Psychologists and direct marketing experts (who really are applied psychologists) tell us that the fear of loss is a greater motivator of human behavior than is the prospect of gain.
Are you applying fear as a tactic in connection with your relationship with hospitals and other entities with which you have a Relationship Contract in place?
As you’ll recall if you’re a regular reader, a Relationship Contract is an agreement that, as of the closing, creates an ongoing relationship between the parties. Its opposite is a Transactional ContractTM, a deal that once it “closes,” the parties go their separate ways – think of the purchase of a home.
Note that when I talk of “fear,” I’m not addressing the use of threats. Instead, I’m speaking of fear of loss as an underlying current to a broader publicity push in favor of your group – a part of laying the groundwork for contract renewal.
In the context of your group’s relationship with, for example, a hospital pursuant to an exclusive contract, the fear that can be harnessed includes the fear that your group will no longer desire to provide services at that facility, and the fear that you will pull back the added value services which you delivered over and above any contractual obligation in the course of your creation of an Experience Monopoly.
When deploying fear based tactics, it’s important that you focus on an already existing fear, one that hospital administration is empowered to act upon, and one that is relatively soon to occur or to be avoided. But on the other hand, the fear can’t be one that causes the hospital administrator to freeze like a deer in headlights – he or she will be too paralyzed to take constructive action.
Last, fear alone isn’t enough to spur positive action in your group’s favor: You also have to drive home, hard, the fact that your group offers the complete solution to allaying those fears.
