My wife Darla ordered some tee shirts for a Christmas party from Cafe Press. One of the shirts ran small so she decided to return it.

When she spoke to the customer service rep, she got a very nice surprise:

“We’ve credited your account for the cost of the tee shirt, but rather than return it, we ask you to donate it to the charity of your choice.”

Darla was delighted. It saved her the inconvenience of returning the item and allowed her to do something nice for others.

While I don’t know the hard costs for the company, I know they saved on return postage and did a good deed at the same time.

When you do good things for others you also do good business.

What do you do when customers call with feedback?

I offered feedback to a local restaurant operator last year. He happens to be one of the most thoughtful manager/leaders I know. He thanked me for my suggestion and, more importantly, took it seriously enough to address. Recently he sent me this note:

“I had to share the recent  fulfillment of a vision you gave me about a year ago.  You shared with me last year how difficult it had been to purchase food at the store on a busy Saturday.  Chaos is the word that describes our counter when we are busy.  I have often worked on ways to make the counter less chaotic but nothing seemed to work all day, everyday.  Your kind sharing of a continuing frustration for you and other customers prompted me to dig deeper for an answer.  Through a series of events and various attempts to improve things we have arrived at a wonderful solution.  We have a queue system in the store that brings order to chaos ….. and it’s ultimately because of you and your willingness to share about your experience at the store. I’m pleased to tell you I receive many compliments on organizing the chaos at the counter. Thanks for being willing to offer me a ‘carefrontation’ after your visit many months ago.”

It is easy to complain but it takes effort to give a service provider feedback they can use. I’ve found it powerful to offer positive and negative feedback, and not always at the same time. Because I’d made it a point to offer positive feedback to this operator in the past, he knew my intent when I  pointed out an ongoing frustration. He accepted it as an opportunity and looked for  a solution.

It takes both useful feedback and a receptive listener to improve. Carefrontation, as my friend calls it, is powerful

The term virtual reality might seem ultra-modern in our technology-driven culture, but it’s not just about using computer software to create three-dimensional experiences that look, feel, and sound like the real thing. The roots of virtual reality, in fact, go back about 60 years to a team of “imagineers” who helped develop Disneyland.

When Disneyland opened in 1955, it transported visitors into a virtual world that they could see, feel, hear, touch, and taste. As the sign says at the entrance to the park, “Here You Leave Today, and Enter the World of Yesterday, Tomorrow and Fantasy.” The imagineers created something so distinctive that it transformed the theme park industry, and current imagineers continue to keep Disneyland on the cutting edge when it comes to creating value through virtual realities.

Cover via Amazon

The Imagineering Field Guide to Disneyland (Disney Editions, 2008) lists eight basic principles of imagineering, including what the imagineers call “plussing.” It was born from Walt Disney’s “penchant for always trying to make an idea better. Imagineers are continually trying to plus work, even after it’s ‘finished.’”

That’s exactly what we need to do with the value we create if we want to survive the storms that come our way and maintain the success we achieve. We have to continually innovate — improve our value — because status quo is a myth. Instead of settling for “best practice,” we have to strive for “next practices.” That includes the processes we use in our work and the distinctive value we create for the products and services we provide.

Value equals expectations plus education plus something extra, or V=E+E+SE. Disney creates value that’s filled with “something extras,” and its “best practices” are almost always ahead of those of its competition. It operates in the sphere of “next practices.”

When you look at your life — your work world and your personal world — as well as your organization, what is your something extra? What’s your distinctive?

This blog is based on content in my latest book, Up, Down, Or Sideways. It is available wherever you buy great books. Click here to learn more about the book or click here to order it from Amazon.com.

Ever dance the tango?

For novices, it can intimidate with its seemingly complicated precision and timing that moves a couple in a graceful but formal and crisp flow around a dance floor. It only takes one lesson, however, to learn the basic steps. It takes lots of practice to become great at the tango, but only 30 or so minutes to learn enough to survive it.

Two things I know about how to make the tango look good: One, the male lead must provide a strong upper-body frame, especially with his right arm. Two, the couple takes the basic steps belly-to-belly.

If we want to succeed regardless of the external circumstances around us, we can learn a few things from the tango, because the tango is all about a creating a relationship — a connection — that achieves its objective (grace, style, pizzazz, all within a prescribed structure).

It starts with support, a strong frame. In other words, how are you supporting the people who are important to you (friends, family, co-workers, customers, et al)? Do you give them something they can hold tightly and with confidence? Do you lead with authority and confidence? Do you move them without aggressive force or pressure?

Next, it requires closeness. You might not want to be belly-to-belly with everyone in your life, but you want to create trust and appropriate levels of transparency. You want to be approachable, even in more formal relationships. You want to connect in non-physical ways.

Creating and caring for the connections in your life prepares you for success regardless of the circumstances that come your way. I cover more of the basics for doing that in Up, Down, or Sideways, because I’ve learned that the basic steps become the foundation for a truly remarkable dance.

Do you know anybody who could benefit from “dance lessons” when it comes to making and  keeping connections? How well do the people on your team do with customers and vendors? With each other? And do you have any room for improvement?

This blog is based on content in my latest book, Up, Down, Or Sideways. It is available wherever you buy great books. Click here to learn more about the book or click here to order it from Amazon.com.

LinkedIn, the popular social-networking site, went public May 19 with shares for its initial public offering priced at $45 each. That put the company’s value at around $4.3 billion. Before noon on the day of the IPO, the stock price had climbed as high as $92.99 a share.

So what’s a share of LinkedIn really worth?

Whatever someone’s willing to pay for it.

LinkedIn spent about eight years building its value as a company, then tested that value when it went public. Like all companies, how well it holds its value over time remains to be seen. But as individuals trying to define and achieve success, the best place to start is like a company working toward a successful IPO — by building our value.

If your core values are rock solid, if you produce outcomes that other people value, and if you value other people, then you’ll find yourself positioned to prosper regardless of the circumstances around you.

For instance, if you are always involved in important projects within your organization, you’re providing value that can’t be ignored. When times are good, you’ll see the rewards (probably in higher pay and/or fast-track promotions). When times are bad and your organization or your customers are cutting back, you’ll find yourself on the “can’t cut” list. The opposite? You’ll be like those “nonessential government workers” you read about when Congress can’t settle on a budget — the first to get laid off.

Have you checked with your employer lately to see what he or she values in your work? Have you asked that person how you might increase your value to the organization? You ask the same questions of clients and customers.

None of us are irreplaceable, but all of us can produce value that sets us up for success.

This blog is based on content in my latest book, Up, Down, Or Sideways. It is available wherever you buy great books. Click here to learn more about the book or for ordering information.

The best organizations differentiate themselves through extraordinary customer service.

Extraordinary service adds value to every transaction, and the best don’t just try to be good–the best are truly service leaders.

Mark Sanborn, author of the international bestseller The Fred Factor: How Passion in  Your Work and Life Can Turn the Ordinary into the Extraordinary has been speaking about and teaching customer service to some of the most successful companies in the world including Costco, Morton’s of Chicago, Toyota Financial Services, Harley Davidson, Chick Fil A, ServiceMaster, FedEx, Enterprise Rent A Car, New York Life, Time Warner and ESPN.

Mark has presented over 2400 speeches and seminars in every state and 12 countries.  He has been featured on Inc. Magazine conferences and is a nationally recognized customer service strategist.

Mark is known for using stories, humor and unique insights to teach:

How anyone can make his or her work extraordinary

How to make teamwork work in delivering superior service

How to create value for customers and colleagues

The power of empathy

Why service ethic is more powerful than customer service

Creating and maintaining customer loyalty.

As Mark says, “One of the things that differentiates my work is that it stems from experience as a business owner, association leader and board member. And I’m still studying, researching and applying what I learn about leadership today, both with my clients and in the organizations in which I’m privileged to have a leadership role.”

Mark is a member of the Speaker Hall of Fame and is much in demand as a customer service speaker for his keynote presentations which include The Fred Factor, The 10 Commandments of Customer Service and Service Leadership.

His other books include:

Up, Down or Sideways: How to Succeed When Times are Good, Bad or In Between

You Don’t Need a Title to be a Leader: How Anyone, Anywhere Can Make a Positive Difference

The Encore Effect: How to Achieve Remarkable Performance in Anything You Do

Please click here for a list of free resources that can help you lead and serve better.

Click here for free videos about customer service, leadership, motivation and remarkable performance.

“Ultimately motivation is an inside job, but there are many things we as leaders can do to help others become motivated.”

That’s Mark Sanborn’s take on motivation. He acknowledges that it is up to the individual to choose to be motivated but unlike some, he doesn’t think managers, leaders, parents and others are without influence when it comes to motivating others.

“In 24 years of professional speaking, I’ve never called myself a motivational speaker,” Sanborn explains. “Often my clients call me a motivational speaker because that is the single most used description of a keynote professional speaker like myself. Speaking 70 times each year to sales meetings, association and corporate events, well–many consider that motivational speaking.”

“My goal is to educate, first and foremost. I give audiences actionable ideas they can use to improve their businesses and lives. But here’s the key to increasing motivation: it isn’t enough for people to know what to to do and how to do it if they don’t have compelling reason why they should do it. The reasons why are the source of motivation.”

“One of the hardest jobs of leadership is getting to know employees and understand what motivates each individual. Generic lists aren’t very helpful when it comes to motivating specific people.”

“In customer service, service reps need to understand as much as they can about the needs and desires–the motivation–of those they’re assisting. Knowing what is important to each customer is key to empathizing with and serving them well.”

“Of course the implications for sales professionals are critically important. You can’t match features and benefits until you’ve uncovered buying motives.”

Sanborn’s work with over 2400 clients has given him a broad and often unorthodox perspective about what it takes to master motivation.

Mark is the president of Sanborn & Associates, Inc., an idea lab for leadership development.  Leadershipgurus.net lists Mark as one of the top 30 leadership experts in the world.

In addition to his experience leading at a local and national level, he has written or co-authored 8 books  and is the author of more than two dozen videos and audio training programs on leadership, change, teamwork and customer service. His book, You Don’t Need a Title to be a Leader was a Wall Street Journal bestseller. In it, Mark explains how to create an army of lions where every employee knows two things: first, when is it appropriate to lead and second, how to do it.

He is a member of the Speaker Hall of Fame (CPAE). Mark’s YouTube channel features videos recorded both live (in his keynote leadership presentations) and in studio that teach how to lead, or lead better. He also writes a leadership blog.

Mark’s book, The Fred Factor: How Passion in Your Work and Life Can Turn the Ordinary Into the Extraordinary is an international bestseller and was on the New York Times, Business Week and Wall Street Journal bestseller lists. His latest books include You Don’t Need a Title to be a Leader: How Anyone, Anywhere Can Make a Positive Difference and The Encore Effect: How to Achieve Remarkable Performance in Anything You Do. His newest book, Up, Down or Sideways: How to Succeed When Times are Good, Bad or In Between was released in October 2011.

Mark is a past president of the National Speakers Association and winner of The Cavett, the highest honor bestowed by that organization. In 2007 Mark was awarded The Ambassador of Free Enterprise Award by Sales & Marketing Executives International. 

If you’re interested in taking your leadership to the next level, click here for a list of free resources.

Find more information about motivation, motivating others, leadership, customer service and remarkable performance at these websites:

www.youdontneedatitle.com

www.theencoreeffect.com

www.marksanborn.com/uds

Yesterday my new friend and fascination expert Sally Hogshead called me at precisely 11 a.m. for a scheduled conversation. I was impressed. More often than not, someone says they’ll call at 11 and the phone rings 5 or 10 minutes later. I was impressed by Sally’s professionalism.

“It makes me crazy,” I shared, “when I ask someone to call me back in literally 2 minutes knowing that I can take the call on a different line or phone then, and they call back 10 or 15 minutes later and I’m no longer available.”

Sally suggested that the meaning of literally seems to have morphed into something like “approximately” or “close to”. “We need a new word,” she said.

I suggested “literally squared.” (Yes, that appears to be two words, but there is no “squared” little 2 symbol on the iMac.)

To some of my more mellow readers, literally squared might seem like a case of being wound too tightly. While that might sometimes be the case, there is a serious aspect to this idea. We live in a world where precision often matters. From medicine to flying an airplane to engineering a structure, you don’t want to work in loose terms.

In a competitive environment for selling and serving customers, clients and shareholders, precision also matters. When we invest time and money, we don’t want vague promises like “I’ll get back to you” (when?), “we are focused on improving earnings” (what are you doing?) or “this will grow your business” (how much?). The more precise the promise and the performance, the more powerful the value proposition.

Whether or not we need a new concept like “literally squared” is debatable. I’m convinced, however, that we need to employ the power of precision.

I recently engaged a service provider for a large project. This was someone I’d met through an organization we mutually support and who came highly recommended. Given the personal connection, I was pleased by his initial involvement in bidding the project and assuring me of his ongoing involvement.

Regrettably, there was little personal involvement past the scheduling phase. I kept hoping and expecting some follow up from my acquaintance. None came. To his credit, one of his managers did follow up but the punch list we identified to finish the project has yet to be completed.

A mutual friend asked if I’d ever heard from the person I’m referencing. That reminded me of how odd it is that I haven’t.

This individual is highly successful. He runs a large business and business is brisk. But, as I’ve commented before, success can be an early warning indicator for failure.

If you are in the service business, please consider:

1. If you’re too busy to provide the personal touch, you’re too busy.

2. Getting the big things right creates satisfaction, not delight nor loyalty. Those come from the “extras” (attention, value, benefits, results, etc.)

3. Timeliness is an important detail. Sooner is better than later. Saying you’ll get it done isn’t nearly as good as saying when you’ll get it done and then following through.

4. Of he or she whom much is given, much is expected. The more we pay, the more we expect. Premium pricing requires a premium result and service to match.

5. Creating connections is easy; keeping connections is much harder. If you start the sales process, stick with it to the end. Losing a personal relationship during the delivery phase feels like bait and switch.

Extraordinary service delivery is simple in concept but difficult in execution. It means paying attention to the details, including the nuances of relationship.

Remember that all business is personal so the personal touch is one of your most powerful tools. That means personally paying attention to the details and providing the extras.

I first met, Simon Mainwaring, author of We First: How Brands and Consumers Use Social Media to Build a Better World, at a SANG event. He immediately impressed me with his ideas. Simon is exceedingly smart and personable-the kind of person you’d like to drink a beer with. As a columnist for Fast Company with extensive global branding experience, he is a leading edge thinker in this new world of business so I asked him to contribute a guest blog based the book which releases today:

Mark has kindly invited me to share with you a vision I have been formulating over the last several years. This vision seeks to transform the business world into a powerful force for social transformation in the world. Our planet is in dire straits, with myriad crises plaguing the advancement of humankind. The private sector has the resources, expertise, leadership and management skills to be the game-changer here. It is time for corporations and businesses to rise to the challenge and become a real “third pillar” of change in the world, assisting the first two pillars, governments and philanthropies, which are unable to cope with the scale of problems we face. Corporations and private companies of all sizes—along with consumers—must act as partners in this mission, working together to put the entire private sector into the service of building a better world.

I became interested in this when several years ago I read a speech Bill Gates gave at the World Economic Forum at Davos in 2008. In his talk, Gates challenged corporations to be more creative about how they could respond to the needs of the world’s poor. He entreated had to create new methods to account for making money so they could do business in the poorest regions where profits might be as scarce as clean water and regular meals.

Gates speech inspired me to contribute my thinking. First, I reflected on the myriad crises of the world and what needed to be done to solve them. What quickly became clear to me was that we needed to perform a significant reengineering of capitalism—overhauling it, tempering it, and transforming it to shift it from what I called a Me First into a We First economic system.

The shift from Me to We entails persuading corporations and their leaders to modify the current practice of capitalism and its business models in order to adopt new ways of thinking about commerce and profit. The basis for this shift is not abstract or utopian; it is predicated on the truth that we now live in complex, interlinked globalized world where our lives touch upon and influence each other as never before. We simply can no longer practice capitalism the same way.

The We First approach adheres to four different operating principles:

1. Recognize the benefits of mutual self-interest. We can no longer define our self-interest in immediate narrow and selfish terms. In a world of 7 billion people and 120+ countries fighting over the same resources, we must learn to recognize when mutual self-interest is more rewarding, or at the minimum, that sometimes our self-interests lie in ensuring that everyone wins something.

2. Integrate purpose into profit. We can no longer maintain our short-term, myopic focus on profit-for-profit’s sake to the neglect of purposes. The future of profit is purpose. Corporations need to make profit, of course, but we can no longer overlook that they must also play a role in contributing to society.

3.  Expand our notion of sustainability. Corporations are slowly coming around to adopting environmentally sustainable behaviors, but we need to extend the notion of sustainability into other domains. For capitalism to survive in this global world, we need it to be economically, morally, socially, and ethically sustainable as well. All five domains go hand in hand.

4.  Re-instill values. Many agree that capitalism has lost its values and it is time to reinstate them. We need to infuse values such as accountability, responsibility, global citizenship, and fairness of rewards back into the daily practices of companies.

You may be wondering, how can we conceivably implement the transition from Me First to We First? This is where my background in branding and social media led me to the answer.

We are now witnessing a new dynamic emerging between brands and consumers due to social media. Consumers throughout the world are connecting as never before, gaining access to communication tools that allow them to talk amongst themselves, share and publish their ideas and opinions, and organize social activism in ways more powerful than ever in history. Through social media, consumers now have the ability to talk back to corporations and expose bad behaviors. They can increasingly act on their desire to see corporations take on greater social responsibility in the world—using their voices and wallets to reward conscionable and well-intentioned brands through their referrals, reviews, recommendations, and purchases. They can also use their power to spread the word about not only those companies that produce bad products, but also those with inauthentic messaging, false promises, and unsustainable and irresponsible social behaviors.

But at the same time, social media also offers brands new opportunities as well. Through social networks, they can reach out and engage their audiences in deeper, more meaningful ways. They can find out what makes their customers tick, and use social media to build stronger relationships and earn greater loyalty from them.

Social media is thus providing the driving force that can bring about the change we need from Me First to We First. It offers consumers a powerful voice and leverage to help change capitalism, and yet it gives corporations and their brands a motive to engage with consumers in the process to win something as well.

This is my mission and I invite you to join the We First movement. Whether you are a CEO, executive, or consumer, there is a role for you to play, using your leadership skills and your commitment to We First principles to help all of us build a better world.

Simon Mainwaring is the founder of We First, a social branding consultancy that helps companies, non-profits and consumer groups build a better world through changes to the practice of capitalism, branding, and consumerism using social technology. More information is available in We First: How Brands and Consumers Use Social Media to Build a Better World (Palgrave/Macmillan, June 2011).  Or visit www.wefirstbook.com. Note that 10% of book proceeds go to the United Nation’s Girl Up Foundation that supports education for young women in the developing world.