Care more
‘Tis the season to be thankful and giving. I wanted to put a seasonal twist on an age-old idea; caring more about your products and services – more than anyone in your position ever has. It doesn’t matter what part of the business, or who is in charge of it. You should interject your personal opinion on how things could be or should be, if given the opportunity. Caring is essential to creating loyal customers and amazing products. When you care more than you should about things most people don’t, it adds a bit of magic to the experience. Even boring businesses can add a bit of sparkle to their products or service by looking at them from the customer’s point of view. It isn’t hard; just ask yourself, “what would make this awesome?” When you stop for a second and really see how an outside person perceives your offer, you’ll realize there is a universe of ideas to help improve it.
Some things take only a moment and cost nothing at all. Others are huge and take massive amounts of change and expense to implement. Both are right answers. Prioritize from the smallest to the largest while always aiming for the big changes. As you adjust things over time, you’ll see positive changes begin to unfold, and you will ultimately reach your goal. It is not as hard, expensive, or time consuming as you might think. Actually, since you only do little things one at a time, you barely notice the time or money invested to fulfill your dreams and aspirations.
It’s like snowflaking your ideas. Snowflaking is a financial strategy for throwing small amounts of money at debts every day. Most of us wouldn’t notice a difference if we sent twenty bucks here and there. If you pay that small amount to any debt almost every day, your interest rates lower, the debt gets paid off, and you barely notice the investment you outlaid.
But first, before you can add the little bits of magic that set your course for dream realization, your mindset has to be in a good place. Not only do you have to enjoy the work, but you have to really love it in order to care about every aspect of design, manufacturing, sale, and delivery. That is why Apple was so excited about crafting a laptop out of a single piece of aluminum. While the consumers think it is cool, they were thoroughly impressed with their own ingenuity. They care more than we do; you can tell.
Self-centeredness is traditionally considered to be a bad trait. But maybe not for a company. While I believe business should be both aware of the market and socially conscious, they should also be incredibly self-centered toward their own process and products. The companies that are obsessed with the experience they provide customers are the ones that care about the little aspects their business makes special.
In the words of Seth Godin, “Good is very bad.” He is completely right. Run of the mill products and services that cater to the needs of everyone pretty much suck. That is because they subscribe to a “good enough” policy, and never challenge what works. While they may survive at the top for awhile, their outlook almost always looks grim. This is because no one in the business cares enough to make a change for the better. By the time they figure it out, it is too late and the consumer has moved on. I believe this is what happened to Yahoo!, and now in the face of complete failure, they are ready to give it a go – ready to care again. Hopefully for their sake, it isn’t too late to turn it around.
When you care more than others do, it inspires. That makes others care, too. Many businesses fail because they have a hard time generating organic attention for themselves, and interruption media is far too expensive. If you don’t care enough to make your business special, it is almost impossible to get anyone outside of the company to care either. If your service is too expensive, slow, or the product you produce isn’t very good, then don’t expect to receive stellar results.
I am not claiming that New Leaders makes the best stuff on Earth, or that our process is perfect by any means. What I will claim is that we care. We care about each support email we get. We care about each customer that hires us, and we are thankful for every opportunity that comes our way. Every day we talk about a new way we can improve the way we do something; anything; everything. We are a small team of people that care way too much about design, code, and customer service – even to a fault. We look for ways to make it faster, easier, and cheaper in order to make the entire customer experience better. There is a higher principle at work than simply making money, and that is to be the very best at every aspect of what we do. If we take care of our customers, they will be sure to take care of us.
Try caring about the little things more. Be thankful for the opportunity to act on a recommendation you received. Do what you can to improve your everyday tasks, even just a little bit, and I promise both your team and your customers will care more, too. Make that your New Year’s resolution — care more.
Posted on Jan 03, 2009 by Kevin Milden
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