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The Humanity Tree and Attractions

Customers are the blood of businesses. Keeping the flow of customers is essential for the survival of any business. We need to attract customers, readers, the opposite sex, attention, and more. However, not all attractions serve the same purpose.

Animals attract their prey to kill them.

Plants attract insects and trap them to pollinate them and then release them. Alternatively, plants attract insects to benefit from their pollination, but in return, they make them benefit.

Do we attract customers to drain their money?

Do we attract customers to benefit from them without causing harm to them?

Do we attract customers so that they may benefit and we benefit too?

Creativity in attraction

Plants have developed unique ways of attracting insects. We may learn a lot from plants in this area.

Some plants use a double trick to attract insects such as the mirror orchid. This plant takes the shape of the female wasp. Then the plant emits a scent that resembles the pheromone of a female wasp. The male wasp has no doubt that seeing a female wasp with the scent of a female wasp is an opportunity for mating. The female wasp visits the flower and pollinates it and to be disappointed for discovering that the female wasp is not real.

This type of attraction disappoints the customers and retaining them shall be almost impossible. In spite of this, some businesses give sweet promises to attract customers, but only to lose them fast.

Sometimes, it is better to know what not to do is better than knowing what to do. With this realization, cheating customers by offering them double-sweet promises is a sure way for failure.

A more advanced trick- is for a plant to have the two sexes in one. The Amazonian Bucket Orchid changes sex by being female at night and male in the morning. At night, the white female emits a fragrant scent to lure the pollinating beetles. The flower then closes its petals and traps the bees inside. When the sun rises, the female flower turns into a pink male. The bee with its cover of pollens will now pollinate a female flower.

This is a win: win situation. The fragrant bee benefits from its attractive fragrance to attract female bees and the flower enjoys pollination.

I find an analogy in the story of “Jekyll and Hyde” referring to persons with an unpredictably dual nature: outwardly good, but sometimes extremely evil. Humans with double faces may hide intentions that we need to question.

In marketing, we may think of ideas that have double uses such as beds at night and sofas during the daytime. We may be creative and find more applications for this idea such as “attracting and trapping” customers.

Storytellers may also build stories around the story of how orchids play a double role to attract “customers”.

The Humanity Tree

One emerging result of a simple gesture can be a story to tell. The story of Sheri Furman who lives in Blowing Rocks in North Carolina simply blew my head. It is a tree that branches hope and caring for others.

It is a story of Natural Attraction with a purity that marketers could learn a lot from its wisdom.

Take Heart is a small lavender shop that placed a bowl of 50 wooden hearts and a pen outside their shop beside the tree—no sign, no instructions, no example heart.

People accepted the invitation by writing their prayers, hopes, or wishes on the hearts and hanging them on the vine and tree beside the shop. People volunteered to share their hopes with others in public. They found a way to breathe out their hopes, their stories, their worries, and their prayers. The tree with the hanging notes and hearts looked like a place to share and distribute with others what we keep inside us. In sharing, they distributed their hopes, their worries, and imaginations.

Above all, the tree revealed the value of humans working together. People flocked to share their aspirations, hopes, dreams, and burdens and did not mind exposing them in public. The tree acted as a relief valve for people to “hand” them on the branches of a tree.

This story suggests to me the slogan “Let us move together”. I think of the efforts of Dennis Pitocco is doing to bring humanity together and imagine humanity as the tree on which we all share our hopes and problems. The tree is symbolic of humanity working together.

I imagine a huge tree and I call it “The Humanity Tree” with each of us adding a note in a heart shape as a symbol of love and a place where we find breezes for new lives. A tree that brings humanity together by making them work millions in one.

What note would you add to the tree? I start with mine.

Add a branch of new life to keep the humanity tree growing for us all

—Ali Anani

Trees do not discriminate between rich and poor, old or young, healthy or sick or whatever. It is a humanity tree.

Ali Anani
Ali Ananihttps://www.bebee.com/@ali-anani
My name is Ali Anani. I hold a Ph.D. from the University of East Anglia (UK, 1972) Since the early nineties I switched my interests to publish posts and presentations and e-books on different social media platforms.

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7 CONVERSATIONS

  1. Extraordinary article, as always, with the “dressing” of a realistic and shareable metaphor.
    All companies are ready to say they put customer satisfaction at the top of their goals. Most of those who really pursue this goal believe that satisfying the target audience is the best way to generate loyalty. It is a right way of thinking, however satisfaction is “only a necessary condition” to obtain customer loyalty, but not sufficient. Simply satisfying customers is not enough to build loyalty, much less to transform them into advocates, that is, people willing to support, promote and recommend the company, real sponsors and ambassadors of the brand or company.
    What drives a satisfied customer to choose a competitor is essentially the fact that they do not have a “special” reason to stay with the previous one, something to feel enthusiastic and happy about. We need to offer people a reason to be happy: this is the way to transform satisfaction first into mild amazement, then into loyalty and finally into the will to be champions of the company or brand.

    • I value my post by the quality of comments they generate. Your comment is pleasing to my heart, Aldo.

      Yes, focusing on customers and their delight is the way to go for customers are the main source of revenue for any company. To me they are the blood of any business.
      When care care about the customers and focus what we do to keep them delighted that may become not only loyal, but more advocates for the business.

      Realizing today that customers believe customers and care to read their testimonials and complaints this issue is even greater today than any time before.

  2. Thank you, Ali, for posting such an wonderful article. I, too, was blown away by what you shared about Sheri Furman and her shop. Her idea of placing the bowl of hearts outside her shop–and the fact that people left their prayers, hopes, and wishes on them–was so moving. Also, your questions about why we want to attract customers or readers, etc, was so relevant, and our answer will determine the degree of our sucess. I choose #3–to attract customers so that we “and” the customer may benefit. This principle is at the heart of the Law of Attraction teachings. In “The Science of Getting Rich,” Wallace D. Wattles stressed that every interaction we make “must” benefit everyone. If our actions are based on selfish reasons, we invite failure. We’re intended to function for the benefit of everyone.
    Great article–thanks again!

    • Reading your post of today, Arthur, and your sharp comment here prompted me to visit your website and follow you. You are my gift to know you for the day.

      I thank you for elaborating on the Payers Tree and giving some background to its story. It is a moving and enriching one.
      It is an example of how to attract hearts and win them. Every note on the tree is a promotion of it without paid advertisement. The tree branches symbolizes the spirit of sharing and caring first and then rewards shall follow.

      Yes, I am too for benefit for all. This is what makes values stay and grow the tree of success..

  3. The biggest attraction with genuine intentions is the attraction that spreads out its branches to all people to find common interest, with no differentiation and no hidden agenda.

    Branch out your attractions and people shall voluntarily feel they are part of the tree community.

  4. To attract make your attraction bigger than your own attraction. Attraction for all people.

    The humanity tree tells us that it can serve like a powerful magnet with lines forming a strong magnetic field that is powerful in its attraction.

    The branches of the humanity tree are the equivalent to the lines forming a strong magnetic field.

    The branches of the humanity tree are equivalent to the spider web that attracts.

  5. Summary of the post

    We all want to attract.
    1. We want to attract attention.
    2. We all want to attract customers
    3. We all want to attract readers
    What comes after attraction?
    • To disappoint customers or to surprise them pleasantly?
    • To attract them to make use of them and then release them?
    • To make them benefit and we benefit as well?
    The post uses examples from nature on how to attract to with different intentions.
    One great example is the tree that attracted attention people of different ages, sexes, races and interests.
    What made the tree so attractive to make people use it as a humanity tree to share their joys, stories and memories?
    The tree is not benefiting. It attracts to make people happy.
    Businesses can learn a lot from this humanity tree. It needs creative minds to attract people while making them happy and so their attraction lasts.
    Happiness distribution is what sales and marketing people need to think about.

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