Getting amongst it. Your brand that is.

How often do you get amongst your customers? Your channel partners?

Could you say what they looked like, what they said to others as they were handling your products?

It's great to be excited about your new ideas, your new packing, TVC and service offering. You need to be excited to be able to get others excited.

But how will you get customers excited with you? First, you need them to notice and listen to you. For that, they need to trust and like you.

Rule no.1 of how to get people to like you from How Win Friends and Influence People: Become genuinely interested in other people.

Rule no.1 of developing trust - it has an inverse relationship to how much you focus on yourself rather than focus on the other person.

So, the number one rule about getting people to talk about your brand...it's not about you.

So, get amongst it and see what your customers are all about. Guaranteed you will learn a new, powerful insight about them each and every time you get amongst it.

Here's five ideas how:

• Have a bi-weekly channel partner safari - be it walking around retailers, popping in to see your partners' office or surfing some new online shopping options.
• Adopt a store - if you have 50 people in your company, with a little coaching, you can have live and direct feeds from 50 of your customers, using just your staff.
• Stroll. Stroll through where your customers live and shop.
• Become your own ethnography team. Arm a bunch of your team with cameras, notebooks, markers and a travel ticket and a juicy list of things to observe. Come back for a private screening where you share stories and artefacts. It may not be robust, but done regularly will begin to paint a real picture of your consumers.
• Be (politely) inquisitive. Next time you're shopping your category and you notice a customer buying, ask them why. It works for Richard Branson! Maybe you could invite them over for tea and biscuits with the team?

You? What ways do you get amongst it with your customers?