The reality is that 80% of handwritten notes will get thrown away. The remaining 20% will quietly love them, save them, cherish them , or reciprocate by responding back. This applies to customers, spouses, kids, grandkids and friends. I would m...

Expressing appreciation is a dying principal in modern business. There is no way around this. Saying THANK YOU to customers is all but dead. An expression of appreciation on a paper, or text receipt is not making any customer feel warm and fuzz...

Why? Why? Why? In my 35 years of doing business, whenever there are problems, customers always want to know why. However, so many vendors get a failing grade when it comes to answering this simple question. If you want to make customers really ...

Customers defect after they have endured enough doses of la-di-da service. Time is the currency of the Experience Economy. When customers sense the violation of their time, they usually say goodbye to that vendor. It is simply their way to puni...

What would customers say if you asked them what they thought of your customer service? Would they describe it as a lackadaisical approach to servicing orders, or a professional, well oiled machine? Talk to your customers. Be your customer. Find...

Business is looking and feeling too casual these days. We operate at WARP speed, cutting corners, multitasking constantly. Then, amidst all this chaos, we partially answer questions with cryptic, text abbreviations. Our associates, or customers...

What if we became Chief Encouraging Officers at the office? Most of us spend more time working than we do with our own families. As a result, the workplace often takes on the role of our second family. Knowing this, why don’t more leaders adopt...

Intercompany divisions, often pursue goals, and objective specific to their operational structure. However, lost in the shuffle, is tying all the divisions together, so that everyone works in a harmonized effort to satisfy the customer. Are you...

The first 30 seconds we meet potential customers is all we have to make a good first impression. When we succeed, we launch the transaction process with the wind at our back. When we don’t succeed, we dig an unnecessary hole that can often be h...

We often hit the business “Danger Zone” when we blindly copy and paste attractive-sounding business procedures, instead of critically thinking critically about our own business. Where are you in this click and drag world? Do you manage by shall...

The answers to improved profitability often hide deep below the way things look on the surface. Are you a detail-surfer, snorkeler or scuba diver? Maybe it’s time to do a deep dive to become more profitable.

When it comes to faulty behavior, societal trends often suggest we adopt a blame-shifting mindset over a self-ownership model. However, in business it is quite the opposite because the orders usually stop flowing when a customer is dissatisfied...

How to keep customers is not a topic often discussed in business board rooms. We spend a lot of board room time talking about getting new customers. However, we need to spend as much time discovering more ways to increase customer satisfaction ...

Customers can easily tell when they are unwanted. As businesses, we like to think we put the welcome mat out for everybody. However, sometimes we send the wrong message to our inquiring customers. Is it time for your company to audit what you a...

The concept of being an expert leaves little room for improvement. Do we really want put our products and services on a self-proclaimed pedestal, or do we want to come across with an air of humility? 

Are you actually listing a phone number? Are you actually answering calls, recording voice mails, listening to these voice messages, and then acting on them? If you are not managing the phone properly, you are running the risk of creating unhap...

At the end of our careers, very few of us will be able look back and say that we accomplished what we set out to do. Why? The reason is because so many of us don’t know where we are going, and instead, we opt to travel any road that takes us fo...

When interviewing with companies, please remember that many previous interviewees have spewed endless lies and embellishments about their workplace capabilities. So how can you separate yourself from these other liars? Easy! Bring the receipts....

One of the best insurance policies for a successful career, is to develop a mindset of continuous improvement. With this mindset, your career can become more lucrative. Without it, you run the risk of hitting a dead end. Is it time to take out ...

The answer should be 36 new business tools. Settle for nothing less. Imagine doing this for 5 years? Do it, and watch your career take off!

This is a great look in the mirror type of an exercise. Some of us do business with the utmost passion, and often times our excitability can be mistaken as anger. Double check the way you talk and interact with associates, customers and executi...

If you want a contagious business quality to help grow your business, then try your hand at displaying genuine enthusiasm. Customers crave authenticity, transparency, and truth from suppliers, and they can sense one they run into a phony. So wh...

Customers want easy to understand product explanations. Brevity and clarity should be the horses pulling our product carts. Does this sound like your company? If not, we encourage you to find ways to become brief, clear, and understandable (BCU...

New managers, new leaders, new employers, and potential job opportunities all want to know what we have done in our careers. However, so many executives have been burned by people who say they did something, but never prove it, nor can they pro...

This is all too common with face-to-face interactions. If you choose to consistently invade the personal space of a buyer, then be prepared for the possibility of losing that customer. Very few people like to feel crowded, or boxed into a corne...