Category Archives: Business

Leave Them Asking How & Leave The Cat In The Box

No matter the transaction, the service, or the product – when you leave the customer asking “How did they do that???” – you win.

Zappos calls this “wowing” your customer. Wow is now a verb.

You win because astonishment is sharable. We can’t keep astonishing things to ourselves. So we share how you “wow’d” us and the people who hear the story come to you at some point to see it for themselves.

Secondly, you win because they come back for another wow at some point. AND, Sale #2 is a much easier credit card swipe for them than sale #1. “Swipe. Now wow me again, please.”

Examples of leaving the customer asking how….

  • The amazingly rolled sushi roll.
  • The perfectly done hairdo.
  • The custom fitted suit.
  • The perfectly played song set.
  • The 10 minute oil change.
  • The 3 day shipping arriving the next day.
  • Etc.

The problem here is if they can find out how you do what you do they may:

A) Find a way to do it themselves.

B) Go find someone, not you, to do it cheaper.

This is highly unlikely if your wow is off the charts though.

In summary, just to be safe, don’t let your “wow” cat out of the box.

PS – Here’s a secret. Loving your neighbor (customer) like yourself wow’s 99.9% of the time. I’m not asking you to reinvent the wheel. I’m simply asking you be human.

#LTMP

 

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Should We Believe You?

Now that you’re out of bed.

Now that you’re dressed.

Now that you’ve pulled out of your garage.

Now that you’ve got your Red Bull.

Now that your day is here.

Now that the lights are on.

Now that you’re on stage.

What song are you going to give us?

Better yet, when you strum the first chord and sing the first line should we believe you?

Click here and may these words ring in our heads each and every morning.

#LTMP

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Value

Honesty is value.

Better service offers more value.

Better systems bring better value.

And all of this is scary. Because you put yourself out there in your honesty. You put yourself out there when you serve. You put yourself out there to create, design, tweak, and launch what you think is a better system.

In a weird way, could it be that we avoid providing great value due to a fear of being shot down?

A mentor of mine once told me to always separate yourself from your product. They’re not saying no to you. They’re saying no to your service (at the time), your product, your book, your idea, your _______.  Point of the story? Fail forward.

If a bedrock focus for everything you do is to create, provide, and share value – the markets will respond with an acceptance ratio in your favor.

The end user always has one last question. “Where’s the value?” The hard, rewarding, part is writing the story for them to understand your answer.

Alas, Our instruments make our music and our music tells our story.

Opportunities

One day an opportunity will arise for you the salesman to say I’m sorry. I was wrong. It was my fault. My product or service did not work the way it was intended to.

Everyday an opportunity will arise for you to serve.

Most days an opportunity will arise for you to not ignore the call.

Probably everyday an opportunity will arise for you to make the call you don’t want to.

When we don’t take the opportunity alloted, we miss a musical opportunity.

Noise is what the market expects (you’re not going to serve well, you’re not going to say you were wrong, you’re going to ignore the difficult call, and you’re not going to make the follow-up call). Noise is par. Noise is average. Noise is vanilla.

I’m giving you 2 permissions:

1) You are allowed to ignore the small voice inside your head that wants you to play the blame game, not serve, ignore the call, or not make the call. The more we give in to this voice, the more shallow life becomes.

2) Talk to your fears. Call them out. Address them. Demand they weaken. They’re responsible for most of where we’re lacking music in our lives.

Now that you have this permission, what are you waiting on?

Our days are full of endless opportunities, and it is the result of these opportunities that will cause your brand continue living in an economy where there are brand causalities happening all around us.

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A Success Formula

Pause.

Look deep into the mirror, a sunset, and/or your soul and find out who you are.

Again, this takes pause – and we’re not so hot at pausing in world in that operates in fast forward.

Once you’ve got who you are figured out then go serve somebody.

Knowing who you are will have 99% to do with what success looks like for yourself.

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