Service

There are GREAT REASONS you must deliver GREAT SERVICE. Great service helps to produce great employees and great employees produce great clients. 

Ultimately, all sustainable business is built upon relationships. Trust is the foundation for all relationships and high quality service is the ultimate competitive advantage to enhancing and securing the relationships you need to maintain and grow your business. Once you have established that you are trustworthy and get the commitment from the customer, you can then go to work providing exceptional and continually improving service.

Today anyone can do business with anyone, anywhere with the stroke of a keyboard or on a telephone. When doing business this way,  the impersonal compromise of the human element is a result.  When we are not "pressing the flesh" we really don't get to know people. To really know someone you must get in front of them and invest time learning from them, and generally, stuff about them.

People are still people and they deserve to be treated like the very people who are paying your bills because they are. Passionate, sincere and high-quality service is the most effective method to build lasting relationships and it is often the easiest and least costly commitment you can make.

Bad service can cut so deeply that the victim will go to great lengths to share the unpleasant experience with others and the feeling last a long, long time. The damage can be permanent because the cut of bad service is so deep, that the customer is not interested in taking another chance. They simply take their business and their money to your competition. 

Great service means that once a problem is identified, you will move quickly to acknowledge, take ownership and resolve! Great service is the BEST COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE and it is completely within your control. Look at it this way: If you don't provide the service your customer deserves, your competition can.

The Rock In Your Shoe

We have all experienced the rock in our shoe.

While walking along a small rock somehow makes its way into our shoe and works its way down to the sole of our foot under the sock. The discomfort is so small that we will often not give it enough consideration to stop what we are doing and remove the rock. Instead, we change our behavior and walk a little differently or slow down somewhat to adjust for the irritation.

Another example of this controllable event is when we are driving for a while and the farther we drive the more agitated and upset we get. We know something is really bothering us but we can't explain what, because we are not paying attention to the details. Then we realize that over thirty minutes ago we drove through a rain storm and now that we are driving in the sun, we snap that our windshield wipers are still on high!

Far too often we accept things the way they are, because we just don't want to make the changes necessary to make things better. Instead we adjust our behavior or our standards or our expectations and accept less than we should. Many times the things that need to be changed are minor and will require little effort to adjust and become more street savvy. Many times people are the source of the irritation that we accept and often they are not aware because no one cared enough, to point out the bad behavior before it became a major issue. People deserve to know and if they don't want to change, perhaps they deserve the opportunity to go and do something else, somewhere else.

Don't accept the rock in your shoe as something that just has to be. Make the decisions to make the changes and stop accepting that things cannot be different. Because, when you modify your behavior or your urgency or your direction because of the small thing that just isn't right, you started the compromise-slide and soon enough you will discover that you are compromising on boulders in your shoe all because you didn't take the time to remove the pebble.

Something Sleeps

There is something inside you that sleeps if you never move.

That has been my experience over the years as my profession has provided me opportunities to move from one location to another, at times many hundred miles. While a geographical move is easier to identify with and creates more issues (professional and personal) , the move need not be from one city to another in order for that special motivation inside you to wake-up. Moving to a greater level of responsibility or increased expectations due to changing circumstances will be enough to wake-up that special motivation.

When you don't move, literally or figuratively,  is when things go to sleep and then you become more and more compromised. This is when there is not enough happening, either by omission or commission,  professionally that will disturb your sense of well being sufficiently enough, to wake up a level of commitment, that otherwise you may never know you have. There is a reason some people are called:"Movers & Shakers." These people are the ones that are willing to move and take risks and take action because something new and exciting has awakened a level of commitment that serves to take them to higher levels of accomplishment. So when you are given the opportunity, move and wake up!

It Takes Discipline to Develop Discipline

There is simply no getting around it. If you are going to be really good at what you do you are going to have to do, whatever it is, repeatedly and improve every time you do it. Additionally if you are going to endeavor to learn something new that will add to your skill-set, you are going to have devote time on a regular basis that is focused on that effort. Both of these objectives: getting better at what you do and learning something new, are going to demand discipline.

Discipline means that you are focused and dedicated and that you are going to accomplish your task without allowing anything to get in your way. One step at a time, always moving in the direction of your goals, will demand-discipline. When you have made the mental and emotional connection to the value of discipline you have made a giant step in accomplishing your goals and becoming more successful. In order to get something you are going to have to give something. When you are disciplined you are committing to a greater level of achievement because you are willing to focus and make the time to make thing happen. Giving up a few things that are less important and filling that space with new things that are more important is disciplined approach to improvement and that takes discpline.

Mason & Dixon

Like Mason said to Dixon; "You have to draw the line somewhere."

There is always a time to draw a line and declare that this is a direction we are headed in. The time may not always be perfect to make a decision and draw a line representing a defining moment, but what is perfect ? We all need to know our clear expectations, that are either self-imposed or given by our leaders. When we know we can act accordingly and engage in the actions that will help meet the expectations. We will then have a direction and know approximately how much effort we need to exert in order to move the needle and effect positive change. Far too often people get so wrapped up in the circumstances that they fail to make a decision and draw the line. Making a decision, gives liberty and affords opportunity.

Some of the biggest problems in life and business often are a result of not making a decision. When decisions are not made the matter becomes one of omission and not commission. Things are not happening because there is no definitive direction and people wonder why, when the answer is obvious. The best thing to do is to zoom-out from the circumstance and take a look from 30,000 feet to get a better fix on what is really happening. Once you have zoomed out and removed yourself from the emotional impact and confusion that resides when you are too close to the situation, you will have a better view on the reality. Then you can draw a line and move back in and start moving in the right direction.

Embrace Don't Chase

Back in the Internet boom days companies were attracting billions of investment dollars even though many of the companies had never turned a profit. The fervor over what might be, based on the irrational and unrealistic quest for easy and sky-high returns on investment lead many investors off the cliff. The commotion that the disruptive "Internet-introduction-change" caused, had a profound effect on the logic that had previously served so many so well. People began to chase and not embrace. They followed, very quickly, in the reckless direction that the masses were going and failed to recognize the Pied Piper in the front. So, off the cliff they went. Thousands lost everything and yet the Internet thrives.

Whenever you are faced with dynamic and light-speed change you should stop and look before you cross the quantum-leap street, lest you be run over by a fast moving change that does not have much substance. Following for the sake of following, because you are afraid that everyone else will beat you to the punch, places you in the reactive position and then you are no longer in control. Others are making the decisions for you, without your best interest as a consideration.

Allow pragmatism and logic to help you make decisions. When things appear too good to be true, guess what?

Change is going to come and you MUST embrace it. However allowing change to disrupt your common-sense train of thought can be reckless. Embrace change, don't chase change.

Take a Step

The system has never failed me.

Whenever I am faced with a project that keeps getting bigger the more I think about it, the less inclined I am do to anything about it, because I have made a mental mountain out of a literal mole-hill. When I employ the failsafe system of simply Taking a Step in the direction of the project, everything changes. No longer am I facing a huge matter that keeps getting bigger, now I am facing a manageable portion of the project, and I find that if I keep moving, things get done. Once a piece of the project is complete, I move on to the next square and make additional progress. Even when mistakes are made, they are made and overcome while I am moving in the direction of a satisfactory conclusion.

It is in the "doing" where discoveries are made and those discoveries will likely cause modifications to the steps we are taking, because the piece we are working on proved more or perhaps less challenging and time consuming that previously thought. The good news is that we now know more than we did before we got started and we got started by Taking a Step.

The possibility of not "doing" always exists, especially when we are venturing into territory that we have never been before. While we are fretting over the job that must be done, we build up our justifications for not "doing" even though we are perfectly capable. You will never know what you are capable of accomplishing if you allow the fear of the unknown to stopping you from "Taking a Step".