Angle: Mistake#24. Colonel Sanders And The Secret Of Finger Lickin’ Chicken. You think acting this way gives you credibility. It actually kills trust, dead in its tracks.
Have you injected some humanity? People buy from people. People pay most attention to people. We are highly tuned to pay attention to people’s faces. We tend to trust people less when we can’t see them.
Too many small companies try to hide behind a “brand” so as not to expose themselves to rejection or ridicule. The truth is it takes a decade to build a brand. And every major brand spends a fortune trying to make themselves seem more human and down to earth. McDonald’s has Ronald. KFC has the Colonel (who by all accounts hated what the company had done with his business after he’d sold it to them). But the need to connect with a face, to feel like we are transacting with another person is huge. We have been trading with other humans and pre-humans (and working out whether we trust them, since the beginning of our time. Brands are an invention of the modern world, so hiding behind one just won’t cut it).
We have to understand that even the best creators of anything in the world, are only appreciated by half the people out there. That’s if you’re world class. So, its not our job to try to please or be accepted by everyone. We’re usually only looking for 1 or 2 or 3% of people who can really connect with us enough to trust us and exchange value. What the other 90%+ think about us really is irrelevant as a start-up. Most of our effort should be directed to getting through the masses to find and connect with that 2 or 3%. And our greatest tool to connect with those guys is the real US.
Pulling the “introvert” card doesn’t work. We have to give people a face, a name, a personality to connect with. Some of the best writers, thought leaders and believe it or not public speakers, are highly introverted. But they want to build a successful business, more than they want to hide behind a label.
Whilst we, as the founders and creators of companies are critical to the sales process, people also like to see the real faces of other customers. This creates a strong sense of social proof. So it’s worth going to the effort to include headshots, or video of everyone who talks about you.
The general rule should be – add as many faces as possible. Faces that communicate the necessary emotions you are trying to convey at the time. We are highly tuned to notice and read the subtleties of human faces.