Human Behavior and Multiple Identities in B2B Marketing

Staying connected via smartphones is crucial to maintaining relationships with your clients and prospects in B2B marketing. That being said, sometimes there is a time to cut the smartphone tether.

Multiple Identities

Social and behavioral research suggests we all have multiple identities that are called forth in the appropriate social context. For example, I have a girlfriend role when I am with my boyfriend, a teaching role with my students, and a B2B buyer behavior role with my business. And the latter can be broken down further, as I have various B2B buyer behavior identities depending on to whom I’’m speaking.

Conflicting Goals

With smartphones, those aforementioned identities can be called forth at any time, via phone call or email or text, or through a myriad number of social networks. So if you’re meeting with a prospect and you find out about an unrelated social situation, that social identity becomes more salient, and interferes with your current business role of courting your prospect.

Fragmentation

If you think in evolutionary terms, our minds just haven’’t had time to adjust to this new technology and way of doing things — and that can work against you. So try to minimize the amount of time you’’re fragmenting your brain trying to handle multiple identity roles, and everything associated with those roles, at the same time.