638: Gratitude as a Business Practice

How do your customers and clients feel after they’ve done business with you? Do they feel your gratitude? Well, let’s talk about that today! Thomas Joyner here with Business on Purpose. I spent 4 days last week in Mexico with my wife celebrating our 10th anniversary! Gah, what a special time as it was just us for an extended period of time for the first time in 5 years. We’ve done a night or two getaways, but having 3 kids in 4 years meant that we always had a little one at home and so getting any more time than that was challenging. We walked into the resort and from the moment we were there we were welcomed in a way that we never have been before. Let me paint the picture for you. The first morning, because it was the west coast of Mexico and 3 hours behind… I woke up wide awake around 4:30 am. I’m used to going 0-60 when I wake up and it was so strange to wake up and NOT be needed by anyone. The tricky part, breakfast wasn’t served until 7 am! I remembered the concierge telling me they had 24/7 room service, so I picked up the phone and dialed it…half expecting it to ring and ring and ring. They picked up on the first ring. Remember, it’s 4:30 in the morning! Hey is there any way I can get some coffee for two of us? Absolutely, sir! We would love to. I apologize that it will be about 20-30 min to brew a fresh pot for you and your wife, but we will have it there as soon as we can. Great! 20-30 min later, there’s a knock on our door, at 5 am with a fresh pot of coffee, a tray of fruit, and a basket of chocolate croissants for us to enjoy. It was incredible.  I just said thanks so much for bringing it so early and they thanked me multiple times and talked about how grateful they were to serve us. Wow…that leaves an impression.  Every time we ate dinner, ordered a drink, asked for a towel, needed anything and everything we were met with gratitude and feeling that the employees of the resort were overjoyed to be asked to serve. So… the question at hand as I was flying home. Is that how our clients and our customers feel when we do work for them? Do they feel the gratitude at being chosen for their work? Do they know that it truly is a joy to get to do the work and serve them? If I had to wager, I would say not! I would say more often than not you are at odds with your clients. Left cursing them under your breath as they walk away or as you leave the job site. Maybe even thinking, if we can get through this one nightmare client, maybe we can get back to the good ones! And some of that’s true. There’s entitlement and a lack of gratitude on the customer side. There’s no doubt about that. But I think it’s more than just that. I think that we’ve forgotten that work is a gift. That we were designed to work and create and problem solve and all of that, in and of itself, is a gift. Because think about this for a minute. If what you were doing is easy, if it didn’t come with problems, people wouldn’t need you to do it! They would do it themselves and probably not pay someone like you to do it for them. If it didn’t require expertise and planning and calculation and learned skills, you would not be able to make a living doing it! So maybe there’s a mindset shift that needs to happen. Next time there is an issue, can we train ourselves to be thankful… to feel gratitude for that problem. Because behind the problem itself is the reason we can build a business around solving that unique challenge! That is exciting! That’s something you can retrain your team on. To feel joy at the challenges because each and every one of them is job security and the opportunity to support your family moving forward.  I think that’s what the employees of this resort thought. They were grateful to serve because they knew the more people they served in an exceptional manner, the more people would want to come there and a better life for their family! But not just that, I think the gratitude that was present helped them not just, “get through the day,” but helped them enjoy their days working. And there’s a huge difference between the two. So, how do you need to shift your thinking? What problems in your work need to be seen with gratitude? And do you need to take an inventory of how your customers feel when they are done working with you? I think it’s a great place to start and a great way to enjoy your work more!  Bring it up around your team and see if it changes your culture and deliverables. Alright! Have a great day…and if I’m practicing what I’m preaching. Thank you for continuing to listen and allow us the opportunity to keep delivering content like this to business owners. It really is a gift to us and a joy to keep doing it. Take care!