re not talking about turning anyone into a trained seal. We’ll be talking about ethical, fun, and practical ways to reach our goals while helping our audiences get there too.
Not manipulation. Not condescension. Just lots of observation, empathy, and reinforcement.
The series starts Thursday, I hope you’ll join us! If you haven’t already signed up to get the blog updates, you can drop your deets into the boxes below.
I’ll also send you a success mini-course I’ve been working on. It shares positive, enjoyable strategies to get yourself moving and keep your momentum. That’s an eight-part series that you get by email, and it includes easy (fun) homework that will help you get a handle on that Big, Exciting Project you’ve been trying to tackle.
Talk with you soon! Leave a comment below if you have any other questions about how positive reinforcement might work in a business context — I’m happy to share my ideas!
I was just listening to the podcast earlier today. You weren’t kidding about being completely puppy obsessed lately.
I never kid about my obsessions.
😉
Great post. I’ve been following along with interest. But to your point about positive reinforcement vs. negative–what’s to keep a puppy (or potential client) from doing what we’d like only when a reward is involved? Isn’t that the same unwanted outcome? Perhaps I’m mixing metaphors here…I suppose my point is, once you entice someone to follow/read/buy/do whatever your intended outcome, how do you keep that momentum going forward…am signing up for your series!
That’s a great question — and it does come up in the R+ community all the time. How do we keep the behavior going after the initial “lure”?
I think for business (since that’s really what we’re talking about) 🙂 it’s about making sure that the environment continues to reinforce the behavior you want. A mistake I see all the time is companies (big or small) that create great incentives to become customers — then they treat their existing customers horribly.
You see this with discounts also — I have companies I deal with that I never buy from unless they send a coupon, because they do it so often that they’ve trained me to wait.
It should be rewarding to be around you. It’s not always “special treats” (for puppies or people) — the enticements are there to get the behavior rolling and reinforce early habits. But it should always feel good do business with your organization. Not that there won’t be snags (there are always snags), but if you handle them well and fix them for the future, snags are ok.
Thanks so much for taking the time to answer. What a great point about being trained to wait for a discount. Yes, I do it, too.
Basically, I see that so much of this is not that mysterious at all–it boils down to being a decent human being and treating others how we’d want to be treated…whether puppy or potential client. 😉