An Open Thought: Please Take the Keys

April 16, 2006 by Liz 58 Comments

32 Reallys

Last night, Gary paid me a stellar compliment for the whole world to see in two separate places. Wow, it was such a cool gesture, on so many levels, and totally unexpected. After a certain age, unexpected surprises aren’t usually good, so that made it even better.

On top of that, what Gary said underscored what I had said in the post that had started the entire chain of events–if you take a few minutes to do a favor for someone it often comes back in the most unexpected ways. Thank you, Gary. Thank you, Joe. Thank you, Keith.

Thank you, thank you, thank you. As my son used to say, “32 reallys.”

A Path of Favors

A whole string of events have occurred to lead up to this post. I think of them as a path of favors. One conversation led to another and then to another until we are here. The chain of events, the path of the two favors in question, went like this.

The Path of These Two Favors

2. I was already at the keyboard when each man asked. Each favor took almost no time. Both favors were a fun break from the boring work I was doing, and both times I was left with a feeling of doing well by doing something good for someone else.

3. My small gesture came to me in not two, but three, unexpected ways–from Joe, Keith, and then Gary.

Then a bonus occurred.

4. Inside his response, Gary did me a favor in return without knowing it.

That’s the thing about favors and saying YES–the universe often starts saying YES back in so many ways. Favors reproduce faster than Easter bunnies (and folks don’t bite their heads off.)

Leaving a Thought Open

You see, I’ve been working on a problem with my writing, especially the writing I do on this blog. Conversation is so important to me. It gets lonely here inside the computer, and ideas need dialogue to grow. The blogosphere doesn’t need me talking at it. It needs folks talking together, shaping ideas–twisting and turning them, stretching them into new thinking. Besides, it’s more fun that way.

Gary stated my problem for me last night in a tactful and generous way–much better than I could have done myself. He said

I used to comment more than I do now, but she writes so completely that I find it difficult to add my thoughts to hers.

I know that’s a compliment, Gary. Thank you.

I value your mind and your thoughts and insights too. I can’t seem to figure out how to leave a thought open enough so that you and everyone else can have room to speak.

That’s the problem I’ve wanted to ask you about. My book background taught me to over-explain things. When I do that, you have no room to talk.

The Lost Relationship Builder

This particular skill, this blogger’s relationship builder–leaving a thought open–I had this skill not ago–It seems to be one I’ve lost track of. I keep tying things up so tightly, even I can see there’s not room to add much. I’ve been reading old posts to find out what I did differently a few months ago, especially this one, More Blog Designs to Discuss.

That was December 2005. Obviously my customer think was different then. It had to be. I’d love to get some of that back. We all need that skill.

Please Take the Keys

Movie stars have directors. Olympic athletes have coaches. I’m just a blogger. I have you.

If we’re talking about customer think–brand you and me–what better case study than this blog itself? You can’t hurt my feelings talking about my writing. I know it’s not who I am. I’d like to know how to get myself off the stage and back into the audience again. Will you tell me what you see? Would you do me that favor? Just say YES.

Sometimes the customer needs to be in the driver’s seat. Please take the keys.

How will I learn if you don’t?

Brand you and me.

–ME “Liz” Strauss

Customer Think: Saying Things without Talking

April 13, 2006 by Liz Leave a Comment

Everything’s Equal or Is It?

You’ve just sold your car. Now you have a nice chunk of cash to start a new account until you need to use it. You head down to the bank where you have your accounts, and by some weird alignment of stars TWO account managers have time for you right away. This bank must be going through some sort of customer service training, you think, because both look up and say, “How may I help you?” They’re sitting right next to each other in identical, bank office-type cubicles. Both are dressed in the typical, bank office-type blue suits.

The only ways you have to tell them apart are their nameplates–Ms. Chase on the left and Ms. Fargo on the right–and the way they look at you as you try to decide which one you would like to spend the 15-20 minutes going over your accounts.

. . . . . . . . . . . .

You’re the customer, who gets your new business?

Saying Things Without Talking

So much of what we say to each other is communicated without a single word. Researcher vary on how much of a message is carried nonverbally, but they place the low end of the range at 65%. The sad part is we’re often not aware when we’re the ones communicating and too aware when we’re the ones being communicated to.

In a Brand You and Me situation, smiling a lot seems to be a good idea. Smiling releases chemicals in the brain that actually can raise your spirits, especially when you like the person you share a smile with. If that person smiles back, things get better than ever.

The moral seems to be. the more we care about customers and show them we do, the better we feel and the better they will too. Now that’s business promotion that should get us all smiling.

I like smiling. It makes me feel like I’m the nice one.

–ME “Liz” Strauss

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Customer Think: I’m Not a Kid, I’m a Person

April 12, 2006 by Liz 32 Comments

Grouping People Doesn’t Work

Each year when my son started school with a new teacher, I would wait about three weeks. Then I would make an appointment to see her. I would bring along a few cool books I had carefully selected for her classroom as a gift. I gave her the three weeks because I wanted my son’s teacher to have a chance to get to know this rare and brilliant child on his own–we needed a common place to speak from. I brought the books because I wanted my child to move from being a “boy in class” to being a person–a child with a name, whose mother knows about books and cares about him.

I did those things because I was a teacher once. I know how easy it is to think of those faces as “the kids in my class,” not as individual people. Teachers are human beings and when you’re faced with 20-30 small people to get to know, it doesn’t happen very fast. The sad news is that extreme cases get center stage. Think of the names you remember from your early school days–they’re the extremes: the kids who were really smart, really bad, or really good friends with you. The rest become a blur. We’re human we make groups and unfortunately, we like to group people too.

Grouping people doesn’t work for getting to know them as individuals.

My son taught me that when he was all of three. I said, “Hey kid, let’s go.”
He stopped cold in his tracks, looked at me, and said, “I’m not a kid. I’m a people.”

We Have Relationships with People

We don’t have relationships with customers, or with users, or with eyeballs. We have relationships with people. It may sound like semantics, but it’s more than that. How we use words points to how we think and how we value ideas. If we think customer first and then person, we’re thinking backwards. Humanity wins out every time. Take care of the person and the personal relationship, and the work will take care of itself. Try it. It’s true. When we show people that we value them, they hardly ever let us down.

The reason that humanity wins is because real customer relationships are built around customer needs and desires. Needs and desires are individual human things, packed with individual human quirks and nuances. Sure there are patterns in any human group. You can even pile those patterns into demographics if you want. Stay at that level, and you’ll be skating on the surface where there’s only information and no heart.

I can’t begin to know my customers, if I don’t know what’s in their hearts.

Where Everybody Knows Your Name

Customers, visitors, and readers are people, not users, traffic, stats, or any other word that steals their humanity and steals our own humanity as well. It’s brand YOU and ME–together. My three-year-old customer-son was right to set me straight when he said, “I’m a people, not a kid.”

Who doesn’t want to walk into a restaurant where everybody knows your name? Who wouldn’t rather work with someone who knows who you are and cares about the things you care about? Who hasn’t had the experience of being treated like less than a person by a clerk, a doctor, or a boss? Didn’t that make you want to say, “Hey, I’m a person I have a name.”?

Do something small today to show a reader, a customer, or a visitor–someone who’s just met you–that you know that he or she is a person of value. See what happens. Then see how many times today people treat you–a customer–in that same personal way.

A business that values me as a person has my business and my brand loyalty from minute one. By week three, they’ll have the business of all my friends as well. There is no better promotion than valuing customers as the people that they are.

–ME “Liz” Strauss