On Barry White Jr. and Personalized Consumer Engagement
My prettier half tagged me on a video making the rounds on social media. After viewing the video, the curious cat in me began sniffing and looking up this Barry White Jr. fellow.
I realized that he is a 5th grade English teacher at Ashley Park PreK-8 School in Charlotte, North Carolina, USA.
In an interview with ABC News, Barry said that he was inspired to do his personalized handshakes when he saw his basketball idol, LeBron James of the Cleveland Cavaliers also doing the same thing with his teammates before every basketball match.
Mr White also revealed that this ritual began with having a personalized handshake with a 4th grader some months ago. Now, according to him, all 3rd graders want personalized handshakes with him too!
Below are lessons I believe brands (personal or corporate) can learn from Barry White Jr. and his nationally acclaimed personalized handshakes:
1. START SMALL: Barry began this ritual with only 1 student in 4th grade in 2016… hear him:
“I started with one simple handshake last year with a 4th grader,” he explained. “She would wait for me every morning before she’d go to class. She’d get in trouble sometimes for being late because she’d wait on the handshake."
2. BE CONSISTENT: Once Barry started personalized handshakes, he didn’t try to introduce something else. He never stopped.
3. GROW ORGANICALLY (Don’t try to buy growth) From 1 student, then 2 students at recess, and then the class.
Hear him again:
“This year I started making handshakes with the kids at recess. It was just one or two students and then it became contagious,” he added. “I saw how much it meant to them, so I said, ‘Come on. Everyone come on.’ Then it was my full class, then it was kids from other classes.
There are 3 major differences between organic growth and paid growth:
a. While organic growth is sustainable, paid-for-growth is not
b. While organic growth takes the brand through actual learning and developmental curves, adding value by the time it gets to her destination, and making you and your team better for it; paid-for-growth adds no value, doesn’t help you learn anything, and does not make you better.
c. While organic growth ensures you have truly engaged consumers/customers/followers, paid-for-growth is just a north facing curve on the presentation
4. WORK HARD: There has never being any replacement for hard-work in the success equation. Imagine learning a special complicated personalized handshake for at least 20 students, memorizing it, and repeating it with the students every day!
5. TOUCHPOINT IS EVERYTHING: “They know when they get to the front door we do our ‘good mornings,’ and then it’s time to go,” If as a child, you remember any brand whose commercial you used to look forward to seeing either at the beginning, middle and end of the programme, then, the brand surely did a good job with the communication idea, production, target audience segmentation, media channel selection and programme selection. If the brand missed as little as one of the afore-mentioned, then you would remember neither the ads nor the programme. Good placement gets the consumer waiting for your communication or engagement to come on.....literally and figuratively!
6. MULTI-CHANNEL TRUMPS UNI-CHANNEL: The beauty of multi-channel engagement is that it is enabling, and helps ensure that the strength of Channel A can compensate for the weakness of Channel B without compromising the communication objectives. Hear him: “For example, I started a step team at the school. Some of my 5th graders I teach are on that step team and you’ll notice we step a little bit in their handshakes.”
7. IT’S OKAY TO BORROW AN IDEA: Barry was inspired to have personalized handshakes when he saw LeBron James doing it with his team mates at the Chicago Cavaliers. Even though LeBron was a basketball player doing this with team mates, Barry successfully implemented the idea in a 5th grade English class.
Click this link to see the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I0jgcyfC2r8
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