Hey, it’s Bob Negen. And in this episode of Real Retail TV, you will learn about the emotional bank account. One of the most important things that you need to consider when you’re planning out your marketing. I first learned about the emotional bank account 20, 30 years ago when I was reading Steven Covey’s 7 Habits of Highly Effective People.

And Covey contends and I agree that for any relationship to be strong, there needs to be 10 deposits for any withdrawal. And while Covey was just talking about relationships in general, I immediately took his idea and applied it to my retail business. And so the emotional bank account holds true with your community. It certainly holds true with your staff.

You need to coach and prays 10 times for every correction, every disciplinary action that you have. But it especially holds true for marketing, because what we’re trying to do as marketers of independent retail businesses is we’re trying to get people to know us, like us and trust us. We want them to feel really good about being our customers. We want them to be enthusiastic about their experiences.

And we want them to tell their friends. So when you understand this idea of the emotional bank account and you’re trying to build a strong relationship with your customers, you start to look at your marketing efforts through the lens of give or take deposits or withdrawals. And a deposit is any time in your marketing that you give them something that is of value to them. If you send them an email that’s filled with a valuable tip, that is a give, right?

That’s a deposit. Let’s say you put a funny meme up on social media. That is a gift, that is a deposit. Let’s say you put really great information up on your website.

That’s a give. That’s a deposit. Let me give you a couple of examples. Let’s say that you are in the women’s clothing, fashion, business and color trends came out.

If you were to make a video about that and post it on your website, send it out in an email posted on social media. That would be a gift. That would be a deposit. If you were a bike store and you posted all of your favorite trails on your website, that would be a deposit if one of your customers took a bike trip out West and sent you pictures that you post it on social media so that other people could live vicariously through this person who was out West.

Those would all be gifts. Any time you ask a customer to do anything for you, that’s a withdrawal. If you say, I’m having a sale, come on in, that’s a withdrawal. If you’re having a promotion and you’re saying, please come to my promotion, that’s a withdrawal.

So what we’re trying to do is we’re trying to proactively build the balance because just like a real bank account, the emotional bank account, the bigger your balance, the more you can withdraw. If you try to make too many withdrawals from a low balance, what happens? You bounce the check. But I see it happen all the time and I’m sure you do.

Two pitch, pitch, pitch, pitch, pitch, pitch, pitch, pitch dealer all day. That’s not how we as independent retailers need to market our business. We are in the business of building relationships, and our marketing needs to reflect that desire to give way more than we get. Givers get the emotional bank account and paying attention to the balance you have with your customers is one of the keys to your marketing success.