Are You Not Entertained?

The Trappings of Value and What It Is: Part 4

To Start…

Have you ever seen that movie, Gladiator?  

Famous Ridley Scott movie from a couple decades ago, set in ancient Rome, about a guy named Maximus Decimus Meridius who was a powerful General, betrayed, reduced to the rank of slave…

…then Gladiator.  

Rising through the ranks of the Gladiators, there was a scene in that movie where after Maximus defeated several others in the arena.  He stands and stares down the crowd and shouts defiantly at them…

“Are you not entertained!?”

It’s a pretty powerful moment in the movie.  A classic scene.  

And you know it always reminds me that in ancient Rome, entertainment was used by the powers that be to control the common people.  A tool to distract them from a weakening autonomy giving way to imperialism.

But why did it work?

That’s what I want to talk with you about today.  

What’s this all about?

This idea of entertainment and how it ties into value.  

Entertainment value.  One of the most overlooked forms of value in the online business world.

Value = The importance, worth, or usefulness of something.

It’s funny because when I look at that definition it doesn’t seem obvious how “entertainment” could be seen as…

…you know…

…important, or useful.  

I mean…

How can “entertainment” distract an entire population of ancient Romans into giving up their autonomy?  Some might argue the same thing is happening in certain places in the world today.  

But back to the question…

…how can it happen?

How Can This Happen?  

Well let’s look at a definition for entertainment:

Entertainment = the action of providing or being provided with amusement or enjoyment

Providing amusement or enjoyment.

Well, I would say that most of us feel that amusement and enjoyment are important in our lives, whether we care to admit it or not.

Many of us strive to be stoic in life, but we all have an interest in being happy, and many times that happiness runs right through the road of amusement or enjoyment.

Guilty pleasures…

Simple joys…

Quaint amusements…

We are attracted to these things as human beings.  It’s possible that there are physiological reasons for it, even.

It’s scientifically proven that simply feeling good improves your health.  

It helps you sleep better, and lowers your stress levels.  In fact, some studies say that it might even help you live longer.

Perhaps that has something to do with why we are attracted to things that amuse us.  Simple entertainment.

And when you look at it like that, you start to understand why we are inherently just attracted to things that make us feel good.  

Simple entertainment value. 

But what is it?

What is it?

What qualifies as entertainment value?  It seems very intangible.  How can we nail it down?  How can we create a framework for it?

It’s challenging because different people find different things amusing.  We don’t all have the same sense of humor, and we don’t all find the same things interesting.

Of course plenty of businesses have figured it out, I don’t have to tell you that.  

Look at Dollar Shave Club and their hilarious “Our Blades are F**cking Great!” commercial.”

People loved that damn ad and it went viral.  Probably single handedly responsible for the successful launch of their business.

Another big example is Allstate Insurance and their whole campaign with the guy who calls himself “Mayhem.”  

It’s like every commercial he’s a different disaster, and it seems like he takes a lot of joy in making people's lives miserable.

Those Mayhem ads are funny.  People love them.  And it endears them to Allstate because of it.   That’s customer acquisition from a joke.  Real dollars.

In fact, after the Mayhem campaign had been running for two fiscal quarters, Allstate saw a 4.3 percent increase in sales, taking in $7.9 billion dollars.

So pretty measurable success.

But these are big companies with professional teams dedicated to marketing and advertising.  

What does a one person business do?  How does any of this apply to the kitchen table entrepreneur?

For The Little Guy?

Well, there are some things you can do to narrow it down and begin to build a framework for delivering some entertainment value to your market.

First, a couple of universal truths.  Things that apply to most humans.

One) We are attracted to stories. Some of us prefer shorter ones and some of us prefer longer ones, but for many of us, we find stories very amusing.  Even scary ones or parables.

Two) We all like to laugh and be entertained.  It might sound like I’m stating the obvious, but the fact of the matter is, if you know someone has a sense of humor or likes to be entertained, but you don’t know how…that is far better than not knowing if they like to be entertained at all.

Now both of these truths are valuable.  

Because the fact is you don’t need to attract ALL the people in your market to you.  You could just attract the people in your market that resonate with YOUR particular brand of entertainment or humor or storytelling.  

Essentially, be yourself and you will attract the right customers.  The customers who resonate with how you see the world and your mission for serving them.

So now that you know you can just be yourself…

…the next step is to ask yourself a few questions.

Three Questions…

One) What do YOU find funny?  By putting your own brand of humor or lack thereof on display, you are going to attract the section of your market to you and your brand that resonates with that sense of humor.  

At the same time, you'll repel those who don’t.  And that’s okay.  Business is very similar to real life.  You’ll never get everybody to like you.  And if you Do get everyone to like you, you probably aren’t seeing the whole picture. 

Don’t worry about offending people.  Be yourself.  It’s probably a good thing to offend a few people.  Increase that notoriety rating a little bit.  

I’m not saying do it just to do it, but I am saying if you are just being yourself and you do it, it’s probably a good thing.

Two) What kind of stories do you prefer?  We all have a few friends who like to tell stories.  Now, you probably know somebody who tells stories that captivate you.  And when they get into one, you can’t get enough of it.

But then you probably know a few people who when they tell a story, it just goes on and on and on, and you find yourself zoning out, wishing it was over, not paying attention…

…or maybe the opposite is true.  

Maybe you have a friend who tells you stories sometimes and leaves out WAYYY too many details.  They are barely into the story and you are already confused and asking questions.

And maybe in your mind, you are thinking, “MAN this guy cannot tell a story.  I don’t know what the hell is going on!”

The fact is whichever of these situations you have found yourself in will reveal what kind of stories you prefer listening to.

That’s great information because if you know that, then you know exactly what kind of stories you can tell to attract the right customers to your business.

And listen…

You don’t need to be an award winning storyteller.  I’m not telling you to go write the next great American novel here.  What I’m saying is…

…you just want to be the person who can tell an interesting story.  

You want to be the friend at the bar who’s telling you what happened to them at work yesterday.

The girl at the party who comes with a joke and a smile.  Puts you in a good mood when your day’s been kind of lousy.

A simple story.  A dumb dad joke.  It doesn’t really take much to amuse most people a little bit.

But now the third and final question you need to ask yourself and this one is probably the most important.  Are you ready?

Three) How does it circle back around to your target market?  The thing is, people DO like to be entertained.  They appreciate some good entertainment value, and it can…

…get you attention, build rapport, and grow trust.  

However, what you have to understand is that on a surface level…

…entertainment value is very underrated.  Especially, if people are following you or reading what you have to say because they perceive you to be an authority in something.

If they are following you because of that, which is often the case in the world of online business…

…then you have to become a master at the art of circling the conversation back around to something that matters to your target market.

No matter how much you might talk about yourself…

No matter how far you might drag them to the outer fringes of left field…

No matter how funny you think you might be getting with your jokes…

If they are following you because of some perceived authority that you have…

…then you must always circle it back around to a lesson, a takeaway, a simple action plan, a point that relates back to your niche.

And if you don’t do this…if you betray this first rule of business…

…that it’s never about you, it’s always about them…

…then you will lose.  

Finally…

But if you respect this veritable fact…you will reap the rewards of good old fashioned, entertainment value.

And that, my friend, is worth its weight in gold.

That’s all I got!

Kam