We need money. Someone needs to give it to us.

Recently, I’ve been to a lovely film festival that had a problem. Their public funding had been cut significantly and now they are in financial trouble.

Which made them a bit angry. Mostly towards the public bodies.

But they also had a little difficulty keeping their calm towards the crowd.

In their pre-show moderation they insisted that it was our obligation as visitors of the festival to donate to cover the missing funds.

That message didn’t land well.

No-one felt obliged, although everyone seemed to enjoy the festival. The irony is that I’m pretty certain many of them would actually be happy to donate at least a small amount.

But.

People just didn’t feel that the festival was entitled to their money.

Communication-wise I think the problem was that they were speaking entirely from their own perspective: “We need money. Someone needs to give it to us. That someone is you.”

Essentially, they’ve tried to turn their problem into our problem when they should have tried to turn our joy into their solution.

People are happy to pay for joy. Not so much out of a false feeling of guilt.

The organizer’s anger kept them from seeing that there’s almost no limit in getting people’s support when supporting you gets people what they want. The audience wants a lovely film festival. The thing they want least is to be bothered with politics and business models.

What makes your customers happy to pay?

The more conversations you have with your audience and the better you listen during these conversation, the better you understand what makes them feel happy.

Resonate with that!

PS: This afternoon, I’ll host a live conversation with Julian Treasure on “How to listen well”. I would love to meet you there.