Nicholas Bate

Tomorrow, even though it is Friday...

....you are going to get up early. Because you have been thinking about it for sometime. For weeks. Actually for months. But usually by the time it gets to this part of the week you decide to leave it until next week. Well, how about surprising yourself. Get up early and start that project.

Read here for loads more tips and encouragement.

Jessica Hagy at work

If you haven't discovered her yet, try this.

Customer Service 2

Most of us would probably agree that great relationships require effort from both parties. Maybe we need to remind ourselves of this when seeking great customer service. Perhaps sometimes we expect 'them' to 'perform'. But maybe we can ignite the process. Over the last couple of years I have hired cars from National Car Rental. I have found their central telephone booking service ordinary. And at two separate offices, their desk staff often rude. BUT and it's an interesting BUT, for various reasons (usually conveneince of pick-up) I have stayed friendly, made an effort to get to know the team and thanked them when they have sorted out issues. Within a couple of visits, the service I receive becomes awesome!

It's just a basic human thing of course: we are not going to give of our best until we know we are valued.

Today:
1. Try igniting some awesome customer service. Ignore the initial surly attitude. Build the relationship and see what happens.
2. Ensure your teams have a low 'ignition point'.

Customer Service 1

Great customer service as all of us know is always about the simple stuff. Most of us are now being 're-trained' by our airlines to book on-line and actually finding it's quite helpful to choose our seat, check that our veggie meal has been ordered etc. But then-oh-no way of printing. Guy points out a hotel which has recognised this. I doubt whether anyone will CHOOSE their hotel for this feature, but it will all add up to a better experience.

At your next AwayDay (off-site to get back to basics; you do have them don't you?), try asking:

If we were re-inventing this business, what would we do differently?
What just needs some effort, but hardly any money to create a better customer experience?
Why didn't we do ALL our actions from the last AwayDay because had we done them all it would have been AWESOME.
In your business, what's the equivalent of providing the PC+printer FOC?

Oh, and when's your next AwayDay? No-that's too long. Make it sooner.

The Weekly Tutorial: Keeping great relationships with your teenagers

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As you know for yourself, one of the hardest things in Life can be finding your passion, finding where you want to spend a lot of your time.

Encourage any thinking/work in this direction, however unlikely it seems at the moment. The time in the band will either lead to a successfull band or to the next stage. Either way: encourage, don't squash.

The Weekly Tutorial: Keeping great relationships with your teenagers

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Things to remember:
Actually teenagers do need lots of extra sleep.
Whatever happens, stay loving: keep the channels of conversation open.
When behaviours are NOT acceptable, it's often best not to tackle it when that behaviour is displayed. There's often too much emotion around the place. Tackle it at a quieter time.

The Weekly Tutorial: Keeping great relationships with your teenagers

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Things not to say
When I was your age...
The things your mother/father and I have done for you....
You'll not get very far unless you...

Things to say
What's exciting you at the moment?
Have fun...
That's fine...just keep me informed, will you?

Diluted attention?

Seth Godin takes a different angle on something I am increasingly experiencing. Although a fan of much of his work I have never had the opportunity to see him live. I guess that most of his public speaking is on blogging and thus he can expect much of his audience to be on-line at the time of his speech. Potential nightmare of course: it's very difficult to really internalise thoughts and ideas if at the same time you are trying to record them for others. Consequently-as Seth reports-it tends not to work.

My challenge is the phone. Mobiles were fairly easy to ban. But the phone is of course for many people their source of mail. Particularly in large audiences, many will do anything to keep responding to mail. In one sense it is not up to me to police such activity, it's just that when they do finally give 100% activity they realise how much more effective it is...This of course is part of the bigger debate over the difficulty of giving full and focused attention to any one activity, this being the way the human brain works best. Of course the buzz of adrenalin can often seduce us in other ways.

How much are you diluting the power of your attention? And if you manage or lead, how much do you encourage attention dilution in your people?

Blog round-up

If you missed them the first time around, these are WELL worth looking at:

Michael Wade on bad habits.
Tim Sanders on e-mail effectiveness audit
Chris Anderson on definitive reading.
And Garr Reynolds on perfectly imperfect presenting.

Something to think about

"Motivation is what gets you started. Habit is what keeps you going."

Jim Rohn