The Millionaire Mind Support Network™

Make a Stand for Your Brand

The following passage is from Jon Gordon’s Weekly Newsletter that provides positive strategies to fuel your life and career.

Stand for Your Brand

What do you stand for? I was asked this question last week and several words came to mind: service, faith, family, action and positive energy. As I drove in my car I continued to think about what I stand for and what it means to stand for something. I thought of people like Nelson Mandela and Bono and what they stand for and what this says about them. I thought of the company Chick-Fil-A and how closing on Sunday’s speaks volumes about what they stand for. I thought about Starbucks and how providing health insurance to employees reflects what founder and CEO Howard Schultz stands for.

I thought of Honest Tea, a bottled tea that incorporates Honesty into everything they do. Honest Tea is not just a name. It’s a brand that is backed by words, purpose, energy and action. They use organic tea. They use all natural ingredients. They have a company policy against saying anything negative about their competition. They are part of the fair trade campaign. Their CEO, Seth Goldman, is a genuine, humble, nice and honest guy. Honest Tea stands for honesty. I like that.

It occurred to me that each person, organization and team has their own brand and what we stand for reflects and reinforces this brand. More importantly when we take action that is in alignment with what we stand for we strengthen and reinforce our brand and solidify what we stand for. When you stand for something you don’t just talk, you act. You don’t just have whimsical thoughts or weak beliefs about it, you have conviction. You don’t just go through the motions; you get engaged with purpose and passion. The energy of your brand is being projected every moment by what you think, say and do. This energy is then received by your customers, employees, and the world.

One of the most important exercises any person, organization and team can do is to ask the following questions:

1. What Do I Stand For? What Do We Stand For? Make a list of what you truly believe you stand for.

2. Do My/Our Actions Reflect What I/We Stand For? For example if you say you stand for great customer service but you don’t call your customer back in a timely manner or go above and beyond to address their concerns then you really don’t stand for great customer service. Evaluate your actions.

3. Make a Stand for Your Brand. Take action on the things you stand for. Right now, write down 3 actions that you can take that will reinforce what you stand for then take action on them.

4. Re-Evaluate Often. This will help you be aware of whether your actions are in alignment with your beliefs. There will always be discrepancies. No one is perfect. We all fall short. The key is to be aware and have a desire to improve. Tools like this newsletter are meant to help with the process.

Jon Gordon is a speaker, consultant and author of several books including the recently released The No Complaining Rule: Positive Ways to deal with Negativity at Work and the international best seller The Energy Bus: 10 Rules to Fuel your Life, Work and Team with Positive Energy which has captured the hearts of readers world-wide. If you’d like to sign up for Jon’s Newsletter, order his books or review his teaching schedule go to http://www.jongordon.com/.

Millionaire Minds can always EARN more,
because we always look for opportunities to LEARN more

Jon Gordon is a speaker, consultant and author of several books including the recently released The No Complaining Rule: Positive Ways to deal with Negativity at Work and the international best seller The Energy Bus: 10 Rules to Fuel your Life, Work and Team with Positive Energy which has captured the hearts of readers world-wide.

A Teaching Story

During my second month of nursing school, our professor gave us a pop quiz. I was a conscientious student and had breezed through the questions until I read the last one: “What is the first name of the woman who cleans the school?”

Surely this was some kind of joke. I had seen the cleaning woman several times. She was tall, dark-haired, a woman in her fifties, but how would I know her name? I handed in my paper, leaving the last question blank.

Before class ended, one student asked if the last question would count toward our quiz grade. “Absolutely,” said the professor. “In your careers you will meet many people. All are significant. They deserve your care, even if all you do is smile and say hello.”

I’ve never forgotten that lesson. I also learned her name was Dorothy.

— Joanne C. Jones quoted in The Art of Forgiveness, Lovingkindness, and Peace by Jack Kornfield

Wealth Principle The Law Of Income: You Will Be Paid In Direct Proportion To The Value You Deliver According To The Marketplace. Implementing the ‘Golden Rule’ by putting the customer first is one of the surest ways to add value to the marketplace. Based on customer interaction, every business is a service business. All ventures live and die based on their customers’ satisfaction and ensuing loyalty.

“No matter whether you manufacture, grow, produce, distribute, or sell, you are ‘in service.’” — Paul Hawken, Growing a Business

Structuring a customer-centric enterprise A strong, customer ethic and truly outstanding customer service begins with you and your employees. As the business owner, it is your responsibility to codify the customer service standards; then make sure everyone who represents your company, employees, contractors and in some case vendors, understand them and has the authority to implement them. Your representatives must have the ability to do what is necessary to make the customer happy without fear of reprisal. You hired them and trained them —trust them.

“Policies and procedures are helpful only as guides toward an end result. When employees run out of possibilities to make the customer happy, they must have the latitude to improvise to make it right. Most employees operate in a state of fear that their own generosity with a customer will be viewed as foolishness by their boss. This situation will stifle flexible customer service.” — Paul Hawken, Growing a Business

It is important to acknowledge your team for achieving stated service goals. The Golden Rule of business extends to your employees. Your employees are also customers of the business enterprise. Be quick to resolve solve daily annoyances that could lead to poor morale. Disgruntled employees are unlikely to extend them selves to assure end-user satisfaction. One of the big hurtles for emerging business is recruiting and hiring the “right” folks for the job. The owner isn’t the only individual who must wear many hats in an emerging business enterprise. Those first employees have to be technically versatile and very, very, customer-oriented. Stressing your business customer service requirements is a critical aspect of the hire process. A positive outlook and energetic attitude is a must. Try as you might, you can’t train against basic personality types. To paraphrase one of my favorite Texas Truisms — “You can’t fix pessimistic.” For more information on successful hiring practices, check out Winning by Jack Welsh. This book is a-must-have for your business library. In the next Millionaire Mind Support Network™ Blog — Staying Close To your Customer— I’ll look at ways to deliver excellent customer service in a way that allows the customer to access them in the most efficient, fair, cost effective, and humanly satisfying and pleasurable manner possible. If you have any customer service ideas, or experiences, please share them with the rest of your Millionaire Mind Support Network™ H. Sandra Chevalier-Batik Copyright © Serendal Research Institute 2007 All writings here are copyrighted. You may not use them without written permission but you may link to the posts or give out a link to the posts. Do you have a question for any of the Millionaire Minds Team? Drop me a line at sbatik@mymillionairemind.org and you may see your question answered in an upcoming blog or featured in our Millionaire Minds Forum.

Customer Care Summary
The Profit Margin Is In The Details

We started this Customer Care series by asking you to examine how to deliver excellent customer service in a way that allows the customer to access them in the most efficient, fair, cost effective, and humanly satisfying and pleasurable manner possible.

The Golden Rule, “Treating others as you, yourself, would like to be treated,” is the surest foundation for any customer care program.

One of the best ways to keep your customers happy is to understand the way they think.

• What motivates your customer to buy now, or hold off until later?
• What worries them or makes them feel confident?
• Which product or service benefit means the most to your client base?

All Business Transactions are Based in an Emotional Response

Customers, and all of us are somebody’s customers, do business on the basis of their feelings. We customers want what we want, when we want it. We business owners need to position our product or services to not only understand, but also accommodate our client’s sentiments and sensibilities. As individuals, we customers gravitate toward a company or group of people with whom we enjoy doing business — patronizing those businesses and organizations with which we are comfortable. We customers are very reticent about changing our buying habits; however, when we are disgruntled by a minor frustration or discourteous response, experience has shown that we customers will not only change vendors, we usually share the source of our dissatisfaction with several of our friends and associates.

Ways to Deliver Outstanding Customer Care

Successful organizations understand the need to stay close to their customer base. In every business function — product/service development, marketing/sales, distribution and customer care — employees and owners need to understand their customers’ wants, needs and expectations.

What do they want?

Ask them!

Use surveys, the best are short and drill down to unambiguous conclusions that give the business owner actionable intelligence.

Utilize Blogs, customer forums, users groups and other online resources to communicate with your customers and learn their attitudes, what they want, and what they dislike.

Carefully analyze the ideas, suggestions, and complaints of your present and former customers.

Communication, Communication, Communication

Consistently courteous phone manners are a BIG issue that is often overlooked in a “growing” business enterprise. Candidly consider both your own and your employees’ telephone manners. Consider sponsoring formal phone etiquette classes for every one in the organization. Good phone manners are particularly important for small businesses. Mishandling a phone contact could undermine an otherwise successful marketing initiative.

Institute a program to regularly check employees’ phone protocol. Contract with someone whose voice is unfamiliar to play the role of a customer or prospective client, preferably one with a problematic or unusual issue. Assess the tenor of the response and address any client care issues that need correction. It is essential that any correction or criticism include specific points and solid suggestions for improvement. To simply complain about an employee’s phone manner is not helpful to either the individual in question or your customer. Specific phone etiquette guidelines, such as prompt answering and a cheerful attitude of helpfulness are critical aspects of a successful customer care initiative.

It Takes a Village, or at Least Everyone Who Works in the Organization…

Really great customer service is a team effort. Successful organizations develop a customer-care culture. When dealing with a corporate culture, it is important to acknowledge that each business has its own quirky personality — that unique something that permeates the organizational structure. Find those support tools and services that build on your organizational personality. It is that distinctiveness that drew your client base to you in the first place. Any customer care initiative needs to be authentic — true to the organizational culture, to be successfully integrated into a consistent practice. Find out what works best for your organization. Some companies have used group meetings, specialized onsite training, memos, posters, in-house publications and rewards specifically designed to acculturate great customer care. Getting and holding customers requires the whole team’s attention. Invite employees’ and other stake holder’s ideas — Listen, learn, adapt and listen some more.

Do Your Clients Consider You and Your Organization as Welcoming?

As a founder of an emerging business or an established enterprise you and your employees, need to be out and about. Some business owners and professionals confine their meet and greet time to “business to business” events like Chamber of Commerce or other professional meetings. It is simply good business practice to extend your after-hours, public relation efforts to the more informal environments favored by your client base. All business activity is a form of energy exchange. Your existing and future clients react positively to a graciously welcome vibration. A genuine, consistently pleasant demeanor attracts folks to you and your business. Take advantage of the relaxed atmosphere of social occasions or the neighborhood community center to turn friends into customers or to reinforce the loyalty of existing ones.

If you have any customer service ideas, or experiences, please share them with the rest of your Millionaire Mind Support Network™

Copyright © Millionaire Minds, LLC 2007
All writings here are copyrighted. You may not use them without written permission but you may link to the posts or give out a link to the posts. And remember, You Have a Millionaire Mind!

The Value of Expressing The Golden Rule In Your Business Venture

Wealth Principle
The Law Of Income: You Will Be Paid In Direct Proportion To
The Value You Deliver According To The Market Place.

How BEING is Expressed in the DOING

Some of the most effective “Customer Service Extras” are really basic aspects of conducting good business. Customers, accustomed to “Voice-Jail” prompts, are often are pleasantly surprised when the phone is answered by a person, on or about the third ring, who treats them with respect and courtesy. Something as simple as greeting or addressing a client by name and promptly and politely answering their questions makes a huge impression. Sadly such civility is rare in today’s business environment. No one expects you to know everything. If you or your employees don’t know the answer to a client inquiry, it is OK to simply say, “I don’t know the answer, but I’ll be happy to ask and get back to you as soon as possible. When is the best time to return your call?” When phoning a customer, after the greeting, always ask, “Is now a convenient time to talk to me, or would you prefer me to call back.” Your customers appreciate anyone who is respectful of their time.

Customer service is definitely enjoying renaissance. Successful companies have made outstanding customer service synonymous with their names. Think of the legendary retailer, Neiman Marcus. During the entire purchase cycle, the customer is treated like the single most important person in the representative’s day.

Is the price point slightly higher at Neiman Marcus?
Probably.
Do customers really care?
Not really.
Why?

Because Neiman Marcus customers KNOW that if they need anything, the sales representative and the customer care people will ALWAYS handled any request graciously — hence, an intensely loyal customer base.

To succeed in today’s buyer’s market you must give your customers what they want, NOT what you think they want.

Who is your next customer?
One never knows.

The enlightened entrepreneur is consistently courteous, offering friendly service to everyone they come in contact with during their day — suppliers and others as well as current customers.

If you want to keep customers coming back for more, practicing the Golden Rules has never made better business sense.

In the next Millionaire Mind Support Network™ Blog — Customer Service — In Conclusion — I’ll look at ways to deliver excellent customer service in a way that allows the customer to access them in the most efficient, fair, cost effective, and humanly satisfying and pleasurable manner possible.

If you have any customer service ideas, or experiences, please share them with the rest of your Millionaire Mind Support Network™

Copyright © Millionaire Minds, LLC 2007
All writings here are copyrighted. You may not use them without written permission but you may link to the posts or give out a link to the posts. And remember, You Have a Millionaire Mind!

Wealth Principle —

The Law Of Income: You Will Be Paid In Direct Proportion To

The Value You Deliver According To The Market Place.

The Value of Expressing The Golden Rule In Your Business Venture

BEING The Best You Can BE
and Sharing That Perfection With Your Customers

How can the enlightened entrepreneur demonstrate their willingness to give that extra measure to assure customer satisfaction? Those willing to travel the “road less taken,” should be prepared to encounter a new view of outstanding customer care. As a business owner, I’ve been inspired by Wayne Dyer’s wonderful presentation, “It’s Never Crowded Along the Extra Mile”. Drawing upon the lessons of great teachers such as St. Francis of Assisi, Viktor Frankl, Jesus Christ, Nelson Mandela, Mother Teresa, and Buddha, Dr. Dyer explores the concepts of gratitude, unconditional love and acceptance. Dyer’s insights are especially applicable to enlightened entrepreneurs, following their passion and building a customer centric business model. Being completely customer focused is a way to generate the expansive energy needed to implement an outstanding customer service program.

Dyer reminds us that we’re all connected to God, or if you prefer, the Universe. When you “tap in to” this connection, you can access intuition, see the universe as one, and understand that you simply have to align yourself with what you want in order to bring it into your life, or business. Anyone can access this expansive, energy—it’s only a positive thought away!

It is often said that you can’t solve a problem with the same mind that created it. Any limitation can be transformed with intention. That is the basis of the Law of Attraction. In several of Joe Vitale’s books, The Attractor Factor and Zero Limits, he stresses that the Law of Attraction is a much larger concept than Wealth and Health. It is a process that can change the people around you by bringing a higher energy to them and by sending love in response to hate, or in this example, customer discontent.

When the high energy of love and unconditional acceptance is focused on a situation, there can be no such thing as justified resentment or disappointment — the type of emotion that is the basis for most customer service issues. A mind that is open is one that invites in miracles. When you’re open to everything and attached to nothing, you’ll learn that you don’t need to constantly evaluate right/wrong/good/bad. Your success and your customers satisfaction is measured upon the ability to do what you love and love what you do and sharing that perfection with the people who come to share the energy exchange of unconditional support,

“Success is advancing confidently in the direction of your own dreams.”

— Henry David Thoreau

In the next Millionaire Mind Support Network™ Blog — Customer Service — The Value is in the Details I’ll look at ways to deliver excellent customer service in a way that allows the customer to access them in the most efficient, fair, cost effective, and humanly satisfying and pleasurable manner possible.

If you have any customer service ideas, or experiences, please share them with the rest of your Millionaire Mind Support Network™

Copyright © Millionaire Minds, LLC 2007
All writings here are copyrighted. You may not use them without written permission but you may link to the posts or give out a link to the posts. And remember, You Have a Millionaire Mind!

Wealth Principle
The Law Of Income: You Will Be Paid In Direct Proportion To The Value You Deliver According To The Marketplace.

I am a stanch proponent of self-directed business education. Part of my continuing business education routine is the commitment to read and study business magazines and trade journals. By studying the Wall Street Journal, Business Week, Fast Company, Entrepreneur, and Inc. cover-to-cover, I have received an excellent return on my investment of time. Every day I learn something new — tools to assess a business opportunity, a growth strategy, lessons learned, and how to manage my time and resources more effectively. As I read about the business wunderkinds, like Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg; or seasoned innovators like Apple’s Steve Jobs, I am reminded that the great companies have found ways to stay close to their customers. These firms are fully engaged with their customer base. They pay close attention to what their customers are saying, then develop products or services to meet their customers’ needs — or in Apple’s case, anticipate the market to give us, “What we never even knew we always wanted.”

Communication technology makes it easy for even a home-based, sole-proprietor, to tap into their customers’ base needs, wants and desires. Today, anyone can use Blogs, product/service forums, and users-groups to ask questions and carefully track the responses. To be successful, businesses must listen to and talk with customers. Apple’s early success was helped by their use of “Apple Evangelists.” These savvy, tech missionaries went out to the developers, the third party vendors and end-users and learned how to better serve their base.

Apple is committed to staying close to their clientele and they identify with them. Apple representatives give their customers the level of service they themselves would expect to receive. Apple’s symbiotic relationship with their customers necessitates paying attention to every link in their distribution chain; this means listening to everyone who helps get their products to market and soliciting suggestions for improving both the products and service.

Knowing, understanding and acting upon what the customer wants, is the smartest thing any business owner, big or small, can do. Satisfied clients come back, again and again. Keeping an existing client happy is more cost effective than attracting new customers.

“65% of a company’s business comes from existing customers, and it costs five times as much to attract a new customer than to keep an existing one satisfied.”
— Customer Service Institute

Customers are so loyal to the Apple product line, that other consumer electronic giants study and try to emulate the Steve Jobs’ industrial design mystique and Apple’s customer-centered product development process.

As Bill Gates of Microsoft can attest, an eroding customer-base is even more expensive then retaining your customer base through responsive customer service.

“91% of unhappy customers will never again buy from a company that has displeased them; they will also voice their dissatisfaction to at least seven other people.”
— Technical Assistance Research Programs Institute

Software buyers, distrustful of predatory business practices, and unhappy with product reliability, actively sought alternatives to the Microsoft product line. They found them in Linux products and web-based applications from Google. A resent business review concisely stated Microsoft’s current customer service problem, “Google is to Microsoft as Microsoft was to IBM.

Stay close to your customer base. You need them more than they need you.

Drop me a line at sbatik@mymillionairemind.org and you may see your question answered in an upcoming Blog or featured in our Millionaire Minds Forum.

Wealth Principle

The Law Of Income: You Will Be Paid In Direct

To The Value You Deliver According To The Marketplace

Implementing the ‘Golden Rule’ by putting the customer first is one of the surest ways to add value to the marketplace. Based on customer interaction, every business is a service business. All ventures live and die based on their customers’ satisfaction and ensuing loyalty.

“No matter whether you manufacture, grow, produce, distribute, or sell, you are ‘in service.”

— Paul Hawken, Growing a Business

Structuring a Customer-Centric Enterprise

A strong, customer ethic and truly outstanding customer service begins with you and your employees. As the business owner, it is your responsibility to codify the customer service standards; then make sure everyone who represents your company, employees, contractors and in some case vendors, understand them and has the authority to implement them. Your representatives must have the ability to do what is necessary to make the customer happy without fear of reprisal.
You hired them and trained them —trust them.

“Policies and procedures are helpful only as guides toward an end result. When employees run out of possibilities to make the customer happy, they must have the latitude to improvise to make it right. Most employees operate in a state of fear that their own generosity with a customer will be viewed as foolishness by their boss. This situation will stifle flexible customer service.”

— Paul Hawken, Growing a Business

It is important to acknowledge your team for achieving stated service goals. The Golden Rule of business extends to your employees. Your employees are also customers of the business enterprise. Be quick to resolve solve daily annoyances that could lead to poor morale. Disgruntled employees are unlikely to extend them selves to assure end-user satisfaction.

One of the big hurtles for emerging business is recruiting and hiring the “right” folks for the job. The owner isn’t the only individual who has to wear many hats in an emerging business enterprise. Those first employees have to be technically versatile and very, very, customer-oriented. Stressing your business customer service requirements is a critical aspect of the hire process. A positive outlook and energetic attitude is a must.

Try as you might, you can’t train against basic personality types.
To paraphrase one of my favorite Texas Truisms —

“You can’t fix pessimistic.”

For more information on successful hiring practices, check out Winning by Jack Welsh. This book is a-must-have for your business library.

In the next Millionaire Mind Support Network™ Blog — Staying Close To your Customer— I’ll look at ways to deliver excellent customer service in a way that allows the customer to access them in the most efficient, fair, cost effective, and humanly satisfying and pleasurable manner possible.

If you have any customer service ideas, or experiences, please share them with the rest of your Millionaire Mind Support Network™

Copyright © Millionaire Minds, LLC 2007
All writings here are copyrighted. You may not use them without written permission but you may link to the posts or give out a link to the posts. And remember, You Have a Millionaire Mind!

Wealth Principle:

To Get Paid The Best, You Must Be The Best

Outstanding customer service is a sector in which a small business or professional enterprise successfully compete with the big businesses in their chosen market. It is often the differentiator between client loyalty and a one-time sale. Consistently excellent customer service is the holy grail of customer loyalty and the cherished goal of repeat business. Even the best run businesses are vulnerable to poor customer care criticism. Hundreds of satisfying customer contacts can be negated by one, really bad, customer service snafu. In many ways, Big Business dependence on technology-based customer service ruined their customer care performance. An automated system forces callers to endure endless holds, and a computer generated voice, that demands identifying information. We all know the drill, “Say or key your zip code now.” Ahh.. would that be my home zip or my office zip? Customer frustration leads to the path of least resistance. In the case of poor customer service, that path is simply go away and don’t come back. Oh yes, and warn your friend and family, “That way be dragons!”

How do we define great customer service?

There are as many definitions of great customer service as there are business books. I’ve always liked definition Carol I. Kallendorf used in her excellent article that described the “Tools to Build Customer Service that Create Passionate Customer Loyalty”, featured in BizWatchOnline. (1)

“Excellent customer service is the process by which your organization delivers its services or products in a way that allows the customer to access them in the most efficient, fair, cost effective, and humanly satisfying and pleasurable manner possible.”

The Energy Imperative

How can we assure that our customer contacts are humanly satisfying and pleasurable?

To my mind, truly, great customer service is all about positive, energetic intent. The exchange of energy is very apparent in the customer care process. Think about what we, or those close to us, have said about their customer service experiences.

Negative experiences are often described with contracting, defensive energy—fight or flight; “It was too draining to deal with. I just gave up trying to get it resolved.”

Positive experiences are often described with expansive energy — “These folks are great! They listened to me and handled the issue right away!

Happy customers with a history of positive experience will be back and they bring friend and family.

Customer Service and The Golden Rule

We hold these truths to be self evident, “Do unto others, as you would have them do unto you.”

What is one of the surest ways to hold positive energy in all your business processes? In the west we refer to “living by the golden rule”. For those of us studying Zero Limits, we might think of the process as a form of Ho’oponopono, keeping our energy clear and clean, with everyone in our personal and professional lives. In practice it is being positively focused with 100% intent to share a positive, even loving experience. Each of us strives to conduct our personal lives by the guiding principle we have come to know as the golden rule. It should be obvious, that this golden rule is good business policy as well as am important personal practice.

In THE-BIG-BOX-Age, customers focused on “lowest price and one-stop convenience.” Many of these customers did not understand, or did not care, that the hidden cost was the loss of high-quality service. The saying, “You don’t know what you got till it’s gone. “ applies to customer service. Consumers are demanding the return of dependable customer service. Companies in every sector of the economy are recognizing that treating their customers as they themselves would like to be treated - or better has become a critical business strategy. Offering the “BEST” customer service is not only a competitive factor but an integral part of their product or service life cycle.

“Consumers are beginning to feel that their needs haven’t been met. They’re sick of getting poor service all the time.”

— Bonnie Jansen, U.S. Office of Consumer Affairs

The renewed customer service imperative represents a significant competitive opportunity to small or emerging businesses. Delivering excellent customer service in a way that allows the customer to access them in the most efficient, fair, cost effective, and humanly satisfying and pleasurable manner possible is a highly valued customer benefit that small companies can, in the least expensive way, set themselves apart from the competition.

“…small businesses which put heavy emphasis on customer service were more likely to survive and succeed than competitors who emphasized such advantages as lower prices or type of product.”

— National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB) in Washington, D.C

In the next few Millionaire Mind Support Network™ Blogs, I want to look at ways to deliver excellent customer service in a way that allows the customer to access them in the most efficient, fair, cost effective, and humanly satisfying and pleasurable manner possible.

1) BizWatchOnline
http://www.bizwatchonline.com/BWJuly06/article3_0904.htm

If you have any customer service ideas, or experiences, please share them with the rest of your Millionaire Mind Support Network™

Copyright © Millionaire Minds, LLC 2007
All writings here are copyrighted. You may not use them without written permission but you may link to the posts or give out a link to the posts. And remember, You Have a Millionaire Mind!