Personalization Principle #1: Authenticity

My new book The Seven Personalization Principles: Learn the Principles to Thrive in these Disruptive Times is officially available on Amazon.

The book examines how humans add value in service interactions with personalization. Technology including, robots, apps and kiosks have already displaced millions of jobs worldwide. The quest for productivity and efficiency will ensure that technology continues to proliferate in every facet of our professional and personal lives.

Whether you are a business leader or individual contributor, figuring out how to keep your value proposition relevant is going to be critical for your ongoing survival. Just like many other cycles in business, the integration of technology is going to require, in fact demand, contextualization from human beings.

Over the next several weeks, I am going to release the 7 principles. Since each one of these principles has its own unique attributes I am going to release them individually with the caveat that they are all interdependent and require synchronicity and harmony between all.

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If you are not great at all seven then you are going to be beaten, commoditized and disrupted by someone who has mastered these seven principles. What I mean is you can’t be great at six of these principles and suck at one and expect to earn customers, have them buy more, stay longer and positively tell others, unless you are equally great at each and every one of the seven principles.

Personalization Principle #1: Authenticity

Pure authenticity is the exact opposite of fake. Do you want to deal with someone who is fake? Do you want to give your money to someone who puts their needs before you? Do you want to have interactions with a company, a team or a person who cares more about themselves than your expectations?

If you truly want to stand out today, if you want to be seen as someone who is a great teammate, if you want to be seen as someone who is promotable and seen as someone who is the “go to” girl or guy, then authenticity should be at the core of everything you do.

Let’s face it, there are too many fakers, posers and self-interested people that it is refreshing and rare when you have an opportunity to interact with someone who treats you with empathy and authenticity. If you are not authentic, then you are pretty much as useful as a doormat.

Do you know how important authentic acknowledgement is? One of the most unused and under appreciated skills and business tools is the power of an authentic acknowledgement.

Regardless of if:

• you are thanking an awesome customer for sharing their story about what it is like to be your customer
• you are thanking your team for their awesome efforts
• you are praising your child for proactively finishing their homework
• any of the other unlimited possibilities where acknowledgement can get you more of what you want

I believe one of the most important things to remember is that if you are going to acknowledge someone, when you are doing it in person, there is nothing more powerful, personalized or authentic than eye contact.

I know that human beings crave authentic, personalized, hassle-free interactions.

I am still puzzled today after the millions and millions of books, trainings and tapes that have been disseminated that there is still such a lack of authentic, positive, sincere acknowledgement used in business today.

In today’s fast-paced environment with iPhones, tablets, Kindles, BlackBerrys, wearables, apps and a million other things, a personalized, authentic, friendly thank you can make someone’s day or even week!

People don’t get enough authenticity in their interactions with other human beings.

Find out more about the 7 Personalization Principles here or buy the book on Amazon.