The Business Brickyard

Everyone is obsessed and wrestles with delivering that Wow moment or idea.  Whether it is to an audience, a customer or your boss the quest for something that will make the sale or the promotion or simply that "difference" is always pushing at the back of our minds.

Over time people have become numb to the Wow moment.  Imagine what made your eyes light up as a child compared to what it takes today.  When my son looks at a TV screen you can almost see in his face the look of total awestruck wonder.  To us, it is a TV and the absolute magic of what is actually going on to allow us to watch it has become completely forgotten.

What does catch our attention is when all of those forgotten things stop working.  The cable goes out or the sound is lost.  The fits of rage we get when the cell phone will not work over a 90 mile stretch of highway while you are traveling at 65 miles per hour.

So perhaps the "Wow" has become reminding people of the magic that goes on to make it all seem so natural.  Those that understood what it took to broadcast the Academy Awards live to the world would be awestruck by the technology and complexity. 

As you ponder how to deliver your wow perhaps try thinking about why what you do, making the assumption that what you do is excellent, needs that wow on top.  What has been forgotten along the way so the 'magic' you do is not a wow moment anymore.

Put all those business books down, throw all the textbooks away and truly grow your business. 

After many years of listening to businesses, experiencing the service they provide and working with them to get things done I have come up with the one thing that will put your business in the top 1% of whatever industry you are in.   Here it is (Drumroll, etc...):

Do what you said you would do.  Do it when you said you would.

There it is. Seems so simple and yet, how many interactions/experiences have you had where you can count on it?  How many follow ups do you send to people?  How many are you responding to? How many letters, emails and calls are you making/receiving with apologies for deadlines and promises missed?

When I stick to this rule clients come to me. Businesses, lost in a fog of promises not kept,  long to find a company to work with that makes this simple rule real.  When I forget it? I lose credibility, create stress for myself and my clients and fall back into the "They are all the same" crowd.

Your competition is not talking about it and your clients and prospects cannot wait to hear it.  So what are the steps you need to put in place so it becomes real for your business?  When will it be done?

Put it on your business cards, on the first slide of your presentation and at the top of every mission statement.

Welcome to the top 3% of your industry.

**Extra credit:

Do more than what you said you would do.  Still do it when you said you would.

Welcome to the top 1% of your industry.

There is a lot of talk about businesses discovering their “story.” What I don’t hear much about is how to decipher your true story from your false story.

    When I say “false story,” I am talking about the lies and rationalizations we tell ourselves to prove ourselves right or wrong about things that happen to us in life. That false story is really the filter that we run every experience through to fit into the world as we want to see it. This story is the result of years of old and often incorrect thinking which simply serve to protect us from some painful truth.

Businesses are prone to false stories too. How could they not? Businesses are run by and comprised of a whole bunch of people that each has his or her own set of these false stories. A business’s false story might be comprised of reasons why they won or lost a client, reasons why they are not making enough profit, reasons why their competitors stole that client away, how the customers are all a pain in the neck, are never happy, etc, etc.

All Stories. False ones.

    If we are honest with ourselves, perhaps in a private moment, we might recognize such stories as the excuses they often are.

If your competitors were really as bumbling and awful as you are convinced they are, how is it that they are not only still in business, but are competing with you so well? If you were really right about your story, you would have more business than you could handle.

What if you told yourself that you lost a piece of business because some of your competitors, right now, really are better than you? What if you admitted to yourself that you really didn’t pay proper attention to the personalized service you touted during the sales process? Would that be so bad? You wouldn’t have to close your doors or fire the staff. But you would have the chance to find a different way. Owning up to your false story allows you to find your true story.
Only your true story provides a solid jumping off point to take aggressive action and effect lasting change. 

Practice drill: Lose your story, find your truth

Think of the last three to five clients you lost or the last few prospects that chose your competitor over you. Write down the reasons you told yourself and/or everyone else why you lost. Look for your false story.

Now write down what the truth could be about each situation. 
See how much easier it is to see how to take action from the truth list?  The false list lets you sit idly by ranting about how unfair business is. A waste of time and opportunity.
Now write down the first action you can take. Turn those actions into initiatives in your business and real changes will occur in the culture and feel of your company. Quickly.