I just finished reading buy.ology: Truth and Lies About Why We Buy by Martin Lindstrom. A fascinating (and a little scary!) insight into why we make the everyday decisions we do. One comment in the closing pages of the book really stood out to me: “So why do we often respond more favorably to “real” or “ordinary” people? …it’s tied to our desire for authenticity…real people suggest an authentic backstory.”

Yes! For almost 6 years now we’ve been evangelizing the concept of recorded, candid, unscripted, due-diligence customer reference interviews (we call them TruPoints.)  We’ve seen YouTube’s stratospheric growth over the last couple of years, and that has definitely helped by showing that we all love to see real people telling real stories. Now Mr. Lindstrom has added further credence and documentary evidence to the basic premise on which Point of Reference was founded. To put it in the world of Customer Reference Management, prospects want to hear and see detailed, unfiltered viewpoints from their peers.

Our mantra when we developed TruPoints was “…as closely as possible to replicate the conversation that occurs between a prospect and a reference when they get on a private phone call.” We knew from our own lives that this was what we want when we are in the due-diligence stages of a major purchase. Now Mr. Lindstrom has shown that, not only is this a good practice, but we as human beings actually prefer it!

So the next time you’re agonizing about some aspect of the latest customer interview you’ve conducted remember, keep it real.