Real world example

Had a great personal experience yesterday that I want to share, because it's illustrative of a marketing truth -

You've heard that "when people pay, they pay attention"

In our industry, that's typically a prelude to a pitch for an multi-thousand dollar coaching program.

No shade, I have helped to sell quite a few.

But this expression has a little of the smell of a stale cliché.

For better or worse though, it happens to be true.

Here's a real world example:

My 9 year old daughter has an issue with dry skin on her face every winter.

It's cold and damp and windy here in Ireland, so this is typical.

I've bought her many different pocket sized containers of skin balms and barrier creams to help.

And I've reminded her to apply them several times a day, but no improvement.

She kept forgetting to apply the product, and then losing the container it was in.

I had many long talks with her about self-care and wellness, trying to change her behavior.

If this sounds extreme to you, please rest assured she's already a deep thinker, and I pitch the conversation at a level she understands.

In any case, it didn't help.

Nothing changed with her behavior, and the skin issue didn't go away.

Until yesterday.

We were in town and she was complaining that her face felt dry.

So I sent her into a health store to buy a product with her own pocketmoney.

She explained her problem to the store assistant, got help to choose a product she wanted, and paid with her own money.

This morning, I found her applying the product she bought in the mirror, UNPROMPTED.

This was a magical moment for me as a parent.

My daughter is now proactively taking responsibility for her own health outcome.

And the only thing that changed was she purchased the solution with her own money.

Can't wait to see where else this leads and how I can use this principle more as both my kids grow up.

Your trusted advisor,

John Caprani