Michael Drew Part 2 - How To Develop An Intimate Relationship With Clients During The “We” Era
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Today’s guest Michael Drew is one of the world’s leading experts on how to write a bestselling book, and he excels at helping clients find their soul purpose in service to their fellow man. Michael shares with us his insights about the pendulum effect and how to effectively develop an intimate relationship with your clients.
Finding your Soul Purpose and Amplifying Your Voice
Michael’s agency defines its own soul purpose as helping clients find their voice and then amplify it. He cites his client John Maxwell, who has been voted the number one leadership expert in the world, as a powerful example. John had already achieved a great deal of success, but wanted to do something to give back. Because he believes everyone should be living lives of meaning and significance, he launched a movement at GetIntentional.com to inspire a million people to make just 3 percent of their daily actions intentional in the service of others.
He believes that’s all it takes for a person’s life to be noted as meaningful and significant, and the movement has seen amazing success and participation after just a few months.
Michael specializes in working with clients like John who have already established themselves as experts but have hit a ceiling. He helps these clients to amplify their voice and increase their reach through a process of “uncovery,” which consists of the following three steps:
- Define who you are and what your objective is.
- Determine who is your customer, both demographically and psychographically by creating intricate representative personas.
- Follow a conversion bridge to align your goals to those of your customer base using the 12 steps of intimacy.
Understanding the pendulum and how it affects marketing
Michael emphasizes that understanding the pendulum effect in human society and how that causes us to move back and forth between “me cycles” and “we cycles” is key to knowing how to connect with your clients in a meaningful way.
Pendulum refers to the 40-year periods society cycles between — “me cycles” are a period of freedom and self expression, whereas “we cycles” are about community and the common good. There is value to both cycles, but humans always take a good thing too far, which eventually causes the youth of society to reject one cycle and start the next. This pattern has repeated like clockwork throughout human history.
The 1980s, for example, represented the apex of a “me cycle,” when freedom of self expression gave way to a plastic culture in which materialism was highly celebrated and many customers became highly aspirational. This made people susceptible to manipulation and gave rise to the era of “pick up artist” marketers who used manipulative psychological ploys to gain customers.
But a cultural shift began in the 1990s and gained strength in the early 2000s, marking the beginning of another “we cycle.” This fundamental cultural shift has created our current society , which values authenticity and transparency.
Pull marketing and the 12 steps of intimacy
In our current “we cycle” environment, pick up marketing (AKA douche bag marketing) has no value, as this approach follows a “burn and churn” model that sacrifices long-term client relationships for short-term transactions. Whereas the me cycle was about push, the we cycle about pull. This essentially comes down to the difference between seduction and intimacy, and the two are absolutely mutually exclusive.
Recognizing that intimacy is the most effective means of engaging customers today, Michael and his business partner sought guidance from the marriage counseling industry. This led them to adopt the same 12 steps of intimacy that form the foundation of a successful long-term romantic relationship.
Interestingly, they found very little difference in how those steps were applied in successful business relationships – the same principles held true, and a the intimate approach to marketing was born.
