Gitomer March 6, 2013

Last week I promised the answers to why lousy service occurs and how to fixit. If you didn’t read part one, stop now, and go here: http://www.upstatebizsc.com/gitomer/gitomer_february_26_2013/

The answer revolves around four words you already know: positive attitude and personal pride.

Let’s start with a little background…

Here are the reasons or feelings that negatively affect your attitude, andreduce or eliminate the power of your ability to serve at a superiorlevel:
• My boss is a jerk.
• I hate my job.
• I hate my coworkers.
• I’m too good for this.
• They don’t pay me enough.
• They don’t understand me.
• Benefits suck here.
• I have my resume in five other places.
• I can’t wait to get out of here.

ANSWER ONE: There’s a two-word secret to service response: positive attitude.
• Positive attitude, defined as the way you dedicated yourself to the way you think, is the beginning point of service.
• Positive attitude is not what happens to you. It’s what you do, and how you respond to what happens to you. That is the essence of service.
• Positive attitude must be the first part of any training program, orthe rest of training will fall on deaf ears – or worse – existingnegative attitudes.

ANSWER TWO: There’s a two-word secret to the service process: personal pride.
• It’s not how you feel about the customer, it’s not how do you feelabout the circumstance. It’s all about how you feel about yourself. Your personal pride.
• Personal pride should give you the incentive to be at your best, respond at your best, and serve at your best at all times.
• You’re not doing this for other people, you’re doing it for yourself.Once you understand that, great service not only becomes easy, itactually becomes fun.

Here are a few guidelines to make personal pride more easily understood:
• Personal pride must be more powerful than feelings about boss or company
• Personal pride must be more powerful than pay
• Personal pride must be more powerful than existing job

REALITY: If positive attitude and personal pride are present, then service, even great service, is possible. And vice versa.

MAJOR POINT OF UNDERSTANDING: It’s not a job, it’s an opportunity. And yourattitude, combined with your personal pride, will determine yourshort-term and long-term fate.

Yes, I realize there may beextenuating, outside circumstances that affect attitude, pride, and even performance. There are too many possible issues to deal with in thisshort piece, but I do want to acknowledge it’s not always work related.

KEY POINT OF UNDERSTANDING: It’s likely that most people reading this willnot be in the same job five years from today. But between now and then,the thoughts you have, the personal pride you build and display, andyour level of performance will dictate the quality of job, oradvancement, you’re likely to secure.

Why would you risk lousyperformance at your present job, thinking you’re going to get a betterjob based on resume or desire? It doesn’t make sense. And it’s a fantasy with an unhappy ending.

KEY POINT OF UNDERSTANDING: Once youunderstand that you’re serving for yourself, once you understand thatyour attitude will determine your communication excellence, and once you understand your personal pride will dictate your actions – at once yousee your possibilities, and will have the ability to better improve your performance.

Don’t be mad at the world, don’t be mad at yourcustomers, don’t be mad at your boss, don’t be mad at your coworkers –be happy about yourself.

NOTE WELL: If you’re the boss, or you’re in HR, or you’re the trainer, stop training a bunch a crap about yourcompany and how to fill out the silly papers, stop telling me all abouthow great the company is, how you have a great reputation, and that Ishould be happy to work here. That’s a bunch of baloney! You can emailme that.

START YOUR TRAINING SESSIONS LIKE THIS: Here are two things most people don’t know about themselves AND their success.

HR REALITY: Train me about me. My attitude, my personal pride, myhappiness, my opportunity. Information I can use NOW and LATER.Information that applies to ME.
BIGGER HR REALITY: Most employees disdain training, they just want a paycheck.
BIGGEST HR REALITY: The more you help the employee succeed, the more they willset the standard you’re hoping for. They will have a better attitude and serve with pride because you helped them.

That’s not just a challenge, HR – that’s YOUR opportunity.

Jeffrey Gitomer is the author of The Sales Bible, Customer Satisfaction isWorthless Customer Loyalty is Priceless, The Little Red Book of Selling, The Little Red Book of Sales Answers, The Little Black Book ofConnections, The Little Gold Book of YES! Attitude, The Little GreenBook of Getting Your Way, The Little Platinum Book of Cha-Ching, TheLittle Teal Book of Trust, The Little Book of Leadership, and SocialBOOM! His website, www.gitomer.com, will lead you to more informationabout training, seminars, and webinars – or email him personally [email protected].

© 2013 All Rights Reserved. Don’t even think about reproducing this document
without written permission from Jeffrey H. Gitomer and Buy Gitomer. 704/333-1112