Show Me You Care

Ever been in a heated argument, only for someone to exclaim “Why should I care!?”. It can often come across as rude, abrasive or immature, but I’ve been thinking about it and they’ve got a point.

Why should we care? No really?

These days we’re bombarded from every direction, notifications following us around, adverts at every turn and that’s without factoring in real, in person human interaction. We’re on overload.

If it’s not packaged in 140 characters do you really expect me to pay attention?

And honestly, why should we care?

Filtering through the noise

Despite the bombardment, there are still things we should be paying attention to. It might be a new song from an unknown artist, a relationship with an old friend, or a colleague recommending a great new book. Despite the noise, there is still value, still gems to be found.

So, how then do you filter through the noise? And more importantly, how should you, as a creator, capture someones attention?

For me, it’s simple.

Show them you care.

Yep, show them you care. As humans we’re hard wired for connection. Connect with the user.

Earlier today I was listening to a track by a new artist (to me at least), Ben Howard, and was quite enjoying it. The song was good, but not overly memorable. Then at one point in the song I heard a subtle detail, that many wouldn’t notice, that added only a tiny amount to the song itself. However, it, along with the overall sound, showed me this was someone who cared about creating good music. They cared about the details.

A while back I had a debate with Mike, as we often do. This time it was about how I often judge a book by its cover and how, contrary to popular opinion, I’m quite comfortable doing so.

We’re often told not to judge a book by its cover and on the face of it (no pun intended) that seems right. I wholeheartedly agree with this when talking about someone’s natural beauty. In no way is how beautiful someone is a good judge of a persons worth or ability.

But that said, for the things we can control, I expect more. I expect you to show me you care. All the more when someone or something is making an ask of me.

It’s simple really. If you want me to care, show me you do.

With a book this means spending time (and money if necessary) on design. If you, as an author, expect me to invest time reading your book then I expect you to invest in making it great. That includes how it looks.

With the song in question it was making an ask of my time, whether I should spend the few minutes listening to it or listen to something else. The countless little details that had gone into that song showed me this was someone who cared, someone who appreciated their craft and took the time to make something great.

The great majority of our friendships fade with time – it’s only natural. So if there’s someone you want to keep in your life then, yep, you guessed it, show them you care. It may be the warmth of your embrace as you see them next or a quick text message every now and then, but these little details go a long way to conveying the message that you care about them.

As creators, we’re desperate to capture the attention of our target audience. We spend countless hours on marketing and growth hacking, trying to bring people in, but there’s one simple tactic that will help capture your users attention.

Showing them you care.

But how?

So how should you do it? There’s an almost infinite amount of ways, with creativity as your only limitation and it will vary from situation to situation, but here’s a few ideas to get you started.

From crafting a beautiful, usable website to writing hand written letters to your early adopters; from spending time hearing from your users and crafting your product and message around their needs to adding little Easter eggs that will rarely be found; from taking the time to honestly share where you’re at to committing to reply to all emails within 30 minutes.

The important thing isn’t how you do it but simply that you do. You might not have the budget for an all the bells and whistles site, full transparency might not be the right fit for your situation and you might not have the man-power for super fast response times, but there will always be a way to connect with your users and show them you care. Make sure you do.

Early stage startups often have more time for doing the things that don’t scale, the more obviously personal, intimate moments. Is it any surprise our early adopters are our biggest advocates? They’re getting the VIP treatment.

We’re all in a constant battle for our attention, whether it’s the books we read, the people we see or the products we use. As makers we’re asking for the most precious thing each time someone uses our product, their time & attention.

It’s only fair then that we invest in creating a great user experience and show our users that we really do care.

So next time you’re meeting a friend or working on your latest product, take a step back and ask, how can I make this experience great? How could I make this better? How can I make this memorable?

And ultimately ask yourself, how can I show them I care?

Not a judge-a-book-by-its-coverer? Entering a period of enlightenment? Have some form of opinion? Scroll down a little and reply, I’d love to hear it.

Interested in launching side projects? Never launched or looking to up your launch game? I’m co-authoring a new book, “Learning to Launch”, sign up at LearningToLaunch.co and you’ll be the first to hear when it’s ready.

If you liked this post, click the little ❤ below to let your friends know.

Want more content like this? Click hit follow below, or hit me up on Twitter.