Day 14 Develop Your How

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Today’s Task:   Write a “How” statement that defines your attitude about your business.

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As a consultant you are going to run into sticky situations.  It happens.   How you deal with the situation is entirely up to you.  You will have problems with a customer’s orders, with consultants on your team, with hosts, and with a variety of other people.  As a consultant you are going to need to get the situation resolved.  And having a defined “How” statement will really help.  

One of the first problems I had as a consultant was a mistake that Shelf Reliance had made.  I was very nervous to contact Shelf Reliance about it.  But when I did I was so pleased.  The customer service representative said “I’m so sorry this happened, on behalf of Shelf Reliance let me apologize.  Now let me see what we can do about this.”  And then he went on to offer me several options on how the problem could be solved.

Shelf Reliance customer service must have a clearly defined “How” statement.  How do they treat customers?  They apologies and then get to work to make something happen.    I love it.

The biggest problem I have run into in my business happened about a year ago I was trying really hard to build my business.  I was focusing on recruiting new consultants.  I was not having much success, until I met a woman who was very interested.  We spoke at length on several occasions.  She decided to become a consultant and she signed up.   I was so excited my efforts were paying off.  Things were looking good.

And then she contacted me and wanted to switch enrollers.  She wanted to switch enrollers.  She had read the policies and knew that a consultant can switch enrollers within 30 days of signing up as a consultant.   She needed my permission to switch enrollers. 

I was heartbroken.  I wanted to say “NO you can’t switch enrollers.  Stay with me!”   (I do have to say that she did have a totally valid reason for switching but I still didn’t want her to.)

But I defined my “How”  I knew how I was going to respond.   I had decided when I first started my business that I was  going to care more about people than about selling products.  Don’t get me wrong I am totally about making a profit.  I am in business to make money.   I don’t have to destroy people to make money.   I wrote down a mantra.  “Be generous and gracious”

So as I spoke to this consultant I thought.  “Be generous and gracious, be generous and gracious” and I let her switch to the other consultant.  I’m sure that I was not the perfect example of being “generous and gracious” but looking back I am happy with my actions, attitude, and behavior.   And I like the think that this consultant is too.

This is only one instance where having a statement about how I want to run my business helped me work through a difficult situation.

If you haven’t had a difficult situation with a consultant, host, or customer you will.  You need to plan a head so you have the tools to deal with the situation.

Today I want you to think about the kind of consultant that you want to be.  What is important to you?  What kind of experience do you want your customers, down line and others you interact with to have?

Today’s Worksheet: 

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Write a statement that defines your attitude about your business.

If you are stumped try answering these questions:  

·        What I encounter a difficult situation in my business I want to be:

·        What do I want others to say about me?

·        I will run my business based on the principles of ­­­­­­­­­­________________ and __________________. 

·        When I am in a tricky situation how do I want to behave?

·        Think of a time when you were the customer having a problem, how did you want the company to treat you?

·        What is the best customer service experience you have had? 

·        Name one company that has amazing customer service.  List three specific things they do to provide such good customer service.

  Today’s Notes

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Ideas to get you thinking

·        You’ll never have a product or price advantage again. They can be easily duplicated, but a strong customer service culture can’t be copied. 
 JERRY FRITZ

·        Good service is to spoil the customer, to make them highly difficult, demanding & unreasonable, and they will then become highly dependent on us. DICK NG

·        Although your customers won’t love you if you give bad service, your competitors will. 
KATE ZABRISKIE

·        The purpose of a business is to create a mutually beneficial relationship between itself and those that it serves. When it does that well, it will be around tomorrow to do it some more. 
JOHN WOODS

·        Every great business is built on friendship. J.C. PENNEY