Painlessly Get This Book into Your Brain

When I embarked on this project, I was told that people would buy this book, but 95% of them likely wouldn’t read it. I reject that. So I took it as a content strategy challenge.

I’ve built some recurring features that you’ll find throughout the book with the intention of boosting the chances that the most important content will have the opportunity to impact your business, your life, your team, and the lives of your customers and your employees, for the better:

Transformational Takeaways. I’ve put the three most important points, in one-liner format, near the beginning of every chapter instead of at the end, so you know from the start where it fi ts into what’s important to you.

Digital Dossier. If you’re more of a video person, have a short attention span for the written word, or simply want to continue your own journey, the interactive materials in the Digital Dossier at TransformationalConsumer.com is for you. There, you’ll also fi nd a set of free resources to help you gear up, craft, and carry out your individual and organizational action plans for transcending the transactional.

Stories. Neuroscience researchers have found that our brains light up for several days when we read or hear a story. My mission is to help you meet, understand, reach, and engage the Transformational Consumer primarily by telling you stories and sharing case studies that make the case and teach the frameworks. Some will be from brands that are clearly transformational, some will not. But all will help illustrate the frameworks and flesh them out in a way your brain can retain.

Transformer case studies. These case studies showcase examples of strategic product, business model, marketing, and cultural moves that a series of world-class companies have made to connect with Transformational Consumers. They then explain how these moves played out.

The Transformational Consumer Self-Assessment: What Do You Need to Rethink First? To help you convert the concepts and marching orders in this book into an individualized personal and organizational roadmap, I’ve created the Transformational Consumer Self-Assessment: What Do You Need to Rethink First? (available from Berrett-Koehler Publishers at www.bkconnection.com/transformationalconsumer-sa). Take the assessment either right before or after you read chapters 5 through 9, to start sequencing your action plan and transcending the transactional.

If I tried to walk you step by step through how to execute every conceivable tactic for engaging the Transformational Consumer, this book would be many volumes long. Worse, it would be out of date by the time it went to press. This is not a textbook, though I do provide frameworks, principles, and guideposts for taking action on these insights.

My mission for this book is to impact the lives of billions of your customers for the better, by driving a fundamental change in the way you understand, serve, and connect with them. I want to change what you’re thinking about as you lead or run your business, whether you’re a personal trainer or the CEO of a public company. I want to change how you think about your customers. I want to elevate the conversation.

And I want to do that by injecting it with the beautiful vision for the world of customer-company relationships that I know, from fi rsthand experience, is possi ble. I want to share what I know works to help companies transcend the fray and engage customers in wild, two-way love aff airs, even in this era of digital overwhelm and customer fatigue.

Disengagement is not a digital problem. It is a human problem. And the solution is human, too. Once you understand the powerful motivation of the human drive to live healthier, wealthier, and wiser, clarity will replace confusion about how to connect with people.

Eternal principles of story and content and humanity and transformation will replace the dramatics about what social media channel you simply must be active on (this week). Deep insight into your customers’ journeys will provide clear, self-updating direction on where and how to reach them at any given time.

Every team and initiative of your business will be able to operate in a way that drives change for Transformational Consumers.

This is how your company becomes great: by transcending the transactional. And how you transcend the transactional is by becoming a force for transformation in the lives of the people you serve.