Can You Sell Hope?

 
David Bosshart's key message at the 10th European Foodservice Summit was simple: hope is the way to success. He also summoned his listeners to leave behind old thinking patterns and to increase awareness of surging countertrends.
 
Whether at home, at work or on the move, nowadays, it's a matter of course that direct access to information is available almost everywhere. "However," Bosshart pointed out in Zurich, "what's more important than direct access to information is direct access to the emotions of people." While major emotional patterns determining daily behaviours have a definite dark side to them (e.g. greed, fear, humiliation), there is one that can positively influence the mood of people: hope. This is the emotion entrepreneurs must tap into in order to meet with success. This is true as regards staff as well as customers: "It's demotivating to think that the glass is half empty. So, when you stand in front of your employees as a CEO, telling them something about Ebit, current figures and the business plan, you have to infuse them with hope. If you fail to do that, people will immediately notice. And then you can forget about your business plan - you just won't succeed."
 
There's a scientific reason for this, too, as Bosshart stressed by citing Lionel Tiger, Professor of Charles Darwin Anthropology at Rutgers University, NJ: "A healthy human being tends to err on the side of optimism in estimating his or her chances of success, and this error paradoxically renders the desired outcome more likely. Hope is a survival trait. Nothing ventured, nothing gained, and the more commitment and spirit there is invested in an enterprise, the better its prospects for achievement." In other words: hope is like a placebo working on the emotional rather than on the rational side. As a consequence, mood management may help a company to thrive even in times of downturn.
 
The same psychological effect may be achieved with customers: "If you have customer contact on a daily basis, you can increase confidence and trust, and, most importantly: you can increase your perceived competence." Guests need to be ascertained that a company is capable of catering to their needs even in very tough times.
 
Websites are another tool for reaching out to potential customers on an emotional level: the information and pictures posted convey a certain mood (e.g. romantic, energetic). Consequently, they influence a person's choice of visiting or not visiting the according place.
 
In the same context, Bosshart also advised his listeners against discounting, which he referred to as a reactive fear-strategy (by issuing discounts, you admit fear of losing customers). His advice for selling hope (to staff and customers):

1. Communication is more important than ever - share and cooperate.
2. Turn bad news into good news (if you can't change things, change the way you look at them) - but be honest.
3. Remember: service is the future.
4. People look back at better times: celebrate the past in an innovative way, reconnect.
5. Focus on practical dimensions: small improvements with immediate rewards.
6. Simplicity: choice is less important than the right selection.

 
"No more business as usual," Bosshart concluded pointing out to his listeners that the crisis - if looked at from the right angle - could also be a good time for gaining market shares.
 
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| 1 February 2010 | Katrin Wissmann |