Influencing
It used to be that kids wanted to grow up to be astronauts or police officers, or in my case, after tons of mystery novels, a detective. But not anymore. These days everyone wants to be an “influencer.” According to Google, an influencer is someone who has “the power to affect the purchasing decisions of others because of his or her authority, knowledge, position, or relationship with his or her audience.”
As near as I can tell, these so-called influencers make piles of money for doing nothing more than influencing the day away. Sure, the money sounds nice but I don’t think any job that has the word flu in it is for me. Besides, who in the world wants to hear my opinion about anything? Well, I’ll tell you who, absolutely everyone.
My inbox is constantly full of requests for me to review one thing or another, so apparently I’m already an influencer and I didn’t even know it. Why else would my every move prompt a request for some sort of review? I really had no idea my opinion mattered so much but literally everyone wants to know about just about everything I do. And I mean everything.
After our recent move from Connecticut to California, the real estate company wanted a review about how our home sale went (side note, it went incredibly smooth and my review of our agent was appropriately glowing). Mayflower was also eager to hear my thoughts on the job they did moving our stuff across the country. They got a great review too. Even the storage facility where our stuff is now patiently waiting wanted a review (I can only assume our stuff is patient, it’s quite possible that sitting in a dark storage unit is wearing thin on all our worldly possessions). Although that review was a good one as well, I don’t want to create the impression that all of my reviews are positive. I assure you they are not. For instance, a certain cable company (rhymes with bombast) would be wise not to ask my opinion about anything.
I clearly hold a great deal of sway over the hotel industry as they’re always after my input. Our drive across the country prompted a series of inquiries about our hotel experiences. Sometimes only moments after checking in, I was prompted to review that very check in process. Most of the time I had to ignore those requests as I was too busy hauling luggage to offer up an opinion. However, had I responded after checking into our hotel in Tulsa, you can be sure I would have had some snarky thoughts. “Your room isn’t ready yet” is definitely not what I want to hear at 6pm after driving over 500 miles. Furthermore, I don’t need to know that you only had two housekeepers on that day. But if you do want my opinion about how to properly staff a full hotel (and believe me I have one), send it to my inbox like everyone else.
It isn’t just hotels, any sort of traveling seems to generate interest. Last month I booked a flight through Expedia and they were quite keen to hear about the experience. While on a train to New York, Amtrak didn’t even wait until I’d hit Penn Station to hit me up. I was still gliding along on the rails when I received a “how is your trip going” email (Another side note: it was going fine. The train is such a civilized way to travel, I love the train). And of course the airBNB’s I recently stayed in will be anxious for me to rate them as well.
My influence actually extends to all corners of the universe. Every phone call I make about just about anything is preceded by some sort of “would you be willing to take a brief survey afterward” message. I usually decline those because I know that by the time that survey comes around, I will have spent a good ten minutes shouting, “get me a fucking human being” into the phone and I‘ll be in no mood for any kind of survey. It should also be noted that yelling into the phone will not get you speaking to a live person any sooner but it definitely feels good to do it.
My doctor is very concerned with my experience at their office. They send a followup email. The dentist meanwhile, prefers to text me for my thoughts. The bank sends a survey with the choices listed above. As you can see, they’re very concerned with how satisfied I am and I have to say Webster bank, I’m pretty satisfied. And only this morning I was asked to review the software I use to keep track of my books (yes I have a database for my books).
Last weekend a restaurant in Ventura sent me a text in the middle of my meal asking me how the meal was going. It was tempting to respond with something snarky like, “I wouldn’t know how it’s going, I’m too busy responding to texts like this one. But that hardly seemed like a good idea, particularly since the swordfish I’d ordered had yet to appear on the table so I ignored that one too.
With all these requests for reviews, I’m beginning to understand how influencing can be a full time job. Of course, if I responded to every request for a review, it’s possible I’d have no time left to use whatever product or service it is I’m reviewing. I’m going to worry about that later. The important thing is I’m obviously well on my way to becoming a big time influencer and monetizing that influence is the next logical step. Before you scoff at such an idea you should know that Mayflower recently asked me to do a zoom interview about my moving experience and for that they’ll gladly send me a $25 Visa gift card. Then as soon as I plunk that $25 down on something, you can bet I’ll be reviewing whatever it is I plunked for, which will hopefully lead to another gift card, and so on.
I definitely plan to take this new influencing career seriously because if I don’t, how will my legions of followers (at last count 33 of them) know which hotel to stay in, what bank to use and so on. In fact, how did any of us manage to get by before the advent of influencing?
Ultimately, I am a little worried that I’ll find all of this “influencing” to be too exhausting and I’ll be forced to rethink the whole thing. In that case, I wonder if it isn’t too late for me to become a detective instead? I don’t know the answer to that but I’ll tell you one thing, if I do go into the PI business, I just hope I get a bunch of good reviews.
