What Businesses Can Learn From Game Of Thrones

You’ve been there, glued to your TV or laptop on a binge watch of your favorite show. Game of Thrones has that effect on multitudes, and there is only one more episode left before the season finale! How can a show make you feel sorry for Jaime Lannister, a fictional character incestually in love with his own sister? You question yourself for feeling empathy for a character who is ethically questionable. In one season, you despise him. But then next season, you can’t help but cheer on the very same person you deemed to be a villain. How could this possibly be? The reason is simple: You feel his pain.

If only all businesses had the ability to pull our heart-strings like Game of Thrones. Companies and employees have grown emotional calluses. They pour all of their their energies and time into numbers, calculations, SEO, and other technicalities that - quite frankly - the customer doesn’t give a hoot about. On top of that, the sad reality is that a plethora of customer interaction has become automated.

The customer is perceived as a sack of money rather than a person with desires and needs. It seems easier and more efficient to tune out the internal and external cries of individuals.

You continue to blow your trumpet and exclaim why your product or service is amazing. But it’s time to have an honest one-on-one dialogue with yourself. Do you feel the pain that your target audience feels? And can you truly solve or lessen a burden with what you have to offer? If you can’t answer it with a confident “HELL YEAH,” you may need to re-evaluate why you are doing what you’re doing in the first place.

People see right through you if you are unable to provide value. Loyalty must be earned through trust imbued interactions. Loyalty and trust are not things you can sell. The value you give leads to the success of your business when you understand how to feel another person’s pain.

So instead of spending a fortune at a business conference, you may want to binge watch Game of Thrones. And analyze how you can empathize with your target customers.