Love Your Customers as Yourself

In fact, I didn’t come up with this title.

It’s a verse from the Bible in Matthew 22:39 where he said:

“…Love your neighbor as yourself”

Apart from its religious meaning, this principle can also be used as a marketing concept.

This principle can actually be used in any domain if rephrased a little bit. For example, if you were a doctor, you could say: Love your patient as yourself. If so, how would you operate him? How would you talk to him? How would you feel and care about him?

Or maybe you are a salesperson, marketer or social media manager – Love your customers as yourself.

What does that really mean?

It’s a reverse engineering theory. If you don’t love yourself you can’t love your customer, right? If you don’t love what you do and you don’t care about your work, you can’t love your customer.

That means that everything we do, let’s say marketing, we should do with all our heart and give 100% interest and passion. No, I’m not getting into motivational theories, I just want to get to a point. A simple point that many of us often forget about.

The 2 climbers

There are 2 types of marketers out there: the one that climbs the mountain just to get to the top and the one that climbs the mountain for the experience: the air, the smell of the forest, the view.

The first type of marketers represent the ones who are result driven. After they get to one top they need another top, a bigger and a more difficult one. They don’t care about the experience. They only care about how to get higher and higher.

And the second type is characterized by experience driven marketers. They care about the top but it’s not the most important thing. They believe that the experience is worth more than being on top.

I don’t say that one is better than the other. What I say and believe is that a company should have both types marketers. Why? Because you need a balanced team between being realistic and being romantic about the experience.

The only thing similar between them is that they love what they do, they climb the mountain.

If they don’t care enough about themselves and don’t train before they start climbing, they can have real problems. So they should love themselves first and care enough to get ready to climb the mountain.

This is why I believe that this principle – love your customers as yourself should be the most important one a marketer knows.

Or at least, the first thing to think about when they start doing their job!

Take it, read it, apply it, share it with your fellow marketers, and then let me know if it changed your view on your work one way or another.