Success has less to do with what we can get ourselves to do and more with keeping ourselves from doing what we shouldn’t
Darren Hardy
Book Quote of the Week 169
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Tag Archives: self education
Deliver +1
In a recent post, I talked about how to figure out what your customers want out of a positive shopping experience. Today we’ll talk about the concept of Deliver +1 and how this concept can take your customer service to the next level. I’ve decided to split up this post so the next one will cover the 1% Rule.
Consistency is the key to any great customer service experience. If you want to take your satisfied customers to Raving Fan status, you have to go above and beyond the average customer service experience.
There are three ways to develop consistency:
Avoid offering too many customer service options.
We sometimes get so caught up in giving customers what they want we get away from our original vision. Instead, stay true to your vision and offer one or two solid customer service techniques that will set you apart from the competition.
You need to fine-tune the current systems you are using before you can add anything to the mix. There’s nothing worse than launching a new program when you haven’t even worked out the kinks of an old system.
Put solid systems into place.
Once you know what you’re going to offer, you need to have a system in place to execute it flawlessly every time. This system needs to consist of the right people in the right roles and responsibilities and technology that guarantees a positive experience every time. Emphasis needs to be placed on the results, which ultimately is the satisfaction of the customer.
Good training is the key.
Once you have your system in place you need to train people to use it properly and efficiently. This helps your people deliver the results your customers are looking for. While training is essential for the system to work and for all your people to work together cohesively, appreciation will go a long way.
I hope this has given you a look into what you need to do in order to have a quality customer service system in place. If you need help, try our GUIDED TOUR and gain access to a wealth of resources, tools, and coaching.
Book Quote of the Week 165
If you really are to succeed in business, it won’t be because people think you are smart; it will be because people like you.
Rabbi Daniel Lapin
Book Quote of the Week 163
Be the person you “could have been” now!
Darren Hardy
Your Path to a Bigger Future
Have you ever met someone that is an honest, hard worker but they never seem to be able to get ahead in life or achieve anything of significance? Yet you watch others who don’t seem to work as hard and everything just seems to fall in their lap? Have you ever seen someone that has been extremely successful lose it all and end up with absolutely nothing, but they soon turn things around and climb back up to the top while others just can’t seem to catch a break?
As I was pondering this topic I had a voice come into my head that told me a story that I’ve heard many, many times. One of the very first personal development audio books I ever listened to was Earl Nightingale’s 1957 book, The Strangest Secret.
This is his story that kept coming to mind:
“The difference is goals. People with goals succeed because they know where they’re going. It’s that simple. Failures, on the other hand, believe that their lives are shaped by circumstances… by things that happen to them… be exterior forces.
Think of a ship with a complete voyage mapped out and planned. The captain and crew know exactly where the ship is going and how long it will take – it has a definite foal. And 9,999 times out of 10,000, it will get there.
Now let’s take another ship – just like the first – only let’s not put a crew on it, or a captain at the helm. Let’s give it no aiming point, no goal, and no destination. We just start the engines and let it go. I think you’ll agree that if it gets out of the harbor at all, it will either sink or wind up on some deserted beach – a derelict. It can’t go any place because it has no destination and no guidance.”
So many people are going through life like the ship without a crew. They have no goals or clear direction. They just react to life as it happens.
If this is you, it needs to change. If you don’t get clear about where you’re headed, you won’t get out of the harbor.
Where Are You Now?
The first thing that you need to do is be completely honest with yourself and look at where you are now. What is your current status? We are going to work to find your destination. This is your starting point
As you look at the truth of your situation, what are your pain points? Why are you here?
Do you want to make more money? Do you want more time for yourself or your family? Do you want to work on your health? Do you want to fix your marriage or relationship? Scale your business? Write a book? Complete your first real estate deal? Get specific.
Stop ignoring your truth. Stop avoiding it. This is for you, tell the truth!
If it’s, “I want to make more money.” Go deeper, don’t stop there. Maybe it’s, “I want to make more money because I’m behind on all my payments. I can’t get ahead and I’m scared.” Uncover the truth.
Where Do You Want To Go?
You need clarity to create the future you want. You need to know where you are going to point the ship to get out of the harbor and end up at your destination.
In our busy, crazy lives it can be hard to set your goals and figure out where you want to go. But I learned a method from Dean Graziosi that allows you to extract yourself from all the craziness and figure out where you want to go by looking at life from a different perspective.
Imagine that it is one year from today and you are looking back. It has been the best year of your life! What does that look like? What happened that made it the best year of your life? It wasn’t just a really good year, it was the Best Year!
You lost the weight? You made the money? You got the guy? You got the girl? You completed your first real estate deal? You sold your company?
What happened that made it the best year of your life? Think big! In The Power of Focus, Jack Canfield says, “Think big. Create goals that get you so excited you can hardly sleep at night. Life has a lot to offer – why shouldn’t you enjoy your fair share?”
You’ve identified the things that would have happened to make it the best year of your life. Now step back to today, those are your goals.
Why Are These Goals Important?
You have your goals now, but why are they so important to you?
Maybe your goal make a certain amount of money. But why? Why do you really want that?
Is it to prove something? Is it for significance? Is it so you can buy something?
Whatever it is, there’s something deeper to your reason. What’s your WHY?
In Seven Levels Deep I explained how to find your WHY.
Start with the goal you’ve identified and ask why you want to achieve this goal. Put your heart into the answer. Once you’ve identified that answer, ask why you want that answer. This takes time, it takes thought and it takes effort. But every single time you find your answer, ask ‘why’ until you’ve don’t it seven times. If you are open and honest, you will uncover the real reason these goals are important to you. Your ‘WHY’!
Your ‘why’ is going to be what drives you day in and day out to stay focused on achieving these goals. There will be days where, “I want to lose weight,” or “I want more money” won’t motivate you and keep you going. But when you’ve identified the ‘why’ behind each of these goals, that’s what will get you out of bed in the morning.
What Capabilities Are Needed To Achieve These Goals?
You know where you are. You know where you want to go. You know ‘why’ you want to go there.
How are you going to get there? Your current capabilities have got you to where you are now. What capabilities do you need to get to the next level? What capabilities do you need to achieve your goals?
Do you need a trainer? Do you need someone that understands how to market on social media? Do you need a CFO? Identify what it is you need and document it.
Once you’ve identified what you need, you have to figure out where it will come from.
Talk to a coach or a mentor. Join a mastermind group or a networking group. Whatever capabilities that you need and you are lacking, someone else already has them. As you serve others and as you network, keep this topic as a part of your discussion until you discover how you can get what you need.
If you really want to expand your network and have an opportunity to grow through the collective genius of a mastermind group, get your FREE trial membership to our Inner Circle Mastermind weekly video call.
If you would like to find out what a coach can help you to achieve, submit your name HERE.
A Man Is What He Thinks About All Day Long
“A man is what he thinks about all day long.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson
The amount of information that we are exposed to on a daily basis is amazing.
It comes through social media, television, radio, books, and the list could go on and on. It’s great how much access we have in this day and age to information, but it is potentially dangerous as well. I want to look at the potential impact information can have on our lives.
I’ve talked previously about the importance of being powerful creators of our own lives. As we walk through this process it will demonstrate why it is so important that we are intentional about it.
You get in life what you create.
Create > Life
This is why you see people from all different backgrounds, countries and races doing amazing things in the world, regardless of where they start out. We’ve seen people rise up out of poverty, from having absolutely nothing and becoming extremely successful and wealthy. At the same time we’ve seen people who would be considered privileged, create amazing things in their own lives.
On the other hand, we’ve watched people on both ends of the same spectrum create un-powerful lives and end up even worse off than they began.
The things that you expect in your life are the things you create. What you expect to happen, drives your creative capacity.
Expect > Create > Life
But now, taking one more step back, where do your expectations come from?
You expect what you think about.
Think > Expect > Create > Life
Life is a result of what we think about. As Ralph Waldo Emerson said, “There is a deep tendency in human nature to become precisely like that which you habitually imagine yourself to be.”
This philosophy spurred the writing of books such as Think and Grow Rich, As a Man Thinketh, The Power of Positive Thinking, The Magic of Thinking Big, and others.
But if you go another level deeper, what is it that influences your thoughts?
It’s the things you allow yourself to hear and see. The inputs that you are exposed to
Inputs > Think > Expect > Create > Life
This is why it’s so important to be conscious of the things you allow yourself to be exposed to.
In such a fast paced, chaotic world, all of the different media outlets are fighting for your attention.
Have you ever wondered why there isn’t a news station that just reports on the good things that happen? The happy, feel-good stories? It’s because they would go broke. It’s the stories of fear, tragedy and disaster that catch our attention.
Your brain’s job is to keep you alive, not make you happy and the media understands this. That’s why they don’t use the happy, feel good stories to grab your attention. It’s the tragic, shocking stories that get your attention. It’s the same reason traffic comes to a halt as people rubber-neck to see an accident, but at other times those same people don’t think twice about looking at the most beautiful sunset they would have ever experienced as they are making their commute home.
When you look at the path of how the inputs in our lives impact our thoughts, which impact our expectations, our expectations turn into our creations which results in our life you can understand why it’s so important to pay attention to the inputs we allow into our lives.
When you look at the path of how the inputs in our lives impact our thoughts, which impact our expectations, our expectations turn into our creations which results in our life you can understand why it’s so important to pay attention to the inputs we allow into our lives.
You have to protect your mind. You have to be vigilant about what you expose yourself to because every single input matters.
So what does this mean to you? How do you do it?
You have to consciously choose what you are going to allow yourself to be exposed to. According to a Nielsen Report, US adults watch 5:04 of TV per day on average (35.5 hours/week, slightly more than 77 days per year). It’s time to cut back. Make a choice as to what you are going to give your attention to. Are you going to focus on the good or the bad? The things you can’t do anything about, or the things you can impact?
The first time I trained for a marathon I did all of my training on a treadmill and my routine was to watch the news while I ran. I knew about everything going on. Politics, the markets, the wars and all the other dark, dirty and fearsome content. But then one day I decided I didn’t need to know all of it and continue to fill my mind with all of the garbage and I quit watching the news. The result?
- Not watching the news didn’t limit my capacity.
- It didn’t end or cause the start of any war.
- I wasn’t uninformed because the things I needed to know came to me in different forms.
- It drove my parents crazy when they said something to me about something in the news and I had no idea what they were talking about.
- It cleared my mind!
A number of years ago I listened to Darren Hardy speak on this topic and the following are his thoughts combined with my own on how to best manage the inputs you let into your life.
Selective Listening
Be specific about the things you let in. You don’t have to give it all your attention, just the things that are important to you. Pay attention to the things that impact you and your family and ignore the rest.
Remember, what you give your attention to becomes your reality. Focus your attention on what is good – ideas, knowledge, talents and skills
Low Information Diet
Limit your intake. Filter your news so you’re only getting the things that are important to you. Do not over-consume!
Mind Your E2E Ratio
Your E2E Ratio is a concept from Brian Tracy, which stands for Entertainment to Education Ratio. Recognize how much of your time is focused on Entertainment vs Education. One study stated that 95% of people spend their extra time on entertainment, while 5% (the successful) spent their extra time focused on education.
Feed Your Mind
As you feed your mind with high quality content, your thoughts and ideas become more powerful.
I enjoy good music, but I rarely listen to it. I prefer to spend any time I can listening to books or podcasts online.
For example, last week I wrote the article, Dealing With Negative People. This morning at the gym, with TV’s on every wall broadcasting news stations and ESPN, I had my headphones in listening to, “Talking to Crazy,” a book that someone suggested to me after reading my article.
Separate yourself from the average. Use your extra time to fill your mind with positive and inspirational material.
When we are fully aware of the impact the things we allow as inputs have on our lives we can be more conscious and selective to ensure we are letting only the best things in. Be intentional in all you do and live the life you most desire.
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