Tired of begging for a Yelp, or giving discount incentives for reviews? Tired of contesting Yelps or wondering why a seemingly "good" customer, your best one even, disappeared? Tired of cringing to have to deal with an irate customer because your "go-to" employee does not seem able to handle this one? Do you
still get a little nervous looking over accounts receivables?
You are not alone! You have done everything you could to please your customers. In fact, what you do is more like a calling! You have memories from childhood of a moment that triggered the direction that moved you to where you are now. You care about people.
You love when in your staff meetings your employees tell you a story about that positive thing the client appreciated about them. Did you sense that it hinted at a much bigger story for the client?
Have you ever imagined that what you do for your clients is far more than deliver a product or service for a price? Is it possible that your work makes more possible for your customers and that more is what they are buying? Could what you and your employees do be merely the means to get there?
If you have had thoughts like this, congratulations! My research based book, written in 1989, (Just Google the article, "Putting Passion to Work, Los Angeles Times article, 1989 by Robert Ostmann) and work shows that you are in the awe and wonder business. Then, I called it, Passion, what customers longed for, what guided their decisions, what would light their wick and make their hearts sing.
Today, I specialize in transforming satisfied customers into a gospel choir, singing your praises, telling the world the story of the awe and wonder events that brought tears to their eyes, that every day your employees made happen.
If these high touch impacts are too off the charts to handle, then you will not want to stoke that fire. However, I guarantee you that it is smoldering in every client. Whatever your business, you are in the business of helping your customers connect with those elements of novelty and surprise.
Here is the caveat, however: If their lives are not filled with awe and wonder, if you are not able to mirror that back to them, help them discover it, you will get the opposite: Adrenaline laced acrimony, fear, projections of disrespect or lack of valuing them, the tiniest misstep a reason to cut bait.
There is a much better, dopamine filled sense of connection with awe and wonder, the novelty your customers' brains need for gratitude, for acceptance and forgiveness, for a sense of their right place in the world supported in those special moments by you and your employees, the stuff of which no analytics, mined by survey or questionnaire, can ever capture!
You have much greater stories than you ever imagined and your customers will tell their story to everyone they meet.
What about your employees and investors? What could be the impact on them?
That answer depends upon your imagination!
Can you see how employees are, indeed, agents of transformation as they see the role they played in the customers' experience? Can you imagine your sales people with amazing proof or evidence that your tagline is not a mere catch phrase?
What if investors could know that you have the stamina for the long
haul, with the emotional resources to support your team and implement
growth strategies?
Can you imagine new hires on boarded in novel ways, not merely with the company handbook, and staff meetings as high energy---story time, space of sharing of best practices enlivened by story direct from customers awe and wonder experiences?
Can you imagine referrals increasing as customers tell their own stories, seeding the communities with their awe and wonder about your business?
Is it possible? Why not, is my answer!
Click above on the "Contact" button to get sample stories from various industries after you set up a complimentary "Critical Clarifying Conversation" protected by a Nondisclosure Non-circumvention Agreement that keeps what you say confidential as well as how we work.
Isn't it about time to excavate the "gold" shimmering uncollected in the moments you have already made happen for your clients, employees, investors---all of your stakeholders?
It is never too late to excavate what is already yours!
I look forward to speaking with you.
Sheffra A. Williams, Founder,
Heart2Heart Business Communications and Media Win
714.328.7343
swilliams@awedatwork.com