F53-051: Serving vs Searching For Approval

Show Summary: Today's show is about serving versus searching for approval and the distinction between the two. On the surface, they may appear to be the same or even overlap. But the core, they're fundamentally different. Let's start with searching for approval. When you're in business, the basis of what you're doing is to provide a viable service and get compensated for it. No rocket science there. But this is where the distinction happens. For many of you (something I've been guilty of before), your service or the value you provide is tied directly to getting your customer's approval. You want them to like you or you want them to say yes. This may seem fundamentally sound but it offers challenges. By seeking the customer's approval first, you may be missing what they really need. You may be aware of what they really need as well. But you're searching for what they want to hear just to win their business. It's my experience that this type of business may be successful but they may also be struggling. This could be one of the reasons they may not flourish. If you're really honest with yourself, pleasing the customer is good but it's not great. And if you're intentionally not giving them what they really need, there is a little bit of disservice here - a disservice that may cost you in the long run. If I'm working with someone and my goal is to please them, I'm only really doing that so that I get their business. If I'm really not serving them then they won't get the results they want. Somebody may later on come by and give them what they really need and lose the relationship. To me, the worst thing is the feeling that you're holding back, that you're not really giving them what they really need. You're not really solving their problem. You're just saying yes to whatever they think they want or you think they want to say yes to. In sports, the best coaches don't give the players what they want or what they want to hear to make them better. They give them what they would need to make them better, to make them the absolute best players for the team. We're talking about a real, true coach that wants to get the best out of a player and make the player the best person or human they can be. How does this compare to the core of serving? Serving, to me, is giving everything you have and holding nothing back. Saying what needs to be said to serve them in the most powerful way. This is not always practical for all businesses and certainly not practical to go from a business of meeting needs or pleasing customers to serving. You can't just make that jump because it will be a shock to your business and probably wouldn't be healthy. But there is a progression every business should consider. When does serving in the truest form make sense? Your decision to truly serve has to be tightly coupled with accepting the fear of losing a customer. If I was more concerned about winning the business than I was to serving, that I was in a bad spot. And if I was being really honest with myself, the true motivation was the fear of losing the customer and the money, and not really serving them. Serving the customers means not seeking approval or positioning how or what to say to them only to get them the yes. Serving them means being bold, saying what needs to be said and holding nothing back. Obviously, this is all done with kindness, sincerity, and respect. Be kind and serve them 100% transparency and still be very professional about it. Serving the customer with the values you offer will create the best results and the best relationships. When working with people, I've switched from being afraid to losing clients or losing money to going bold, deep, and partnering in their success. I'll tell them I'm not looking to be friends and I'm not looking to get their approval, that I'm certainly not there to belittle them or berate them but I'm also not looking to say things that I hoped they would take and turn into something that they just liked me more. That's not my goal. When I'm with a client, I'm there to say what I might even be afraid to say or at least uncomfortable to say. That's how I get to serve them the most and how they get the most power out of our conversation. My best football coaches said a lot of things that were uncomfortable for me to hear but they served me. And when you respect someone and they serve you like this, they help change how you see the world, how you see your business, and how you see yourself. This is where the biggest value of service can come from - by serving them. How do you work with your customers? How is your business built? Are you pleasing your customers or are you really, really serving them? 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