Claim OwnershipThe Daily RICHual
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© Rich Sands
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Something to get you going, thinking, wondering, or doing each day.
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Earlier in the week, we talked about customer service NOT being a passive thing. It's active. Customer service is active, even PROactive, not passive. It’s an action, not a reaction. It has life and a purpose. “Well done is better than well said,” were the words of Benjamin Franklin. Yoda proclaimed, “Do or do not. There is no try.” Customer service is about DOING.
With that in mind, here are the Eight Irrefutable Laws of Customer Service.
I was chatting with a friend not too long ago about a class I teach called "Visual Chi: Creating and Delivering Outstanding Electronic Presentations." He seemed to go somewhere else for a few seconds (maybe a bad memory popped up) and then said, "Oh, another PowerPoint class, huh?"
"Geez, I hope not," I replied.
It's not that I have anything against PowerPoint, or Keynote for that matter, it's just that anything can be abused or used for evil instead of good. Even the best laid plans of presentation software creators can go south and that's what's happened to most PPT and K presentations.
According to a recent survey, America's mid section will do nothing but get larger in the next twenty years. No, we're not adding geography to the Midwest by adopting Canada. The geography being added is to our mid sections, our waistlines.
A Duke University study tells us that, at present, roughly a third of all Americans are considered obese. By 2030, that number is projected to be 42%. Think about this: That's two out of every five of us. And we're not talking just overweight here, we're talking obesity.
The Center for Disease Control says, "For adults, overweight and obesity ranges are determined by using weight and height to calculate a number called the "body mass index" (BMI). BMI is used because, for most people, it correlates with their amount of body fat.
An adult who has a BMI between 25 and 29.9 is considered overweight.
An adult who has a BMI of 30 or higher is considered obese."
You can check yourself at http://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/guidelines/obesity/bmi_tbl.htm
As I was watching The Maltese Falcon for the umpteenth time Sunday, I anxiously awaited the "showdown" scene between Sam Spade (Humphrey Bogart) and Brigid O'Shaughnessy (Mary Astor). After a rough and rocky relationship (both business AND personal), Spade let's her know that he's turning her in for murder, even though he loves her. Spade's wonderful dialogue, both mildly loving and extremely sarcastic goes like this: "I hope they don't hang you, precious, by that sweet neck. Yes, angel, I'm gonna send you over. The chances are you'll get off with life. That means if you're a good girl, you'll be out in 20 years. I'll be waiting for you. If they hang you, I'll always remember you."
Technology is moving at a break neck speed. New gadgets, designed to save mankind from the discomforts of life, are developed daily (maybe hourly). Some things, however, remain as they have for years, decades, even centuries.
One such example of an old idea that technology has yet to improve is the common pallet. Pallets have been around and been pretty much unchanged since the peak of the second industrial revolution, leading into World War II. Large scale production was creating a need for better handling of goods. The pallet solved some of that problem. While the actual inventor of the pallet is a bit of a mystery, we do know this: it was patented by George Raymond and Bill House. Interestingly, George and Bill had patents accepted on the forklift the same day theirs was accepted on the pallet. Those two things sure went together, but I digress. By the way, my first summer job, in fact, was moving pallets at Argon Industries in downriver Detroit.
The Campaign for Learning in the U.K. recently compiled research on an age-old topic: learning. Basically, the article was focused on sharing some statistics in order to get people to see the UP-side of learning. Some of the information they shared was:
Yesterday’s driver rant has given me an idea. Fully enforce, with officers, cameras, whatever it takes, two things: speeding (let the demarcation line be 7 miles over), andrunning red lights (one of the most dangerous habits that just seems SOOOO common). Mail the tickets, charge the fines, take away the licenses. MOSTLY charge the fines.
We could balance the budget in a year.
I live in the Denver metro area. Our population, at least according to the statistics has grown about 6% in the last four years. I’m not buying it.
EVERYTHING AND EVERYPLACE is way more crowded than ever before and the location of the largest overcrowding is one place: the roads.
Now maybe it’s not true, maybe it’s just that it just seems more crowded…. And more crazy. But more crowded and more crazy is more dangerous. Yesterday when one of my fellow drivers performed an act that was probably illegal in about six ways, my wife lamented, “didn’t you ever learn to drive?”
In the last episode, I shared sleep benefits from Matthew Walker’s book Why We Sleep.
Today, let’s focus on three tips to a better sleep, subjectively chosen by me.
1.Regularity. Go to bed and wake up at the same time every night. For me, that has been an easy pattern, I’m an 8 hour guy, usually 9:30- 5:30. The regularity is what our systems need to insure all those benefits previously discussed. The awesome idea here is that while many people use a wake upalarm, few use the to-bed alarm. Hmmmmm
2.If you wake up in the middle of the night, which we all do, and you can’t get back to sleep,
After hearing him on several podcasts, I decided to read Matthew Walker’s book, “Why We Sleep.”
Now while I have listened to all of the podcasts, I have yet to finish the book, so while I haver the overall JIST of what he wants me to know, I am lacking some of the deepest details….. Maybe.
Nonetheless, having been exposed to Walker’s research as well as that of Dr Andrew Huberman at the Huberman lab, I am suitably petrified to not get proper sleep.
I have an iPad2. Perfectly happy with it.
My Macbook is a 2018. It’s awesome.
My watch is half of an apple watch 6.
Clearly, I don’t need updates. In fact, is it just me or do our gadgets seem to have to updated CONSTANTLY?
Hey tech makers, let’s update LESS and get it right MORE!
The last time an update really got me excited was when Keynote added the Anvil animation effect (and that was a while ago).
Sometimes we over build up the greats of our professions. We put them on a pedestal, and maybe they deserve it. I don’t know.
What I do know is that once you place someone up there, you’re actually tellingyourself they are better than you and maybe even limiting yourself in your own quest to be great.
In 1972, Frank Shorter won the Olympic Marathon. His training had been consistent. One of his training partners, Kenny Moore placed 4th.
They were on an easy run the day following his win and Shorter said this to his partner:
Experience is a great thing. Those with experience generally have a tremendous advantage over their peers in any endeavor.
There’s another side of experience that doesn’t get so much press and that is having so much experience that you take what you do for granted, sometimes even go through the motions.
Mike Smith, the cross country coach at Northern Arizona, who’s teams have won 4 of the last 5 NCAA cross country championships works hard to avoid this take it for granted thing.
“If you have that belief - pure belief in your heart - that you want to be successful then you can talk to your mind and your mind will control you to be successful.”
Mind over matter, right?
Mind over fear, right?
It is amazing how much of running, business and life are mental
"Somewhere in the world, someone is training when you are not. When you race him, he will win." - Tom Fleming -
I revisited a great quote today from Des Linden, 2018 Boston Marathon champion and the new world record holder for the 50K distance and I like it so much that I thought it would make a good RICHual
And while Des is certainly a great runner, this quote works for business and life in general.
“Some days it just flows and I feel like I'm born to do this, other days it feels like I'm trudging through hell. Every day I make the choice to show up and see what I've got, and to try and be better."
The actual quote goes like this: “A jack of all trades is a master of none, but oftentimes better than a master of one,” and it comes from Robert Greene in his 1592 booklet 'Greene's Groats-Worth of Wit’ At the time this was written it was semi thought to be a compliment. Since the 16th century, it has become sort of an insult. Today, I totally mean it as an insult.
In the very late 60’s, I discovered the Distance Running News, a magazine that shared, surprise…. Distance running news.
Sometimes a great customer service story is focused on a grand gesture, an act that amazes the customer. A Nordstrom accepting the return of four tires from a dissatisfied man even though they don’t sell tires. A maid at the Ritz Carlton guaranteeing that the hotel would replace a guest’s missing laptop computer if it wasn’t found by days end. Most of the time, however, customer service can be found in the little things: a smile, a giving attitude, or a kind word.
In poker, they seem to go “all in” often
"ALL IN" for the business professional revolves around several areas: business, yes, but also the rest of our lives. To be truly "ALL IN" in life means more than just work. It means with the family, your body, your mind, your soul. It's about balance, yet a sort of imbalance. What I mean is keeping your life in balance by having more than just work, but creating an imbalance to the same old, usual stuff by pushing everything to the limit. When was the last time you just totally "got after it,"?
I recall hearing an interview with James Taylor and he was asked what song he believed he had sung in public the most. He said Fire and Rain. When asked how many times he’d sung it in public, he said, maybe 10,000
So how do you make it fresh? How do you keep from being totally bored with it?
His answer: it might be the first time you’veheard me sing it.
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