The Transformational Consumer

The Transformational Consumer

They are the most valuable, least understood customers of our time. They buy over $4 trillion in life-improving products and services every year. If you serve their deeply human need to continually improve their lives, they will eagerly engage with your brand at a time when most people are tuning out corporate messages.

They are Transformational Consumers, and no one knows them like Tara-Nicholle Nelson. Her Transformational Consumer insights powered her work at MyFitnessPal, which grew from 40 million to 100 million users in her time there.

Nelson takes readers on a hero’s journey to connecting with customers in ways both profitable and transformational. After going inside the brains, emotions, and behaviors of Transformational Consumers, Tara issues a call to adventure: a rallying cry to leaders to shift their focus from simply making products to solving their customers’ problems.

Nelson uses stories and cases studies from every industry to guide readers through this journey in five stages, shedding light on how to rethink their customers, their products and services, their marketing, their competition, and even their culture.

The key to growing a business today is not building an app or getting new social media followers. The key is engaging people over and over again by triggering their deep, human desire for growth and transformation.

When a company reorients every initiative to serve Transformational Consumers, it kick-starts a lifelong love affair with its customers—a love affair that results in unprecedented revenue growth, product innovation, and employee engagement.Contents
PROLOGUE Thirty Years of Transformation vii
INTRODUCTION How to Transcend the Transactional 1
CHΔPTER ONE Meet the Transformational Consumer 12
CHΔPTER TWO Removing Resistance and Triggering Progress 32
CHΔPTER THREE The Hero’s Journey of Your Transformational Consumer 40
CHΔPTER FOUR Your Call to Adventure 54
CHΔPTER FIVE Rethink What You Sell 61
CHΔPTER SIX Rethink Your Customer 80
CHΔPTER SEVEN Rethink Your Marketing 97
CHΔPTER EIGHT Rethink Your Competition 112
CHΔPTER NINE Rethink Your Culture 126
CONCLUSION Transcendence: The Natural State of Things 137
THE TRANSFORMATIONAL CONSUMER SELF-ASSESSMENT
What Do You Need to Rethink First? 141
Notes 143

Acknowledgments 151

Index 153
About the Author 159“Tara Nelson describes a key audience for marketers seeking growth: seek customers (actually, humans) seeking growth as well!”
- Seth Godin, author of Purple Cow

“The Transformational Consumer offers a new lens on two age-old business problems: how to get customers to care about what you sell, and how to get them to come back over and over again. Tara has created a manual for a new way to do business: by sparking a virtuous cycle of transformation for your company and your customers.” 
—Pete Flint, founder and former Chairman and CEO, Trulia

“This is not a book about marketing. It’s a vision for how businesses can connect with customers at a deep, human level, becoming a regular stop on their everyday life journeys. It reveals how to take the limits off people’s lives and build a business with devoted customers in the process.”
—James White, former Chairman, President, and CEO, Jamba Juice; and board member, Conscious Capitalism

“Tara draws upon her vast experience to create a playbook to unlock the power behind the Transformational Consumer to create long-lasting brands and build strong corporate cultures.”
—Jim Stengel, former Global Marketing Officer, Procter & Gamble 

“It’s easier than ever to get an app, website, and product built. The hard part is getting anyone to care or take notice. Tara completely changes how founders should think about their products and creates a marketing framework that’s accessible to all. This is an absolute must-read for anyone in business who wants to create more value for customers. It’s changed how I think about my company, from our mission to how we deal with competition."
—Jihan Thompson, former Health Editor, O, The Oprah Magazine, and founder, Swivel Beauty App

“Tara-Nicholle Nelson ups the ante in her new book, The Transformational Consumer, arguing that we should be engaging our customers in a higher purpose, to help them be more effortful and intentional in how they live their lives, to call on their aspirations rather than their addictions. Luckily, that desire already exists; we just have to be willing to meet it.”
- Dylan Schleicher, 800-CEO-READ

“Tara-Nicholle Nelson is a marketing genius who has made it her life’s work to translate consumer insights into measurable results.  Her latest book…will not only dissect her approach; but more importantly, will provide you with the exact blueprint to reimagine your own marketing.” – Moe Abdou, 33 Voices
 
“Ingenious new framework…I read a lot of marketing and sales books and this book was one of the most interesting I’ve read lately and I’m glad I did.” – Douglas Burdett, The Marketing Book Podcast

Tara-Nicholle Nelson is the founder and CEO of Transformational Consumer Insights. She is the former vice president of marketing for MyFitnessPal, now part of Under Armour, where her teams covered brand, growth, engagement, content and digital/social media, and media relations. She holds a master’s degree in psychology and a juris doctorate from the University of California, Berkeley, and is the board president of City Slicker Farms, a nonprofit food justice organization in West Oakland.