Month: May 2015

Posted on

What Should You Stop Doing To Get What You Want?

As a coach I am often asked “what do I need to do to accomplish” whatever the goal of the day is.  It ranges from how to make more money to how to have better relationships with my spouse.  The saddest aspect of these questions are that they often come down to what you should stop doing to accomplish what you want.

Making more money may require better work, more marketing or even asking for a referral.  Making more money requires someone to stop complaining, stop watching so much television, stop blaming everyone else and the commitment to stop what isn’t serving you.

Having a better relationship with your spouse requires you to care more, do more and appreciate them more.  Most everyone I have talked to will improve their relationship with their spouse if they stop complaining, stop Facebook and stop finding fault.  As Colin Powell says “Don’t just do something, stand there!”

Almost everyone is doing something they need to stop. It’s easy to identify that in someone else,  the growth is to identify what to stop in your own behavior.

Copy and paste this into a browser for a humorous example of how to stop stopping https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=bob+newhart+stop+it  .  What should you stop to go faster and get more done?

My name is Steven Clauson and I work with professionals who don’t have a back door when things get tough. If you want to stop the actions that are slowing you down then call me at 916-230-0176 or leave me a message at steve@stevenclauson.com

Posted on

Olive Garden or Morton’s?

Olive Garden

I have attached a hand written note I recently was given that was included my bill from a server by the name of Natalye. She was a pleasant server who was unremarkable except for the fact that she genuinely cared about our experience and wanted to create a positive association with her services and her restaurant.  It’s worth noting that she is not on staff at Morton’s or Ruth Chris and instead was our server at an Olive Garden.  Natalye was able to transform a typical and very run of the mill dinner out into something we talked about all evening.

For the record, going to the Olive Garden was not my first choice for dinner and yet we all left with smiles on our face.       What she did with something unexpected was to reframe everything about the meal, her service and it modified her tip in a pretty dramatic manner.  I have long advised anyone who waits tables to introduce themselves, learn the name of at least 1 person at the table they are waiting on and then deliver the final check with a handwritten note thanking them for coming in and then signing their name in a way that can be read.  This has been proven to create a bigger tip for the simple reason that you are now tipping someone you know and that raises the amount you will leave. Most people have what can appear to be a fairly mundane and boring profession and some prefer it that way.

I had a good friend who was a Thoracic Surgeon and did nothing but bypass surgery and when you asked him what he did professionally he said he was a plumber.  He does not want to talk about what de does and is doing nothing to increase his footprint or level of influence.  This isn’t true for most of us.

What can you change or modify to make your self remarkable?  What story can you tell that makes you memorable?  If you work for a company how can you reframe it so they believe they are working with you personally?

Not all owners will like this idea but all will profit more when their staff uses this approach.  If you are the owner what can you do that accomplishes the same thing?  What about a private e-mail address that only certain people are given access to or your personal cell phone number?  If you do service work and you do something for free I would invite you to bill that free service out and then write it off so your customer doesn’t relate that the service was free and instead sees the service as a $47.06 cost that you gave them for free.  They now have something to measure the gift against and this differentiates what you did and adds tons of value.

I coach people and help them determine what makes them special and why their customer should be using them over any and all other options they might have.  I show them how to produce results that are uncommon for most.  Call me at 916-230-0176 or e-mail me at steve@assaultmarketing.com