A few days ago I popped into my local coffee shop for an early morning fix and to ponder a few things on the work front. I had two coffees and headed over to pay at the cash register. Brad, the barista promptly told me that someone had already paid for my coffee and in fact they had put $100 onto a tab for me as a thank you.
I was very surprised and dare I say “gobsmacked”. In fact it really made my day. Not because of the $100, but because someone had done something really nice for me and it was totally unexpected.
Now the lady who did this lovely act is Pamela Phelps and she runs a business called Reception Plus (http://www.receptionplus.com.au/). A little while back she dropped me a line and asked if we could catch up to have a bit of a chat about her business. I have known Pamela for some time and I have always admired her enthusiasm, professionalism, and passion for her business. So it was a pleasure for me to have a meeting and give her a few ideas. I did this with no expectation, and even though Pamela offered to pay me it really wasn’t necessary.
Back to my early morning coffee experience. Yes, Pamela was simply saying thank you for my time, but she didn’t have to. I think that her actions epitomise the concept of being sincerely appreciative of others. She clearly thought quite a bit about what to get me and her gift was spot on.
The question I want to pose with this weeks Bullet – what do you do to really show your customers that they are significant to you? And lets extend this out to what do you do to show your staff that they mean a lot to you? And how about your suppliers? Just because we buy stuff from them, doesn’t mean we shouldn’t value them and tell them that we do. And last but certainly not least, how about our family and friends?
Many of us talk about this, perhaps even give it a token effort. Exceptional people and exceptional businesses go out of their way to not just tell those around them how important they are, but they also show them.
I think this is one of the more profoundly important actions that any business owner or manager needs to take. Spend some time pondering this and thinking about ways to show those important people how much they mean to you. From my experience people who are really good at this seem to have no shortage of people lining up wanting to help them, support them and buy from them.
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