Sharpen the Saw

I talk a lot about taking a little bit of time to “sharpen the saw.”

If you’ve ever had to cut something with a saw and you’ve had a dull blade you know that it makes for a tough tough time.   Takes 2 times as long and twice the effort.   You should always take time to sharpen it.   In terms of our career and life, we should take a bit of time each and every day to sharpen our brain.  Hone our skills.

Did you know that in our learning library we have 4 of the top 15 customer service books?    How many have you read????   Any?  

·         The Zappos book, Delivering Happiness

·         The Starbucks Experience

·         Your call is (not that) important to us

·         The Nordstrom Way

We have a ton of books up there.   Even if you are a moderate reader you can take 30 minutes a day and get through a book in a few weeks.   Believe me when I say…..I HATE reading.   Can’t stand it.   But, I do like to make myself better each and every day.   So I do it. 

You are in customer service.  Why wouldn’t you read up, try to learn a new technique or two.   The great thing about sharpening the saw is that it doesn’t just apply to this job.   You can apply it to any future job and in many cases to your personal life.   So there is really not 1 down side to taking some time out to learn something new.  

Give it a shot!   To check those, or any other books from the library, talk to Bill.

Let's have some fun!

Today should be a good day.   It is a new week.   Should be a nice morning and we may see some much needed rain for our gardens this afternoon.    Hopefully everyone is refreshed from the weekend. 

Isn’t it a great day to be alive?    Or would you rather not be with us on Earth today?????  J

Don’t settle for anything less than greatness today.   Have some fun.   Be extra LEGENDARY today.  I’m sure if you thought hard enough you could come up with some very good reasons to be negative today.   But can’t you also find plenty of good reasons to just be in a good mood and make this the best day you can make it?   Take this day as a present.   Have as much enthusiasm as a 6 y/o opening presents on Christmas.

I’m always asking my wife why she isn’t as excited as the dog to see me.   She gives me a kiss and a “hey honey how was your day.”   The dog?   He runs to the door, little paws slipping all over the kitchen floor.  Tail wagging so hard his whole body is moving.   Jumps up trying to give me kisses and then does a bunch of circles around me.  Treat the day like that!

Make Lemonade

You’ve heard the expression right?    When life hands you lemons make lemonade.

Ah, sounds so easy when they say it like that.    It isn’t easy, but it is possible.  Most of us already do it and we may either not realize it or we take it for granted.   Have you ever made a mistake?   What did you do after you made it?   Did you study it and learn so you didn’t make that same mistake again?    If you did they you just made some lemonade.   You took something that was a negative, or a weakness, or oversight.   You corrected it and made it better.   

When you are having a really good time do you just stop right in the middle and go home?   No, you let it keep rolling.   That is making more lemonade.  We already know how to stay positive and make things better, yet sometimes we choose not to listen to ourselves. 

If you see a good thing, a co-worker go out of their way to help someone.   Let it inspire you to help your next customer.

If you have a bad call where things don’t go great, let it inspire you to be a bit better on the next call.

If a customer pays you a compliment, pass one on to a co-worker or the next customer.

If you hear something great, point it out.

Let every accomplishment, no matter how big or small be a celebration, let it inspire more greatness.

Ever notice how Powerful Kindness can be?

POWERFUL!

Kindness -           a kind deed : favor

the quality or state of being kind

Did you know that there is 1 principle that is true of each and every major religion in the world?     Each one has some form of “do unto others as you’d have done unto you.”    Funny that with all the differences we see in each other, we all basically just want to be treated good.   And, if that happened how much better off would we be?

Being rude to someone has no benefit.   Being mean has no benefit.   Yet for a moment it can feel good.   It is just like junk food has virtually no benefit, but for that 1 moment it can taste so good.    We know it isn’t good for us, but it is easy and hey, everyone else is doing it.  Right!?

Hard to do the right thing and be nice to people sometimes.  So much easier just to be mean, especially when so many people probably deserve it.  J   But, the best way to combat a rude customer is with kindness.  Not sarcasm masked as kindness, but good ole fashion kindness.    Have you ever been mad at something, you’re trying to take it out on someone and they just continue to be nice????   And then you get more mad when you realize you are the one who’s wrong and this person is just trying to help???   UGH, why couldn’t they just be mean so you could be right????   I hate that. 

Strength comes in the form of kindness.   It is really hard to be mad at someone who is truly a kind person.   As your customers call in, try to think of the situation they are in, how would you feel.   How would you want the rep to treat you in that situation?    Do unto our customers as we’d have them do unto us.  

Don’t meet the rudeness with rudeness.   Nothing ever gets solved when that happens.

Principles

“It is easier to fight for principles than to live up to them”  ~ Adlai Stevenson

Ever notice how anyone in the spotlight seems to fail miserably at what they are trying to live up to?     Just off the top of my head I’m thinking in the last 10 years or so several top “anti-gay” congressmen have been outted for being gay.   The head of the tax committee was himself committing tax fraud.   And, currently in the news our Attorney General, they guy who is supposed to be the top guy upholding the laws of the land is being accused of shattering the 1^st amendment.

Now, I’m not trying to get political here.   This is why I choose a couple of issues that are on both sides of the aisle so to speak.

What I am saying is that if you have a set of principles it is pretty hard to live up to them sometimes.    It is hard to do the right thing over and over again.   The “correct” road to be on is often the harder one to be on.

·         Yeah we shouldn’t smoke.   But quitting is hard!

·         I know we shouldn’t eat McDonalds, but it is so easy to pick up.  I can’t cook when I have my child running around turning her strawberry shortcakes into Sinead O’Conner!    (just look it up young people)

True Story –

·         We should spend time with our families,    but do you know my family????

Lot’s of things we should do.  We know we should do them.   We really do know we should do them.    But it is tough.  

The more you live by your principles the easier it is to think about them.   The more you think about your principles the easier it is to live them.    Focus your thoughts on the positive, what you know you should do.    Make a list and review it daily.   Put that stuff in front of you.   Give yourself an incentive for success.    List out the reasons you are doing this tough thing that you are doing.   Is it for health?   For family?   For personal gain?    Focus your life on the important things that really matter.   Then live every part of your life to make it happen.

Don't worry about complaining

People complain, A LOT!    Let them.   That is one of those things we cannot control.  

It has been almost 2 months since we went out to Dave and Busters for a day of getting out of the office.   During my talk we went over focusing on things you can control vs things you cannot.    Have you tried to remember that?    Have any stories you want to share.  A couple of you have shared a story or 2 with me on a certain topic.    It is fun to hear people apply something you teach.  Especially if it works.   But how great is it to be in that extremely tense moment and then in an instant just think to yourself…..you know what, I cannot control this and whether I’m mad for a minute or a year it will make no difference to anyone but me!    That is a very empowering feeling indeed.

But back to complaining.   We complain about the winter being too cold, the summer being too hot, raining days being too rainy, traffic being too heavy, gas prices being too high.  Too much, Too little. 

Next time you are complaining about something, or if you hear someone complaining about something give it the old 90 day test.   In 90 days will you even remember this?      In 90 days will you remember how much it rained today?   Or that someone cut you off?   Or that you got shorted a couple of French fries from McD’s?   Sometimes that answer will be yes, we do remember some of the bad things, typically the BIG bad things.   But for most of the things we complain about…..nope.   They will not be remembered.

Then think of the good things in life.     In 90 days will you remember we did bacon Tuesday?   After 90 days do you remember a bday present?   Do you remember a good chat with an old friend?   A vacation?     I would say that most of the good things are the things we remember for a long time.

So forget the complaining.   There are plenty of people in this world who just love to complain.   Complaining will not go lonely.  If you divorce yourself from complaining it will find another companion, I promise.    So don’t worry about the future of complaining, it will be just fine.

The Bacon Tuesday Revolution

We've been doing "Free Bacon Tuesday" once a month for about 4 months now.   Some have asked me....."Jason, what is Free Bacon Tuesday?"    Well, it is quite simple.   That is where I give you free bacon, and its Tuesday.

This idea started as a joke, to some, but to me bacon is a pretty serious topic.   During a round table meeting  a couple of reps named Roger and Dave put in an idea that once a week we get free bacon.    They were kidding.  I think.   But I was not.   I went down to Costco and purchased 100 pieces of bacon, cooked 50 pieces up in the morning, 50 in the afternoon and began to pass it around in our newly termed "bacon dispensing pumpkin."    We're south of Nashville so some may call that a punkin.  The employees seem to love it, big morale booster!  

Once a month on a random Tuesday we do "Free Bacon Tuesday".    And I don't think I'm ever going to stop it!