CEOs  •  CMOs  •  VPs and Directors  •  Managers  •  Young Professionals

Who's The Real Hero? You Or Your Customer?

Ken Rutsky, President & Principal Consultant, KJR Associates, and author of Launching to Leading

In The Lego Movie, our hero Emmet lives in a world where "Everything is Awesome", until one morning when he is shocked into a new world where "Lord Business" threatens the very existence he knows and loves so much.  After suffering a crisis dangerous to his very way of life, Emmet comes back from near-death to capture the pièce de résistance -- defeat Lord Business and return to make his world even more Awesome than it was at the start.

Emmet's story follows the classic form of The Hero's Journey, an archetypal story pattern first identified by Joseph Campbell in his 1949 classic work, The Hero With 10,000 Faces. One of the reasons The Lego Movie was such a hit is that this story type resonates deep within our psyches -- moving us emotionally, psychologically, and intellectually.

What does this possibly have to do with B2B marketing?

It ends up that as B2B marketers you can tap into the same effect, by telling your customers' Hero's Journeys.  By making your solution the pièce de résistance, you can arm your customers with the magic they need to defeat their market enemies, helping transform their own companies and worlds into even more awesome ones. To achieve this you need to tell their story -- not yours!

Start with their world, and help transform it into a better place, keeping in mind that your magical product or solution is a supporting character -- not the main one.  When you do this, EVERYTHING IS AWESOME!

I welcome your comments.

Ken Rutsky, author of Launching to Leading President and Principal Consultant KJR Associates

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