A Tale of Two Acts
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I recently assisted with a charity concert. It was an interesting and rewarding experience which gave me an insight into personal branding.
Two acts performed for this event. One was a well-known singer and his band, based in Nashville (I’ll refer to him as “Nashville”), the other was a local musician with his band (I’ll refer to him as “Austin”). Although both in the music entertainment business, each person was very unique in how he approached his performance and related to the people who hired him.
Nashville, being a successful performer and an even more successful song writer, commands a fair amount of money to perform. This is reasonable considering his stature in the business as well as his high operating costs. He also required a number of things in addition to the fee such as hotel rooms for him and his band members to during the time between sound checks and the performance, limousine service between the venue and the hotel, private meal service (not to be what was sold at concessions), and some liquor, beer and soft drinks. All in all it was an expensive proposition, especially for a nonprofit organization setting up a fund raising event.
Austin, on the other hand, is successful at the local level. His exposure is not nearly what Nashville’s is nor are his operating costs, thus his performance comes at a much lower cost (he even waived his portion of the band’s fee because the gig was for charity). He asked for nothing extra other than lunch and dinner and was content with whatever was at hand.
Nashville came in like he was all that and a bag of chips. He barely interacted with the people who organized the event and pretty much acted like he didn’t want to be there. With a couple of exceptions, his entourage displayed much the same attitude.
Austin, on the other hand, talked with the organizers of the event as well as the volunteers. Despite the fact that he played for free he went around and thanked everyone for inviting him and his band to participate. The people in his entourage also displayed pretty much the same attitude.
This comparison isn’t about money. I don’t hold it against Nashville that he asks to be paid and gets what the market will bear. This comparison is about attitude.
When you pay for a service, whether it’s a $10.00 service or a $10 thousand service, I think it’s reasonable to expect the service to be good and for there to be a reasonable amount of gratitude on part of the person being paid. After all, you could have gotten someone else to do whatever it is you had done.
From this comparison and if cost was not taken into consideration, which person do you think you’d rather perform at your function?
Who do you think displayed the better attitude toward his customers?
Think about this next time you’re interacting with your customers.
(The image depicts neither musician, by the way.)
photo credit: Ludo29880
