Читать книгу Oversubscribed - Daniel Priestley - Страница 16

In some small ways, I suppose I'm like a celebrity. Occasionally I get stopped on the street by someone who's read my books, attended my events or watched my videos online. I get asked to be interviewed on podcasts and blogs. People I don't know connect with me on social media and occasionally I get a gushing piece of fan mail.

The difference between me and real celebrities is that I'm famous for a small number of people – thousands rather than millions.

The good news is that's all it takes these days. You don't need to be on the big screen, talked about on gossip blogs or forever on the front page of the paper in order to have a fantastic business or life. You just need to be famous for a few thousand people.

Being famous simply means that people you've never met, in places you've never been, have an emotional connection to what you do. Prior to digital media, the only people who could achieve this were film stars, newspaper journalists, musicians who got on the radio or TV personalities. Those were the only methods of connecting with people in places you've never been.

Today things have changed dramatically; every person can have the equivalent of a TV show on YouTube, a talk‐radio show as a podcast or a newspaper in the form of a blog. What hasn't changed is how the human brain is wired.

The brain forms connections based on three key ingredients:

 Time – If you spend a lot of time with people, they start to bond with you. In particular, research into bonding behaviour suggests that spending more than seven hours with someone moves you beyond the “acquaintance” category and towards being a “friend.”

 Interactions – Having frequent exchanges of communication builds connection. Anyone who had an international pen pal will tell you that you can build a bond based on nothing other than writing letters to one another. In a research paper called “Zero Moments of Truth,” a Google thought leader discovered that when people had about 11 interactions with a brand, they were considerably more likely to buy from that brand.

 Locations – Seeing people in different places is another way stronger bonds are built. People who see each other only at work are not as bonded as people who also see each other in social settings or at sporting events. The magic number is four locations according to research into trust building.

If we spent 7 hours together, had 11 interactions between us and met up in 4 separate locations there's little doubt we would feel a bond. It would seem like we are more friends than acquaintances.

This makes sense from an evolutionary perspective. Our ape‐like ancestors had to learn who was a trustworthy member of the tribe and who was a potential threat. It stands to reason that if two homo sapiens have spent time and interacted in several places with each other they are part of the same tribe.

Therefore the key to carving out your own market is in the formula of 7‐11‐4. The more people you can clock up time, interactions and locations with, the more people will see you as different, unique and part of their tribe. Through this lens, a famous person is merely someone who has used media and technology to 7‐11‐4 people.

People who are star‐struck by Oprah have probably watched more than seven hours of her shows, interacted with her more than 11 times and seen her in four separate locations (e.g. TV, magazines, social media and newspapers). Looking at a mainstream celebrity it's easy to miss the fundamental 7‐11‐4 principle that works universally.

There are YouTube stars who have millions of subscribers watching them week in, week out. If one of their subscribers who has been sufficiently 7‐11‐4–ed saw them at a restaurant, they might fall off their chair in awe of being in the same room. Anyone else who's never heard of this person would find it bizarre because they have not had sufficient exposure this person.