Stop discussing the negatives of not being safe. Instead, focus on the positives of buying-in to safety.
The words “Make Safety Sexy” might conjure up the image in the photo for some. But that’s not at all what the phrase means.
Safety is suffering from apathy. It’s dull, boring, repetitive, mind-numbing, disengaging, and it tries to scare you into compliance. Despite having the highest number of certified safety professionals in the workplace in history, safety incident numbers are actually rising. There is no coincidence between the highest numbers of workplace disengaged employees and increasing incident numbers. When people are disconnected, they are not paying attention.
Rule #1 In Marketing
You can’t talk to them if they’re not paying attention. So you, as a safety manager, have got to get their attention.
You’re not going to pay attention to a “For Sale” ad that reads, “needs a lot of work and may require an expensive overhaul?” You respond better to the items that have been cleaned up and made to look new and attractive. People who want to get their item sold, focus on its strengths. When you make it sexy and attractive, you make it easy for someone to buy. (Think of the 62-inch OLED TV at the entrance to the electronics store.) Oh sure, you still disclose if anything is wrong, but you don’t dwell on it. That is the fastest way to kill the motivation of the buyer. Instead, you overcome the negatives with more positives.
Who really likes to buy life insurance?
Insurance salespeople know that life insurance is dry and boring so they don’t focus only on the negatives of not having insurance. They know that it’s nearly impossible for a customer to make a positive step to purchase insurance if all the sales rep focuses on are the negatives. You don’t scare someone into buying and then have them feel good about the decision they made.
Insurance salespeople could focus on the negative: your spouse living the rest of her life in financial ruin and having to sell the house. Instead, they focus on a positive outcome: should you ever pass, your forward thinking will ensure that you will leave your spouse a large sum of money that allows her to stay in the house with no financial worries. That allows your kids to come home and visit in the place they grew up and have so many fond memories of. You have provided your family with a wonderful gift of love and caring.
Insurance people build on the positives. That’s what is called “making it sexy.”
Financial Freedom or Financial Ruin
Financial planners don’t offer financial advice on avoiding failure. They focus on success. No one’s financial plan is to avoid living in a box under a bridge. Financial planners work on getting you to move forward toward a solid income in retirement with full ownership of your house. In other words, achieving financial freedom instead of avoiding financial ruin. The two options are very different. With no plan and a little luck, you might be able to avoid financial ruin. But it is a certainty that if you work the positive strategy, you assure yourself a high degree of financial freedom.
The key to success is to have a goal to achieve - not a failure to avoid.
If you have no financial plan for your life, you are going to flirt with financial ruin at some point. In the same way, if you have no safety plan for your life, you are going to be faced with having to avoid injury at some point.
Sell The Positives Of Safety
Stop discussing the negatives of not being safe. Instead, focus on the positives of buying-in to safety. Make a list of things that are positive about choosing safety. Not ending up in hospital is not a positive - it is a double-negative. Do not focus on what won’t happen to you. Focus on what will happen to you.
Here are some positives you can include:
- Watch the kids grow up,
- Attend your grandkids’ graduation ceremonies,
- Family Thanksgiving dinners,
- Christmas mornings surrounded by kids and grandkids
- Worry-free pensions,
- Become a consultant/expert after retirement
- Help your kids start a business of their own
- Twilight years at the lake house,
- Winters in warm climates
- Travel to exotic locations
- Go on a cruise twice a year
These are some of the long-term, positive results of choosing safety in this moment. Give your people a series of safety steps they can use to move themselves forward: start with vehicle walk-arounds and PPE, then move onto mentoring younger workers in safety, partnering in safety with their families, delivering safety sessions to community groups, etc. Then, once you’ve got your people thinking about their safe and secure dream life in retirement, lay out the plan of safety to get there.
Make it sexy and you will get buy-in.
