Ask Better Questions
Want to be exceptional? Be unreasonable.
What do these three have in common?
Each of them are leading voices in their respective spaces and professions. Here is a super quick background on each.
Gary Vaynerchuk grew his family’s wine business from $3 Million to $60 Million before leaving to start Vaynermedia, a leading digital agency in the world. He is a best selling author and sought after speaker. Gary began his journey by creating a wine show on YouTube and created over 1000 episodes of Wine Library TV. Now he has a team of people that follow him around and create the “Daily Vee.”
Casey Neistat is a filmmaker and world-class vlogger. Casey has pioneered how many view vlogging and has over 9 million YouTube subscribers. (That’s about the same as Jimmy Fallon if you were counting). Casey grew this amazing following by creating a daily, high quality vlog series that highlighted his adventures and his life.
Seth Godin is one of the pioneers of modern marketing. He is a best selling author many times over and is one of the minds that introduced us to “permission marketing.” Seth grew an amazing audience by writing a blog each and every day…for years. Each and every day, Seth “shows up” to share his thoughts on marketing, business and more.
These three are people I admire in business today.
They are the top of their game. And each of them, in their own way, push me to work harder and do more. Each of them is totally unreasonable…and that is why they have succeeded. Every time I start to create a goal to raise the exposure of my personal brand or my business, I start with a big idea. I think of a goal that gets me excited or fired up. I think “why not?” That could be me! And I even start to think of the possibility of what might happen if I head down the path. And then I think, “ Maybe I should be more reasonable.” I start to create the internal debate that goes like this… “You have a lot going on. You have a family and you want to have some time off! You know you need to think about your quality of life. You need to be more reasonable.”
And that, my friends, is where exceptional goes to die. It’s the reason I am excited about creating content every day. It’s exciting. It’s scary. It’s even kind of fun. But it’s not reasonable! If you want to be exceptional, you need to be unreasonable.
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DMJ Podcast: Find Your Purpose
Showing Me Where I Stand
Fixing The Appreciation Gap
Just about every good mother and father teach their children two phrases just as soon as they can talk. Say them with me… “Please and thank you.”
Awesome. That means this blog is read by wonderful parents (or soon to be parents). But here’s the thing. As nearly any parent will tell you, we get tired of hearing “please.” “Please can I go to friend’s house?” “Can I stay up later, please?” “Please can I have just one more?” On the other hand, we never get tired of hearing “thank you.” That simple sign of appreciation is much more rare. And even if it’s not, it’s never annoying.
We appreciate the appreciation.
Our clients and prospects and employees feel the same way. As business owners, sales people, and leaders, we spend a lot of time asking people for something. We ask employees for their effort. We ask customers for their money. We ask both of them for their time. We ask…a lot. But how often do you really spend time saying “thank you?” Not just the basic “hey thanks” you say in passing or the automatic email that says “thanks for your purchase.” Those are fine…I guess. But they don’t take effort and are not really sincere.
How often do you stop by a customer’s office just to thank them for their business? How often do you pick up the phone to do the same? How often do you schedule a meeting with a person in your organization just to take the time to applaud their efforts? If you are like most of us (me included), the answer is probably “not enough.” So here are 3 ways to fix the “appreciation gap” in your business.
Just “Thanks:”
Go to your clients or your employees with a simple “thanks meeting.” If it’s a client, let them know you are only there to say “thank you for their business.” If it’s an employee schedule a quick meeting. Both will probably give you quizzical looks because they are not used to this sort of meeting. But both will appreciate it.
Send a Card
Yes…we are going old school. Take the time and send out a simple greeting card showing your appreciation. The fact is, most of the mail we get these days is a bill. This will stand out!
Appreciation Program
This is for your best clients. Most businesses have a rule that 80% of the revenue comes from 20% of the clients. This is for that 20%. Create a quarterly program where you get a simple gift for your best clients…just to say “thanks.” It’s simple and it’s easy.
And you will be saying “thank you” instead of “please.” If you want to make sure you never miss an update, please sign up for our VIP newsletter here.
Or if you want to jump right to our site in order to find a great Promo item to show your clients appreciation, you can shop here.