Dishing Up Delight: Learning From MasterChef About Your Personal Brand

For many organizations, inbound marketing is an important part of their overall marketing strategy. This emerging method, comprised of four steps—attract, convert, close, and delight—offers customers a brand experience that is focused on their needs.

According to HubSpot, that last step—delighting your customers—is a truly important part of a successful inbound strategy. And it’s not just up to your sales representatives and social media team to do all the delighting either. Every person in your organization should set their sights on exuding delightful behavior.

So, where does your personal brand factor in? Well, in addition to solving your current and potential customers’ problems and providing great recommendations, the key to successfully delighting them also lies in your attitude, because when an organization consists of happy, helpful people, it shows!

To illustrate my point, I’d like to call your attention to MasterChef. Yes, that MasterChef. With millions of viewers tuning in each week, MasterChef pits amateur “home cooks” from across the country against one another in a bid for a hefty reward check, a cookbook deal and a pretty dope looking trophy. During each episode, contestants are tasked with serving up a restaurant-quality dish, but oftentimes, they also deliver a heaping helping of their unique personalities.

Even though they may not realize it, the way these home cooks handle the pressures of competition and treat their fellow contestants goes a long way toward delighting their future customers. Since the end goal is a cookbook deal, and ultimately, a long career in the food industry, it’s important that they stay on the good side of viewers.

Take season three winner Christine Hà, for instance. She was not only known as upbeat and positive but also had a heartwarming story. As the first sightless contestant in a cooking competition series, she demonstrated great perseverance from the first episode until the day she was crowned a MasterChef. Her determination was duly noted by MasterChef fans, with Hà herself saying, “The outpouring of support from strangers has been amazing. The awesome fan mail I’ve been getting. Just saying, like, ‘You’ve inspired me to try out for the high school soccer team.’ It’s been awesome to be in a position to affect people’s lives in a positive way.”

On the other hand, Courtney Lapresi, was not as well-liked. This cutthroat winner from MasterChef’s fifth season was described as “sneaky and strategic” by Huffington Post’s television connoisseur Karen Fratti. Fratti also noted that Lapresi liked to gloat and could be cocky at times. In other words, she didn’t do much to delight.

These two winners seem to have wildly different personalities—so, how do their qualities affect their overall following? I’ve gathered their Amazon ratings, sales placement and Twitter following for a high-level look at their post-MasterChef popularity.

As you can see, Hà is more popular amongst consumers since her win. Still not convinced? Take a look at how Lapresi stacks up to another friendly winner, Luca Manfè. Manfè quickly won fans over with his play-it-fair attitude, often helping other contestants by sharing his ingredients.

So, there you have it! Delicious proof that a friendly, helpful attitude can go a long way towards delighting customers and boosting your bottom line.