A client related a great story to me. A
woman accidentally shut herself inside a cold room on a Friday afternoon.
No one heard her shouts and her body
temperature was falling rapidly. Then, a good while later, a security guard
found her. "What led you here", she asked?
"Mam", he added, "of all
the employees who work here, you are the reason I come to work. You greet me in
the morning, you wave to me at night and when you can you chat or give me some
food. So I wouldn't have missed anyone else, but I was expecting you to come
out of the building and wave to me as you went home, and when you didn't appear
I knew something was wrong. I searched all over until I found you down here, in
this cold room".
It provoked a powerful thought - people
don't buy your brand, your firm, ideas, products, technology, brainwaves or
great ideas ... they buy you.
If you are marketable, accessible,
cooperative and constructive in relationships, they will buy you and also
recommend you, else they will do neither.
You can throw the kitchen sink at
customers, but until you learn to respect them and love them as people, and
until you have taken the time to relate to their needs, not your own, you will
find the going tough.
I have met many difficult people in my
time and I was one of them once ... take it from me, in human relationships
your ego carries little value. The currency of past ages may have been gold or
technology or whatever - but this age trades in relationships.
It takes us right back to what the bible
says about "do unto others as you would have them do to you". It also
confirms what Jesus taught, that this life is about people not stuff. That is
how He built His church - not through systems, technology or stuff, which all
manages numbers but misses hearts.
Competitive advantage is not about price (never
was), quality (it helps a bit), features (all commoditised), service - yes,
yes, yes. But automated, computer generated, processed service doesn't qualify.
Only personal, human engagement matters.
Bank A had a 9/10 service scorecard, B had
6/10, but B had the clients, because it knew the names, faces and needs of its
clients. A was coldly efficient but soulless.
So, if you want to change the world,
change you first.
(c)
https://www.facebook.com/peter.missing.3
No comments:
Post a Comment