Anyone can learn to scramble and fry rice on a 3×6 steaming griddle.
Anyone can slice an onion, stack it into a volcano, and light the canola lava.
Anyone can become a master shrimp tail slapper.
Sure, the hibachi experience is quite entertaining, but we really sat down for the chef’s secret sauce.
Create and refine your sauce. Our mouths are watering.
Sayonara.
Great businesses don’t let the interaction end at the sale.
The individual that served me at Nordstrom sends me a thank you note a month after I purchased a pair of jeans. Apple asks me to come into the store so they can show me a few new things on the iPhone 4S. The Peninsula Hotel set the bar for me in what service is when I stayed there, and last week they asked me to come back again for two nights – one of which is free.
You wouldn’t tell your wife you love her once and then never again. And you would not offer to serve her on your honeymoon and then never again. For a relationship to thrive it must continually give words of gratitude and offer to serve.
In my industry the market is down, yet I’m having the best year of my career. Out of 93 homes I’ve personally sold Y.T.D, 57 of them were transactions with someone I’ve done business with before, consider a friend, or a friend referred them to me. Or to put this another way, 61% of my business this year was relationship based. Facebook didn’t do it, Twitter didn’t do it, billboards didn’t do it, and television didn’t do it. People either came back because transaction #1 went well, or people came because someone told them their transcation #1, #2, or #3 went well with me.
Next time your customer swipes his/her credit card for what you provided, remind yourself that the relationship is not over…its just beginning.
You will build a world-changing businesses when it is built on relationships that serve in response to gratitude.
PS – I’ve read a couple great books that go into more detail on this – Thank You Economy and Tribes.
Utilizing our imagination reduces the chances for the mundane to creep into our lives.
The minute creativity and newness leaves our lives, businesses, and families we allow the water to get stagnant.
No matter the area of our live’s we look into, if “that’s how we’ve always done it” is the chorus in our music – soon that music will stop.
“That’s how we’ve always done it” puts us knee-deep in inescapable mud.
“What if we….? Could it be…? Imagine what the world would be like if……..” – These questions drop us in the deep blue waters of Capri.
Mud puddles are lame. Crashing waves, on the other hand – I can get lost in those all day.
The question is not how can I utilize my imagination better, but where does imagination gets its spark from? I’m not too sure, but I tend to feel the rays of her warmth every time I question, every time I challenge the status quo, and every time I stop and listen.
An eager ear given to a small seashell just may be able to unlock the secrets of the ocean your trying to decode.
Ashton.Gustafson 