Agile In Action There (Intern Edition)

You know how there are things you feel deeply about regarding business and life that you wish others felt? Some things come naturally to you and you wish they would for the people you work with. Furthermore, how often have you realized there is a thought ravine between you and the people you want to get on board with your ideas? There must be ways to get your message through. How do you bridge this mental valley?

Familiarity and Consistency

There is a saying, "Familiarity breeds contempt." We all have heard that and accept it as true. Thankfully, that is not the case. I learned in business school in the late 1990's that familiarity actually breeds liking. How can that be? Well, the research on this is so clear it is called the familiarity principle or the mere-exposure effect. People prefer things that they are familiar with. They tend to develop a preference for things merely because they are well known from either long or close association. This is the case for lots of things, including people. Have you ever pondered that?

I also learned that it takes about 7 touches before a prospective buyer will take an action to purchase your product or service. That number may be higher today with all the social media going on. With so much information coming at us all the time, I imagine you want each touch to have a consistent message. Otherwise, you may need more touches to get through. Then again, maybe you need to just keep touching given all the random distractions, noise, and advertisements you are competing with? I think consistency is key.

Quality 

Familiarity and consistent outreach will only go so far. Quality has to be there. Once you get through, it has to be worthwhile for someone to have leapt across the thought ravine to where you are. Otherwise, they will leap back and may never consider your offering again. Basically, there has to be a there there.

If that is the case, then consumers will speak highly of your offering to others and people will naturally cross the ravine to you. What's nice about that is that over time the ravine turns into a small gully. With so many people saying so, there becomes agreement that you have something of quality that is worthy of one's time or money.

A Podcast

With all this as the background, I write concisely today to share about an extraordinary Agile In Action podcast I was on recently. There I talked about what is possible in the world of internships. I invite you to click on it and jump across the ravine for a few minutes. Learn about bringing dignity to internships.

Summer is just around the corner and the familiar, consistent high qualtiy of Agile Rainmakers is there in this podcast.

Now, if my misspelling of "quality" above made you smile, please click on that podcast.

Here's to you and your awesome future.

Until then, keep your feet on the board and keep riding your wave!

Robert J. Khoury

CEO Agile Rainmakers