Delight your customers and your employees by paying it forward

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Haley Joel OSMENT

I was chatting on the phone earlier today with a contact and we were talking about collaboration, working together, associate agreements, partnerships etc etc etc

However, on the back of that I also found myself expressing my frustration with how much some people talk of collaboration and partnerships but then nothing happens.

This, for me, seems to be all about risk and about how many of us wait to receive before we give anything.

Feel familiar?

That conversation then reminded me of the film: Pay it Forward.

Have you seen it?

I love the Pay It Forward idea and the impact a simple set of acts can have.

Did you also know that there is a Pay It Forward global movement, whose website contains some great stories and ideas of how people can get involved? Brilliant.

One article on their site, in particular, stood out for me as it contained 101 ideas of how you can pay it forward in your life and business. You can check it out here.

It also made me think that the Pay It Forward idea is something that we can apply to both the outside and the inside of our businesses to help us build better relations with our customers and engage our team members more.

How about if we did one of or all of the following:

  • Called a customer today to say Hi, ask them how their day is going and thank them for their business;
  • Congratulated someone on a recent success;
  • Acknowledged one or all of your team for something specific that they have done recently that you thought was great or showed initiative.

Note: Jim Connolly’s recent article (20 minutes of pure awesomeness!) provides some more ideas of how you could apply this to you or your business.

But, here’s the trick and this is where it gets interesting.

I don’t think this should be a one-off thing if we want it to have an impact. Whilst the existence of Pay it Forward Day on 25th April 2013 is a good thing, don’t you think that this should be something that we should try and integrate into our business on an ongoing basis?

Imagine what would happen if you were always trying to Pay It Forward to your customers, your partners, your colleagues, your suppliers….what would happen?

I believe that it would have a hugely positive influence on relations with our customers and members of our teams.

This is where the opportunity, I believe, lies. The truth is that many people will acknowledge that this could be a good idea and a good thing to do but most will not do anything about it.

Why?

Because changing behaviour and breaking habits is hard and takes will and commitment.

If you want to impact the way people talk about your business or you then a good place to start is with what you do and how you do it.

Stand out by being the one that commits to change and makes it happen.

Thanks to detengase for the image.

Republished with author's permission from original post.

Adrian Swinscoe
Adrian Swinscoe brings over 25 years experience to focusing on helping companies large and small develop and implement customer focused, sustainable growth strategies.

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