A story about how kindness won a client sale over experience and knowledge. The power of a positive attitude.     

Transcript:

Welcome to Everyday Happiness, where we create lasting happiness and two-ish minutes today through my signature method of Intentional Margins®, creating harmony between your to-dos and your priorities, happiness, science and musings about life. 

I'm your host, Katie Jefcoat. And I wanted to let you in on an experience that happened to me just a couple of days ago.  I was going to a furniture store. I planned to go to this furniture store where I picked some stuff out online, and I wanted to place the order. I called this store and the person that answered the phone was Gidion, that was his name. And he was very helpful and felt a little bit newer-ish, but was definitely trying to point me in the right direction for some questions that I had about this furniture. 

He told me what his work hours were later in the week, and that I could come in at any time and place the order in person with him and then also look at a few things in the store. So of course, I did. And this is what happened. 

I go to the store. In the back of the showroom, there's a big round table with four stations that are diagonal from one another that are computer stations. He's at one of those. I go over, introduce myself, and we start talking about what kind of furniture I am looking for. And at about the same time, another designer sits down to my right. 

She is a little bit older than Gidion, maybe 10-20 years. And she clearly is a more established interior designer, you can tell, she has a little bit of a chip on her shoulder. She has a binder full of orders and papers and seems like she has an extensive customer list. She probably knows really what she's doing. When she sat down she wasn't super polite or nice. But that was fine. I was working with the person next to her. And I just let this evolve. About 30 minutes later, I'm still working with Gidion, and a customer comes into the store and is looking at rugs behind this table. 

She has with her, probably her four year-old toddler. And the toddler is if you can remember toddlers he was doing like a bear crawl kind of on the floor, just you know, he had a couple of toys and he was clearly just trying to entertain himself at his mother's feet while his mom was looking at rugs. And this designer turns around, and she says to this mother, I don't think that your kid should be on the floor. It's not safe. And the mother scooped up the toddler and they both went about their day. 

But it reminded me a little bit about what it means to be kind and how that matters in business. I could have easily made an effort to work with this more experienced interior designer. But instead, I chose to work with Gideon, because he was kind, because he was willing to learn, and because he was doing everything that he could to get the sale, to make me happy, to create a pleasurable buying experience. It just goes to show that whether you're experienced or not, kindness matters and in this case, kindness won out and all of my business is going to this person that hasn't been doing this very long, but is so grateful for the opportunity to have this order. So maybe when you're thinking about growing your own business, you will also think about how kindness matters. Until next time, remember kindness is contagious.

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