Use Your Big Butt To Serve Others

Too often we say we want to help people BUT something gets in the way.  We all have big but’s in our lives that keep us from doing what we need to in order to give our customer’s service excellence.  Here is a great way to use your big BUTT to serve your customers!

B – Be Glad you are there

• Use positive affirmations as you approach the person or pick up the phone
• Value the customer in your mind
• Let them know you are looking forward to solving their problem

U – Understand their expectations

• Ask open ended questions to understand the problem
• Ask open ended questions to understand the cause
• Ask open ended questions to understand what they want the results to be

T   – Tell them what you are going to do

• Be specific and match your action to the cause(s) of the problem
• Ask them if that would satisfy their need
• Do what you said

T  – Thank them for giving you the opportunity to help them

• Be sincere and specific
• Check to see if there are any additional opportunities to help them
• Invited them back, and give them directions (phone, email, website, etc)

No more excuses!  Now get your BUTT out there and serve your customers!

Sorry vs Repentance

In any relationship there are times when we make mistakes, or are faced with a spouse, friend or business associate who does something to hurt our relationship with them. When we confront them, and they want to restore the relationship, we usually see one of two faces of remorse: they are either sorry or repentant.

Being Sorry

Sorry is a sacrifice of oneself to get back what they lost due to bad behavior.

When one is sorry they will still defend their inappropriate actions as appropriate due to the circumstances at that time.  They will often blame their actions on other people.

When one is sorry and doesn’t get the results they are seeking they often:

• Become angry and resentful.
• Resort back to their previous inappropriate behavior rather quickly
• Rationalize behavior by blaming the other person for not giving them what they wanted in return for their changed behavior.

When one is sorry and they do get back what they want, they are satisfied. However, they will still typically resort back to the previous inappropriate behavior. It will not be noticeable at first; it will happen slowly, in small incremental steps.

Sorry only has temporary results.

Being Repentant

Repentance is the willingness to give up the rest of what you have to make things right.

Repentance is revealed in a long term ability:

• To take responsibility of their own actions without the need to blame others
• To deny oneself
• To be humble
• To Identify how our actions hurt us, hurt others and limited our ability to succeed

These are the internal qualities that prove one is truly repentant.
When one is repentant they won’t defend their past actions, they will condemn them and warn others not to do the same. They may recognize what others did to trigger their negative emotions, but they won’t blame their inappropriate behavior on others.

When one is repentant and doesn’t get the results from others they want, they will continue on the path of improved behavior. They recognize their part in the relationship and remain faithful to their Foundaional Core Values regardless of other’s behaviors.

When one is repentant and does get the results from others they desire they remain humble and greatful, and they show it by continuing on the path of improved behavior.

Repentance has long lasting results.

Use Discernment

As you learn to recognize these two patterns of behavior in those you have confronted I encourage you to walk away from the friends and business associates that are sorry. In fact, run away. Walking away may be too slow a retreat and you might be tempted to reengage them.

It is better to lose business and unhealthy friendships than to endure the stress of repeated offenses.
If you are married to someone that is sorry but not repentant, get help from a counselor or marriage coach.

Don’t only confront them with how they are hurting you, but ask them open ended questions to help them discover how their actions might be violating their Foundational Core Values. Be concerned about them hurting themselves and give them time to work through the internal emotional chaos that violating themselves creates.

By doing this you are embracing the same force they are, loving them, but from a more healthy perspective.

I want to warn you about divorcing too quickly, especially if you have children. Divorce seldom solves more problems than it creates. And you will still remain attached to your former spouse emotionally and in daily life, due to the children.
If you aren’t married, discern rather quickly how a boyfriend or girlfriend handles relationships when things go wrong. Are they sorry or repentant when they act inappropriately? Can they even admit when they are wrong?

In business this level of discernment is equally as important, because how they treated the last business relationship is the best indicator of how they will treat you. Be willing to walk away from a great deal, because connecting yourself with a non repentant business partner is a recipe for disaster!

But most important is how you act. Examine your own past and honestly ask yourself:

• Can I easily admit it when I am wrong?
• Do I have to blame others or can I be wrong all by myself?
• When I act inappropriately am I sorry or repentant?
• What keeps me from showing true repentance?
• Who can I ask to help me be accountable to handle my mistakes appropriately.

If you need help, find a coach that can help you discover your Foundational Core Values so that you can harness what is intrinsically important to you in order to make the adjustments you need to make.

In the end, we are only responsible for our own actions and reactions. Even if no one else is repentant, you will feel better about yourself and live a more fulfilled life if you leave being sorry behind and move forward with repentance.

Commitment To The Right Activities

A friend of mine and I were talking about success this morning.  He gave me a great compliment about how he has observed my rapid success over the past few years, and wondered how he could imitate that success.

During our conversation I referenced the Integrity Selling Congruence Model.  These are 5 dimensions that I assess in myself on a consistent basis.  They are:

1. My view of selling
2. My view of my abilities to sell
3. My values
4. My commitment to activities
5. My belief in my product

At Integrity Solutions we believe that if there are any gaps between these dimensions then we will encounter:

• Low energy
• Decreased achievement drive
• Call reluctance
• Busyness vs productivity

However, if we align these dimensions, stack them on top of each other like quarters, and all of these dimensions are congruent with each other, we find that we will discover:

• Increased level of excitement and energy
• Increased achievement drive
• A desire to talk to others about what we offer
• Productivity vs busyness

As we looked how my friend rated himself in these five dimensions, the one that was incongruent for him was his commitment to activities.  It only takes one being out of alignment for success to be hampered.

Many people are like my friend: they love their products, believe that selling is a noble profession, and they know that they have the skills to sell.  However, they still find themselves lacking the ability to be committed to activities necessary to succeed.

Here are a few tips on how to get this dimension back into alignment:

1. Identify your goals.  If you get into your car and just drive, the odds are you won’t wind up where you want to go unless you put the address of your destination into your phone or GPS device.  Especially if you’ve never been to that location before.  In the same manner, you want to set a few goals. Simply write down where you want to be in 6 months, 1 year, 3 years, and five years.  Be specific.
2. Identify the right activities.  There are daily activities that will move you toward your next goal.  Identify them, and identify how they will get you to that goal.  Too many times we mistake being busy for being productive.  Successful people know what activities will move them closer to their goal, even if it’s only an inch in the right direction!
3. Commit to do the activities.  The easiest way to do this is to “Time Activate” the activity.  My father came up with this phrase back in the 1980’s and it simply means this:  Once a task is identified, calculate how long it will take to complete the task and then put it on your calendar as an appointment.  It doesn’t matter if you like the task, it only matters that it moves you toward achieving your goal.
4. Treat important tasks as meetings with important people.  There are times I turn down meetings, because the task I have scheduled has to get done in order for me to move toward my goal.  These important tasks are your “friends.”  Meeting with them today will get you what you are striving for.
5. Stop considering your emotions.  To achieve your goals you will have to work, and for the most part, work isn’t loads of fun.  The rewards of hard work are, but the work itself is a drag.  Expect it to be, and lean into the pain.  It won’t last long… I promise!
6. Take small bites.  You’ve heard the old joke: “How do you eat an elephant?”  The answer is simple: “One bite at a time.”  Don’t overwhelm yourself with tasks that burn you out.  Break up that large task into smaller tasks and take breaks with other “right activities” you actually enjoy.
7. Reward Yourself.  Don’t just reward yourself for reaching the final objective.  Reward yourself along the way.  Reaching small goals deserve small rewards; reaching larger goals deserve larger rewards.  Be sure you really bonus yourself at the very end when you reach the final objective!  You will be surprised at how that last reward will increase your achievement drive.

It has been said that “most people fail, not because of a lack of desire, but because of a lack of commitment.”  Put these seven tips to use this week and see if your energy level and achievement drive increases.  My bet is that they will!

Sharing Life

Sitting on the beach in Punta Cana offers the most delightful opportunity to people watch as couples and families from all over the world come there for a week or two of rest and relaxation.  

The People are interesting to watch:
– The children, oblivious to those around them, a implying enjoying the moment   

– The young men and women trying to show off what they have as they walk up and down the beach, knowing they are in paradise but too aware of those around them to fully enjoy the moment they are in. 

– The family that is so busy trying to capture their vacation on film (or by digital means) to watch later, that they miss the amazing moments of right now. 

– The middle aged men and women who still see themselves as young, and dress that way, although they really shouldn’t. 

– The elderly couples who know each other’s routine and needs, who have no worries, but simply enjoy the beauty around them. 

As I watch this day after day, all around me, I find it interesting that it is the children and the elderly that enjoy the moment. 

On this particular morning Alisa and I scored two lounge chairs under a thatched umbrella roof on the front row with an unobstructed view of the clear blue waves softly crashing on the beach, and the people walking by. 

As I lay in my lunge chair watching the waves, an elderly man shuffled by my chair on the right, slowly making his way toward the water. 

He stood in the surf as the waves brought the cool water of the Atlantic over his feet. He slowly inched his way into the surf. Once up to his waste he dives in as if he were 20 again and swims a few feet. 

Perhaps his body’s ability reminds him of his age, or maybe he just wanted to finally get his whole body wet. Whatever the reason he stands waist high in the surf and allows the waves to flow over him as he faces the ocean. 

He stands silently gazing at the horizon as if he is contemplating his future. 

What is sad is that the world has given up on him and his peers, as if they offer nothing of value to the world. I can’t help but wonder what wisdom he could share with me, what stories he could regale me with. 

His whole life is a lesson that others could learn from, if they would only listen. 

As he walks back to his chair he passes by Alisa. “How was the water?” I asked. He only nodded and smiled; he spoke no English. 

I lost out on any wisdom he could share; the curse of the Tower of Babel follows us to this day.

However, This experience made me realize that we all have a story to tell, wisdom to pass on, a purpose to fulfill, and a life to share.

You are never too young, too old or too busy to fulfill your purpose. You are God’s gift to those around you.

Don’t worry if some don’t want that gift; keep searching out those that do.

A life shared is never a wasted life. 

The Struggle With Growing People

  I was talking with a close friend over coffee recently about a teenager he was working with. He was hurt because the young man didn’t really want to grow, he just wanted things my friend could provide.

We continued our conversation over email the next few days. My friend, who is an intellectual genius, made a statement about how he views a lack in desire to learn is a type of death to him.

I thought others might benefit from my response to him as I shared some of my struggles with “growing people.”

My Good Friend:

Not being willing to learn means they aren’t willing to grow, and in our world things that don’t grow die. In nature stagnation usually means death. 

Not being willing to learn is like a flower expecting to flourish without water. 

The problem on our end can be when we expect someone to learn faster than their maturity will allow. Or we expect them to want to let us water them in an area that we have interest in, but they don’t. 

I was a C student in high school and college. I thought I was stupid until I stumbled across sociology. I made the honors society in sociology and didn’t even mean to, or try. In fact, I called them when I received the letter because I thought they’d made a mistake

Now, I am considered an expert in human behavior, but as far as math, grammar or physical science goes I am still not very smart. 

So maybe we mistake the flower refusing water from the hose as refusing to want to grow, but what it really wants is water from the creek or the rain from the sky. 

Maybe the nutrients in the water we are offering isn’t what that flower needs to flourish, or maybe our water can only help them grow to a certain level. 

Very rarely are we to be the farmer for someone’s entire journey. 

Our job is to water the flowers within our reach that will allow us to. The tough part is not getting offended along the way and to stop watering.  

It hurts when we give and give only to have people use us. I have been tempted to stop filling up my watering can because the people around me didn’t appreciate it, or didn’t even utilize what I offered.  

I have learned that if I stop watering, then the effect on me is worse than the rejection from others. So, I just take my little can and see if there is someone else that needs water. 

This means I have to let people go. I have to be willing to fail with this one to free myself up to find the next one.  

The truth is: I didn’t fail, they did. Just like I have so many times in my past when others wanted to water me and I wasn’t willing or able to accept it.  

It’s a vicious cycle, but a worthwhile one. And if we are doing it for the right reasons, the eternal rewards are amazing- even if we don’t get to see any here. 

Flattery vs Appreciation

I sent an email to my team that works with me as we introduce  the Integrity Solutions behavior change processes to companies that desire to become more customer centric. 

I later sent it to several other people, and finally decided just to put it on the blog:

Team:

I am reading “How To Win Friends and Influence People” and ran across this paragraph in chapter 2:

“Flattery is counterfeit, and like counterfeit money, it will eventually get you into trouble if you pass it to someone else. 

The difference between appreciation and flattery?  That is simple. One is sincere and the other insincere. One comes from the heart out; the other from the teeth out.  One is unselfish; the other is selfish. One is universally admired; the other universally condemned.”

I found it an interesting parallel to what we do when focusing on customers. 

If we do it only on the surface, but beneath we still care more about selling our products and services than we do about meeting the customers needs, they will know.

When that happens we are seen as insincere and untrustworthy. 

Where is your heart? Is it focused on you or others?  

Jesus said: “But the things that come out of a person’s mouth come from the heart…” ‭‭Matthew‬ ‭15:18‬ 

Integrity Selling doesn’t change a sales person’s heart as much as it reveals it during the sales process. 

Your values are how you believe people should interact with each other. Use your Foundational Core Values to guide you as you interact with your customers today.  

Then use the Integrity Selling process to lead you through the conversation. 

I wish you great success in your interactions with others today!

It’s All In Perspective

There is no doubt that perspective is the lens by which we interpret the world around us. We all have them, and sometimes they are actually correct.  The problems come when they are not. 

Your perspective comes from your perception, how you first view the events in the world around you.  Perspective is based on the consistency of how you perceive your environment over time. 

Let’s define these two words before moving forward:

Perspective is how we view the world around us based on the consistency of our experience over time.

Perception is how we are viewing the current events around us.

Ironically, our perspectives also begin to “shade” our perceptions over time, which then in turn shade our perspectives. 

  

In fact, sometimes we only see our own perspective because the emotions attached to our perspective further filters the events around us. The stronger the emotion that agrees with our perspective, the greater the chance we will see the current event that way. 

The result is what is called a self fulfilling prophecy: seeing only what we want to see. 

When we are stuck in this cycle we eventually only see one side of the argument.  Our perceptions become so deeply entrenched in the emotions of our perspective that we will actually block any truth that disagrees with our current perspective. 

When this occurs rational reasoning is lost, listening skills diminish, compromise is impossible, and dissension and disagreement become inevitable.  

What makes self fulfilling prophecy a more permanent condition is the eroding away of the truth. 

When there is no foundational truth to compare our perceptions to, our perspective becomes our basis of truth. 

Perception is most definitely our reality of the moment, and truth is the only thing that can help us stay in track. Without a foundation of truth, we are left to our limited perceptions to solidify our perspective. 

Our country’s forefathers knew this better than we do today. For they didn’t just claim their rights based on emotion, but founded it on truth. A truth they could defend and England would also agree with when they wrote:

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

To them, the truth was that these rights were endowed by their Creator. 

Without a common truth, this country is only left with bickering politicians that base their arguments on their perspective. 

That’s my perception of our current situation.  What is yours, and what truth are you basing it on to ensure it is correct?

Memorial Day

  This is what young men do to soldier’s graves when they are taught honor and respect!

Have a wonderful Memorial Day weekend!

Mother’s Day Ideas

I sent this to the college and career folks I work with, and thought it might be a good idea to share with everyone. 

 Don’t forget tomorrow is Mother’s Day! 

Here are 10 affordable ideas you can do to make her day special:

1. Get her a card and write something personal inside

2. Write her a poem

3. Take a photo of you and her with your phone, upload it to walgreens and print a 5×7, then get a dollar frame from dollar tree. (Less than $5)

4. Make her lunch and get up every time her glass is empty to refill it

5. Breakfast in bed

6. Take her to a dollar movie (or the $1.50, $2.00, you get the point)

7. Download her favorite movie from Amazon, Google Play, etc, pop some pop corn and watch it with her. 

8. At lunch suggest everyone go around the table and tell their favorite memory about her

9. Pray over her and thank God for her

10. Ask her about her favorite childhood memories and really listen

Whatever you decide to do, make it a special day for your mother!

“Geronimo”

The calculated risk assessment resulting in what most people will call crazy, but you know to be an amazing possibility.