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Name: Personality Not Included
Rating: 3.9 (15 reviews)
Author: Rohit Bhargava

Rohit Bhargava

Why Companies Lose Their Authenticity and How Great Brands Get it Back

3.9 (15 ratings)

15 mins

Table of Contents

Personality Not Included
summarized in 7 key ideas

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Key idea 1 of 7

What’s in it for me? Learn how to build a strong personality for your company.

Imagine you’re on your way to the airport in a taxi. Your driver strikes up a conversation and, because he turns out to be an entertaining person, you make a note of his number and promise to call him the next time you need a ride to the airport.

As you get to the airport and board your flight, the airline attendants present a friendly face, but everything they say seems to come directly from their corporate handbook. In short, they don’t show personality.

Whose praises will you sing to your friends and colleagues: the taxi driver or the flight attendants? The driver, obviously. To build a successful business of any kind – even a one-man taxi firm – your company needs personality.

These blinks will teach you how to prevent your business from being faceless. You’ll learn how to create a strong and convincing personality for your company and why this helps you acquire customers.

You’ll also learn

what the three numbers on every Dole banana tell you;
why your auto mechanic wants to give you technical insights while repairing your car; and
why you should listen to what your customers don’t say.

Companies used to aim for a faceless image, but authentic connections are more effective.

You can travel to just about any city in the world and know that the McDonald’s you find there will be nearly identical to the branch in your hometown. In this way, McDonald’s is a prime example of a faceless company – their restaurants have no individual identity.

This approach is a vestige of a past in which, if a company wanted to give off an air of success and trustworthiness, it erased any personality. As a result, the more success it experienced, the more layers were built between the corporation and its customers.

There was no expectation that any customer could talk directly to a staff member with power or responsibility because any company whose management had that kind of time couldn’t be big, successful or dependable.

That’s all changed. Now success depends on forging a bond with your customer, although many companies remain faceless and disconnected.

A disproportionate focus on rules and policies is a common mistake. Just consider airlines. The author once got bumped from a flight – even though the plane still had an empty seat – because the airline had a policy of not assigning new seats within 30 minutes of departure. Worse, if he had called his travel agent and booked a ticket for the same seat, he would have been able to stay on the flight.

If you’ve ever had a similar experience, you know how frustrating it is! Only a faceless company would treat its customers this way.

Instead, to create a true bond with your customers, you’ve got to give your company a voice. Take BzzAgent. They’re a word-of-mouth marketing company that started a blog to host articles by their employees detailing their excitement and personal stories about moving offices. This simple idea helped BzzAgent’s customers get to know the company while holding their attention and growing the firm.

A spokesperson can highlight the human side of your brand – or destroy it.

Companies tend to have spokespeople, but have you ever wondered why?

Well, employing a spokesperson is a fantastic way to put a human face on your brand and prove that you don’t just exist to make money. To accomplish this, a spokesperson talks about their brand in public. As the founder of a company, you can be your own spokesperson.

Instead of relying on marketing stunts, use a simple tool to create a strong brand personality.

So, grabbing the attention of customers and personalizing your brand is key, but how do you go about it?

Well, many companies create a lot of noise around their brand through sensational marketing ideas. But this focus on stunts won’t build a lasting personality for your firm.

Giving your business a backstory will foster an emotional connection between customers and product.

Everybody loves a good story, which makes credible narratives an awesome tool for building authenticity for your brand. After all, a solid backstory will create an emotional connection between your customers and your product.

Just take Dole. Each Dole banana comes labeled with a three-digit farm code that customers can look up online to learn how that banana was grown, complete with personal reports from actual farmers. Through this tactic, Dole has built a meaty backstory with which customers can interact.

Four barriers stop your company finding its personality.

Have you ever stayed at a job you hated just because you were scared of change? Fear like this can block you from making progress – and it has the same effect on businesses.

Most companies are scared of lateral thinkers who come up with ideas that challenge or change their current practices. So, instead of encouraging their employees to think outside the box, they urge them to follow instructions and fall in line.

Building personality depends on identifying the moment when you connect with your customers.

Fostering a truly special experience with your customers requires proper attention to detail but it also means jumping at every chance you get to meaningfully connect with them. Such opportunities are called personality moments, and they allow you to convey your brand’s image, making your customer love your product and come back for more.

These moments are driven by small things – minute gestures that are easy to write off as insignificant or to miss altogether. The oil change shop, Oil Can Henry’s, created a personality moment by giving customers the opportunity to watch mechanics service their cars.

Listening to and respecting your customers will build your company’s personality.

In any workplace, respect is the cornerstone on which you build support for what you believe in. But respect isn’t just essential between coworkers; it’s also important to show respect to your customers.

It’s critical when developing the personality of your business. To get others to show you respect, you’ve first got to show it to them.

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What is Personality Not Included about?

Personality Not Included (2008) explains how to build an awesome public face for your company. These blinks teach you how to develop a strong personality for your business, explain why that’s so important and help you clear the barriers between you and business success.

Best quote from Personality Not Included

A culture built on fear leads to individuals and companies that are afraid of change.

—Rohit Bhargava

Who should read Personality Not Included?

Entrepreneurs and leaders who want to build or improve their businesses
CEOs who want to put a face on their company
Marketing novices and experts alike

About the Author

Rohit Bhargava is the founder of Influential Marketing Group and an expert in building brand influence. He has written five bestselling books on the topic.

Categories with Personality Not Included

Marketing & Sales

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