3 Surefire Ways to Steal Your Customer's Attention

People Love a Good Heist

I’ve started rewatching the TV series, White Collar, about a semi-reformed art thief who works for the FBI. Other favorite series have included It Takes a Thief (1968, with Richard Wagner) and Leverage. Then there are the many, many heist films that have been enduring favorites for decades.

Why are these themes so popular? And more importantly, what can we learn from them to improve the popularity of our offerings?

In my Vision to Reality™️ program, I show visionaries how to create something they can show potential allies and investors that expresses their vision. Adding these tips from heist films and TV series will help “steal” their attention.

Think about your favorite heist movies. Whether it’s Danny Ocean’s effortless charm in Ocean’s 11, the network of friends willing to lend a hand to Henry Gondorff (Paul Newman) in The Sting, or the brash (over)confidence of the crew in A Fish Called Wanda, the heroes of our favorite heist films have qualities we aspire toward.

In general, they are smarter than average. Even the rather dim bulbs who occasionally resort to bank robbery in films usually have great people smarts.

They have confidence. Sometimes they have too much confidence, which can get them into humorous trouble. But once they commit to their plan, they never bother with second thoughts. They just go for it.

How can this help you?

Make sure that your offering is aspirational, and allows someone to see themselves as their ideal, “new and improved” self in some way. Get extra points for being witty or clever (but not erudite or overly intellectual). And commit to your vision, whatever it is.

Anyone above the age of 10 knows that life isn’t fair. At some point, we stop protesting that it’s supposed to be. But that doesn’t mean, in our heart of hearts, we don’t still believe that life should be fair.

Heist movies play to our inner certainty that Robin Hood was onto something. There are people who have things that they obtained through questionable means. And there are people who need those things, but are prevented from having them.

Think of the brothers in Hell and High Water who are trying to pay off their mother’s property loan, by only stealing from branches of the bank that is unfairly trying to repossess it. The wives in Widows who are trying to pay off the debts accumulated by their criminal husbands, by stealing from the criminal organization that got them killed. Even the retirees in Going in Style who try to recover their cancelled pensions.

For the length of the film, we can believe that having power and money is not enough to always win. The right people, with the right skills, can triumph, and restore our belief in a fair world.

How can this help you?

You have two choices on how to go with this. You can appeal to providing people with an “unfair advantage”, positioning it as leveling the playing field or otherwise counteracting unfair advantages others have over them. (Don’t position it as a unilateral unfair advantage — you want people to see themselves as the good guys in this scenario.) Or you can appeal to the idea of restoration, taking back something that should have been someone’s all along.

In good heist movies, viewers are on the edge of their seats, wondering if the crew is going to pull it off. Even once they steal whatever it is, there’s often a question of whether or not they’ll get away with it. It’s exciting, thrilling, but ultimately safe.

Think of all the ways that movie heists go wrong. Something that relies on precision timing gets delayed. A feat requiring physical dexterity or strength has a character injured. A person, usually a guard, does something unexpected and out of their routine. Or a member of the crew can try to double-cross the others.

Invariably, these are things that cannot be predicted in advance. But they are completely normal and everyday things. Just like all the unexpected things that go wrong in the lives of the people you’re talking to.

How can this help you?

Don’t try to convince someone that nothing will go wrong. They won’t believe you. Evidence is clearly against you. Instead, show how you have built in resilience to recover from unexpected things going wrong. Or that success only relies on being right slightly more often than you’re wrong. The more things you can demonstrate going wrong that still let you succeed, the better.

These tips give you “Leverage”

I’m dropping back to TV series again for the wrap-up. The opening credits for Leverage describes how the team fights for the little guy, by using their skills to provide leverage against the big companies and organizations that have unfairly taken advantage of them.

These tips help you do the same thing.

• Position yourself as aspirational, with desirable qualities.

• Level the playing field or restore something that has been taken.

• Demonstrate resilience.

You’ll “steal” their attention. And like the best heists, they’ll never even know you did it.

Finding a heist-related quote this week was fun. I originally thought about using a quote from a heist movie, then thought this quote from director and screenwriter Stanley Kubrick was better suited for inspiration. It shows how pervasive the heist conventions have become.

We all want to see ourselves as pulling off a successful heist, in some area of our lives. Someone said we couldn’t (or shouldn’t) do something, and we prove them wrong. Preferably in a spectacular fashion.

This quote talks to the risk/reward ratio. Just because we can, doesn’t mean we should. If someone you don’t like, or whose opinion you don’t value, tells you it’s impossible to do something, so what? There’s no need to kill yourself to prove them wrong.

Save your time, energy, and resources for the people, plans, and projects that matter. Take a chance when the reward warrants it. And then give it everything you’ve got to make sure it pays off.

To pulling off your dreams!

Jennifer Dunne, Caribbean Compassion Coaching