#1: The Person In Personalisation with David Mannheim

~ This transcript is automatically generated so may contain some errors ~

It's like shoving shit up a hill. Oh, we can swear in this podcast I'm pretty sure we can it's my podcast I can do I want.

Welcome to Statements of Intent. In this 20 minute episode, we're addressing how eCommerce has lost sight of the people at its very heart. You, the customer. It's a chat that's optimistic, it's casual, it's probably slightly ranty in places, but that's okay. But it's a place where I talk to senior eCommerce marketers

and share their statement of how they're looking to change the status quo of eCommerce, adding more care, being more considerate to those very people that they're selling to. The customer. I'm your host, David Mannheim, the founder of Made With Intent. And we're going to jump right into it. Have fun.

Hello! This is crazy. We're starting a podcast like three, five years too late perhaps, but what have it. I think this is going to be really good, really interesting.

I think it's, it's designed for a place that allows me, of course, but most people, others within this community that really care about what it is that we're talking about, a place to express themselves.

Statements of Intent is exactly what it kind of says on the tin. It's a flagpole in the ground. It's not necessarily aggressive, but some kind of statement, a guiding principle, something that people believe in that goes against the status quo of eCommerce, this dogma that we have where more is more, where, you know, more people, more money, of course, more growth, where we don't really have much.

I'm gonna say care for people online. You know, guess what? There are people behind this screen. And it feels as though we've forgotten that. It feels as though within eCommerce that greed has taken over and I know we should get my tinfoil hat out. That's fine. This imbalance, should we call it, between, business metrics and customer satisfaction.

Even the term customer satisfaction feels so sterile and formal, doesn't it? So I feel as though the premise of the show, at least for me anyways, is something all about this imbalance that exists within eCommerce. So we're talking to professionals, to those on the front line, to senior eCommerce directors, heads of C suite managers that work within these big brands.

And we've got some really good people coming on the show. We've got Martin Bell, who's the eCommerce director at Elemis, Sarah Hanna, the eCommerce director at Scrufix. We've got the eCommerce director from Castor coming on. There's loads of them. There's about 10 to 12 that we've got all built up and they all have their own statements of intent.

One's about purpose. The other is about listening. Another one is about treating customers the way you deserve to be treated. Oh, you know, what a revelation. I know it sounds flippant. There is a community out there. There is, and my hope is for this podcast, at least for this podcast, at least, is to give these people a home.

Of sorts, I guess. At least by listening. And look, they're are only 20 minute little clips. You can do it on a walk or on the way to your school run while your kids are kicking your back seats relentlessly. Not that I have any experience in that. I do and they are annoying.

I guess a little bit about me because if we're talking about personalisation, hey, we might as well be personal, right?

I do have two kids, Max and Zachary. They're five, nearly six, and two, nearly three. And they are hard work. Are they hard work? Max is so emotional. Is that typical? For a five year old? Just to be super emotional, you know? Oh, I've dropped a piece of watermelon on the floor and the house is burning down.

Come on, man. He's really hard. Hopefully he doesn't listen to this in about 10 years and really, really hate me or regret me. And then Zachary is, I shouldn't call him my favorite, so I won't. But I am giving subliminal messages to you, the listeners, as to what's going on in my mind. He's a dream. He's just the opposite.

They're both opposites for those people listening who have two children, you know, especially two boys anyways, where it's relentless, you know, it's farting on people's faces and, and throwing toys literally out of the pram, literally physically out of the pram. It is, it's hard work. They're both so different.

So yes, I have two boys. We love Disney. And by we love Disney, I mean me and my wife love Disney. We force our kids to go every year, but that is just who we do. And again, another thing for them to regret and rue and hate me for in the future. I'm a big Manchester United fan, living unfortunately in the suburbs of Merseyside, which means I'm surrounded by Liverpool fans.

I am trying to force Max to support Manchester United. Again, he's just rebelling against my authority. Probably another thing for him to, to rue and hate and regret me for. Who knows where this podcast is going to go? It's just verbal diarrhea at times. This is what I like to do. I like to send my friends and colleagues video messages.

Cause I think they're a bunch of fun. I think it demonstrates a little bit of personality and some engagement, something that's not very monotone. Anyway, this is what this podcast is about. You know, as I introduced Statements of Intent beforehand about this lack of care that exists, that's what I want to communicate almost today and my statement of intent.

So I've talked to you about the premise of the show. I've talked to you about me, at least a little bit, at least personally, anyway. So, I mean, more professionally I founded User Conversion, a conversion rate optimisation consultancy in the UK that later got acquired. That was

goodness me, nearly three years ago. Since then I've written a book, The Person In Personalisation, which is, the story, I'm just reading this directly, the story of how marketing's most treasured possession became anything but personal. Ooh, scary. I've also started made of intent, which is an analytics platform to help retailers really understand the context and the meaning, the intent behind that audience, you can sort of see a theme here, right?

And I will admit, you know, the practice of running an agency in this sphere, the theory of writing all about it and interviewing 153 different people for the book followed by the practical application of how to care more for customers via our platform Made With Intent has almost like set me down this squiggly career.

Has anyone read that book? Squiggly career. It's a really nice book, actually. Set me down the squiggly career, this Ikigai model of what I know, what I'm good at, what I love and what I can sell. So this is something that honestly is really purposeful for me. I get a lot of fulfillment from this. And I know that because being candid and I'm very open with this, the agency did not give me that.

That was accidental, it was a go as you go along as you, you know, bumble along the road, as you will. And that was not purposeful in the least, and you know, it led to panic attacks, it led to anxiety, it led to, not quite depression, I must admit, but a lot of, self reflecting, shall we say, and therapy required, and I still, I still have therapy now because it's, it's more about self awareness.

I almost feel so much purpose in what we're doing now. Because I know what purpose didn't look like. Does that make sense? Wow, I'm getting really deep and really personal. That might be a theme in the show.

Anyway, let's talk about the person in personalisation. Not necessarily the book, but the concept, you know.

I feel as though we have lost, spoiler alert, the person in personalisation. It feels like, you know, the first three syllables of personal in the, is it a verb? It is a verb, isn't it? In the verb of personalisation have just been lost and they've been replaced with something that is overly commercial with something that's orientated around greed oriented around more is more and it's less so personalisation and it's more so I've never said this before so I don't know really know where I'm going with this.

It's more so just isation Hence losing a person in personalisation, right? So I think it probably comes down to the definition of what is personalisation and there are hundreds of definitions out there of personalisation. But really there's only one sentiment. So when you do speak to 100 people in a room and ask them what the definition of personalisation is, you will get 100 different answers.

I totally get that. But the sentiment of when they say this is what personalisation is will all be roughly the same. Some form of right time, right place, right message, something along those lines. But I tell you what it is not. It is not segmentation. You know, people assume that personalisation is on this linear path that is sequential of optimisation,

segmentation, personalisation. And I don't think that's correct. I think, you know, at what point, dare I ask you, does something turn from segmentation to personalisation? It doesn't, you know, there is no hard line in the sand here. There's 50 shades of gray and everything in between personalisation for me sits above those things.

It is a communication method of how to be more personal, rather than a sequential execution, as it were. Right? So, personalisation for me is all about, you know, the act of being personal, really, it's a relationship mechanism, it's a communication principle. And I appreciate that it sounds overly conceptual, and not at all practical, right?

But it doesn't matter. That's the concept. And if you believe in something, you should say

it. I believe that personalisation should be about being , well, I'll tell you what it is. It's six things for me. And nicely, they're all tied up together in an acronym that has absolutely nothing to do with personalisation itself, but it's called The Personalisation Facial, facial, easy, easy. It's not, it's not, yeah, it's just a facial, The Personalisation Facial. And that is familiarity. Hi, I'm David. Acknowledgement. Hi, I'm David. How are you doing today, Roger? Don't know where Roger came from. Care. So care is the third one. So F, familiarity. A, acknowledgement. C, care. Hi, I'm David.

How are you doing today, Roger? Are you okay? Intimacy is the I. Hi, I'm David. How are you doing today, Roger? Are you okay? Can I give you a hug? Authenticity. Hi, I'm David. How are you doing today, Roger? Are you okay? Can I give you a hug? I really mean that. I really genuinely hope that you're, that you're all good.

Hi, I'm David. This is like a test. Hi, I'm David. How are you doing today, Roger? Are you okay? I really mean that. Can I give you a hug? I got those the wrong way around. How's your wife? You know, is she still in intensive, care I guess. I don't know where these things come from. Intensive care. Goodness me.

So for the facial. So familiarity, acknowledgement, care, intimacy, authenticity. And listening. These are just principles of how to be more personal and I feel as though we've lost this online, we've lost this mostly because we've over commercialised what personalisation should be. There needs to be some kind of attribution.

Of personalisation, right? If your boss, your stakeholder turns around to you and says, we need to personalise, well, you need to provide an ROI of like a business case of we're doing this and we will see X in return. There are some funny stories in my book, like a story of how Marks and Spencer's originally wanted to kickstart their personalisation campaign with Adobe target, went to their stakeholders with a business case and the business case got turned away.

I'm missing out loads of, loads of points in the story, but the premise stays the same. The business case turned away because they over emphasised how much personalisation should bring in. They had to dial it all back, right? And only to go back, and that was fueled, by the way, with academic sources, with some evidence and some level of experimentation.

And they had to dial it all back. And they went back to the visit, the FD and the, with their business case. Again, all dialed back. It feels fairly arbitrary, this method, doesn't it? Like how do you put a measure of success, some kind of attribution on a, on being more familiar and acknowledging people and caring for people and intimacy, these insensible, these intangible, these almost feelings you can't.

You know, if I knew Roger's wife was in intensive care, such a stupid thing, if I knew Roger's wife was in intensive care, how do I, do I need to put an attribution on that? Well, unfortunately, in today's world that we live in, a world that is filled with greed, filled with a concept of more and more with over commercialising the sentiment, then yes.

Yeah. And that's where experimentation comes in granted, but that the, the need to attribute everything. That is a reason why recommendations is seen as the go to execution for personalisation. Because it's easily attributable. And also, by the way, other people do it, you know, Jeff and Reed, namely Amazon and Netflix.

But it is very easily attributable. You can click on something, a product, and you can attribute a purchase from the click of that product very, very easily, okay, whereas the things that I'm talking about, about being, how to be more personal, these insensible, intangible feelings, they are not attributable, and therefore they are often, shall we say, just overlooked.

And there's this concept, the, there's a book that I've got, can I find it behind me? I don't know if people are even watching this rather than just listening. There's a book by two researchers called Malone and Fisk, it's called The Human Brand. And they talk about how humans trust each other. In a human to human context, how can I trust you?

And there are two attributes, care and competence. And that is, can you, they actually call it warmth, but we're going to call it care because it's an alliterative with competence. Can you help and will you help? So competence is, can you help? Care is, will you help? And what they found is that that actually translates over to brands, hence the human brands, i.

e. a human's relationship, a person's relationship with a brand and how they trust that brand has the same attributes of how humans, people trust one another. Can you help? And will you help? What they found is that these two attributes are a composition of over 50 percent of somebody's purchase intent.

i.e., I'm going to go to Amazon and I'm going to ask two questions. Can you help? And will you help? Now in Amazon's case, they absolutely have all the competence in the world. They can help 100%. They have an amazing breadth of products, incredibly advanced recommendations, great customer service. But will they help?

Do they care? You know, we recently found a ruling of 900 million pounds or euros for Amazon placing products in their recommendation system of who, of, of which they didn't, they wanted to push rather than what people wanted to buy. You know, that was like a filing by a regulator that turned around and found, hold on, these recommendations, which by the way you pioneered, you're pushing products in there that are highly competent.

But they don't, you know, but have a lack of care. Let's flip it the other way around as well. You know, my grandma, God, God bless her soul. She's dead now. My grandma, we've talked about a lot of personal stuff in this chat, haven't we? My grandma has all the care in the world. She'll come knocking on Christmas day, like, Oh, David, I love you.

Here you go. Here's a sweater. And, and it's got a cat on it. Bobbly and it's itchy and what it lights up as well. You know, all the care in the world, you know, she cares, you know, she wants to help, but can she, you know, come on, man, I'll drive. I have a PlayStation five for goodness sake. So this concept of care versus competence, I feel has been lost in the world.

I feel as though brands have a overemphasis on competence. Can you help? And under emphasis on care, will you help? And I think the reasons behind that are attribution, the need to attribute everything the over commercialisation of the world that we live in, and indeed the metric of success. You know, I think we look at conversion rate as this be all and end all figure.

Retrospective rare binary figure at the end of the yellow brick road in which we need to we need to shift and goodness me is that a behemoth of a metric right? It's like shoving shit up a hill. Oh, we can swear in this podcast I'm pretty sure we can it's my podcast I can do I want. So I think this concept of greed over commercialisation lack of attribution ill cased attribution as well in that the aggregated metric of success.

This is all the reason why we've lost the person in personalisation. I think effort is up there as well. You know, the need that recommendations is very easy to just drag and drop on somebody's website. There are so many vendors that do it out there currently, isn't it? So my statement of intent is all about how we've lost the person in personalisation.

You can read more about it in the book, you know, it is called The Person In Personalisation, it's very easy to find on Amazon. I'm very proud of that, I must admit. There won't be a sequel though, because it was very hard to write. So my statement of intent is all about how we've lost the person in personalisation.

The reasons of which are exactly what I've just said over commercialisation more is more the metric of success and indeed the need to attribute everything I want to I don't know almost sell more like a human being I want to create rebalance the care versus competence, you know, let's up the care and down, not necessarily downweight the competence, but at least rebalance those, that seesaw.

So there we go. That is my statement of intent. It is a one man show. I feel like a monologue here, but it is what it is. So, thanks for listening. These are like 20 minute clips, like I say, on your way to, apparently on your way to school with kids screaming in the background. That's a really good place to listen to these podcasts.

I don't have anything to close. There's no like, you know, here we go, like Fabrizio Romano. Did say I was a United fan. It's just a goodbye, reminder to share, review, follow on LinkedIn, et cetera. I've been told to say that, but there are some really good guests coming up, of which I think drops a few.

So good luck. Have a good one. Do not forget the person in personalisation, or the personalisation is just an act of being more personal. I don't think it's terribly hard, but apparently it is. See you later.

There we have it. Thank you so much for listening. Please do like, subscribe and share on whatever platform it is that you're listening to on today. This show comes from the team behind Made With Intent, the customer intent platform for retailers. If you are of course, interested in being more profitable, whilst being more personal.

And please feel free to check us out at madewithintent. ai. Thanks again for listening and joining us on our mission to change how eCommerce sees, measures, and treats their customers. I've been your host, David Mannheim. Have a great day.

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