Podcast Summary: The Duct Tape Marketing Podcast

Episode Title: Build a Business People Can't Imagine Losing
Host: John Jantsch
Guest: Marcus Buckingham (Author of "Design Love In: How to Unleash the Most Powerful Force in Business")
Date: February 19, 2026

Episode Overview

This episode dives into the unconventional idea that "love" is the most powerful force in business. John Jantsch interviews Marcus Buckingham, a leading researcher of high performance at work and key figure in the strengths movement. Buckingham discusses his latest book, "Design Love In," and explores why organizations should take love seriously—not as a feel-good abstraction, but as a measurable, actionable driver of productivity, retention, and customer loyalty. Together, they unpack practical strategies for leaders to foster this force and build businesses people can't imagine leaving.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Reframing “Love” in Business

• Love as the Ultimate Driver:
  • Buckingham asserts that, after years of research, love is the term people use instinctively to describe exceptional experiences at work or as customers.
  • Other positive terms (“satisfaction,” “engagement”) miss the emotional force and behavioral drive that “love” encapsulates.
  • Quote:

    "The word we naturally reach for is, I love that. And I think for the longest time I would try to change it... But if you actually look at the data... love is the most powerful driver of all productive human behavior." – Marcus Buckingham [02:40]

2. Measuring Love: The "I Can’t Imagine a World Without…" Test

• Simple, High Bar Measurement:
  • The best way to measure love is to see if people instinctively say, “I can’t imagine a world without [your company/product/leader].”
  • On a 1-to-5 scale, only the “5s” (strongly agree) predict actual behavior—nothing less moves the needle.
  • Leaders should never mix “4s” and “5s” into a “top two box” because only the extremes drive the behaviors you want.
  • Quote:

    "Fives are qualitatively and categorically different than fours... It’s only when you do something that moves them from a 4 to a 5 on that scale you actually see a change in behavior." – Marcus Buckingham [04:36]

3. Experience Intelligence: The Hidden Leadership Superpower

• Experiences Drive Behavior:

  • High-performing leaders don’t just manage processes; they deliberately shape holistic experiences.
  • The core question isn’t “Are you making experiences?” (everyone is), but “Are you doing it well and intentionally?”
  • Experiences—not processes or perks—determine whether people return, stay, and advocate.
  • Quote:

    "The first big lesson for leaders is you are an experience maker. The question isn’t, are you one or not? The question is, are you a skilled one?" – Marcus Buckingham [09:02]

• Touchpoints Matter:

  • Every aspect (voice menus, lighting, digital paths) shapes the experience.
  • Leaders are often blind to the significance of small touchpoints.
  • Example: Disney excels by treating every sensory touchpoint as intentional.

4. Designing for Experiences, Not Just Processes

• Drifting vs. Designing:

  • Most organizations default to process efficiency, which creates friction and erodes love.
  • Without intentional experience design, companies drift into mediocrity and lose loyalty.
  • Quote:

    "The opposite of design is drift. And we drift a lot because we design for process." – Marcus Buckingham [12:36]

• Digital Experiences:

  • Even in non-human, digital environments, users judge by their experience.
  • Broken online experiences push customers away just as much as poor in-person service.

5. Blueprint for Designing Love Into Experiences

• Not “Being Nice,” but Engineering Specific Feelings:

  • Love isn’t a “coating” or about sentimentality; it’s about how someone feels at the end of their interaction.
  • To engineer love, reverse-engineer experiences to deliver a sequence of five key feelings:
    1. Control – Customers must feel they understand the world they're entering.
    2. Harmony – The experience must show emotional awareness of their state.
    3. Significance – The experience reflects knowledge of their unique personal story.
    4. Warmth of Others – Visible support and community; customers feel guided, not alone.
    5. Growth – They feel more capable tomorrow because of today’s experience.
  • Quote:

    "If you reverse engineer that, you bump into a sequence of five feelings which are sequential... That sequence of five is like a blueprint for your design process." – Marcus Buckingham [15:29]

• Sequential, Not Hierarchical:

  • The feelings occur in sequence; missing an early step means subsequent feelings can’t be fully realized.
  • This model applies to every customer or employee journey, from sales to onboarding.

6. Love as a Strategic Differentiator

• Standing Out in a Loveless World:

  • Most companies are “loveless,” seeing people as “FTEs” or “basket size,” instead of humans.
  • Intentionally designing love into experiences creates a competitive edge, especially since so few do it.
  • Quote:

    "If you even began to think about how to design experiences that people would say that they love, we would be so materially different in the feelings that we would be creating..." – Marcus Buckingham [21:20]

• It’s Easy to Start, Hard to Master:

  • Experience intelligence is an easy capability to begin but hard to perfect.
  • The payoff comes quickly for those who make the effort.

Memorable Moments & Quotes (with Timestamps)

• On using the word "Love" in business:

  "Other positive emotions are positive, but they don’t drive behavior. Only love is predictive." – Marcus Buckingham [02:25]

• Why not top-two-box the survey:

  "We should never top two box ever again. Never put a four with a five ever, because you’re lumping apples with oranges." – Marcus Buckingham [05:25]

• On frontline employees and experience:

  "Every single glance, every single behavior change, every single look in the eye or not look in the eye, all of those things are experience making. You have that power." – Marcus Buckingham [11:36]

• On the danger of designing for convenience, not experience:

  "If you’re designing for what’s easy for us, you’re almost automatically going to make it harder for the customer, right?" – John Jantsch [14:22]

Timed Guide to Important Segments

• 01:14 – 02:40: Marcus explains the research behind using "love" as a key business term.
• 03:44 – 05:44: How to measure love; the critical difference between 4s and 5s on surveys.
• 06:04 – 09:02: Overview of experience intelligence and its practical implications.
• 09:02 – 11:56: Every touchpoint, digital or physical, is part of experience design—with Disney as an example.
• 14:58 – 18:27: Step-by-step blueprint for engineering love into customer or employee onboarding.
• 20:09 – 22:09: The competitive advantage of cultivating love as a business strategy.

Conclusion & Resources

Takeaway:
Businesses that intentionally design experiences to evoke “love” will be the ones their customers and teams can’t imagine being without. This approach is both a deeply human aspiration and a sharp strategic move in today’s transactional, unloving landscape.

Learn More:

• Marcus Buckingham’s work and the book "Design Love In": designlovin.com
• Bonus Discovery Series (with Harvard Business Review) available for book readers [22:25]

Final Note:

"Hopefully we’ll run into you one of these days out there on the road." – John Jantsch [22:54]
"I’d love that." – Marcus Buckingham [22:54]