Powerful people have a strong point of view. They lead with clear direction.

Are you powerful?

If you want to be perceived as a powerful leader, you must establish a reputation as a confident and knowledgeable expert with the experience to guide others.

You can become more powerful. In many situations, if you want to gain influence, you must become more powerful.

To be powerful, you must:

1. Be prepared to lead. What will you say to inspire this leadership? What do you confidently know is true, base

2. Be ready to make decisions. How do make your most powerful decisions? What are those decisions based upon?d on your unique knowledge and experience?

Do you naturally use Power? You can find out here, by taking your Fascination Advantage assessment. If Power is one of your main personality advantages, you have a strong sense of control and authority.

What if Power is NOT one of your main triggers? Can you grow your strength and influence? Yes, absolutely-- if you create messages that gain control of your environment.

This is easier than it seems. You will start by subtly applying your opinions of authority.

YOUR "OPINIONS OF AUTHORITY"

You already have opinions. But you probably aren't articulating them to build your influence with the Power trigger.

An "opinion of authority" is a strongly worded viewpoint.

It is not a statement of fact, but rather, a firm belief that reflects your expertise. It must be rooted in your area of experience, and reflect a personal sentiment. It can also be contrarian, or counter intuitive. Remember, the Power trigger isn't always about building consensus, but about increasing your personal influence.

Your opinions of authority shouldn’t be obvious. In fact, the more distinctive your point of view, the more memorable to it will be.

You won't stand apart from your competition if you don't first take a stand.

What do you believe with such conviction that you can advise your customer with full confidence?

EXERCISE: BUILDING YOUR OPINIONS OF AUTHORITY

To be perceived as powerful, find the opinions that you can stand behind confidently, and emphatically. Increase the perceived difference between you and others.

START THINKING ABOUT YOUR OPINIONS.

Let's begin by jotting a list of your own personal opinions. Your most opinionated opinions. You know you have them... and now it's time to clarify precisely what they are. (Look, don't be shy. Write them down. It's just us here.)

Give yourself permission to exert your beliefs.

A PLACE TO START: THE STATE OF YOUR INDUSTRY

Imagine a new employee asks you to lunch, to learn from you. They have less experience than you, and they want to understand the potential pitfalls of your industry. What warnings would you give about the way that business is usually handled in your industry?

FOUR QUESTIONS TO ASK YOURSELF:

The biggest problem in the industry right now is:

____________________________________________________

And, the way I would fix this problem is:

____________________________________________________

Things used to be better when we used to:

____________________________________________________

The best improvement we could possibly make as an industry would be to do this:

____________________________________________________

This is a place to start. Continue to develop your opinions of authority.

Take a stand.

Stand out.

Now, it’s your turn. What’s an example of YOUR opinion of authority?

Tell me here, in the comments below!

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Sally Hogshead is an international Hall of Fame Speaker and the author of FASCINATE: "Your 7 Triggers to Persuasion and Captivation. She has developed a scientifically-based system of influence, based on the brain’s hardwired patterns, and she has taught over 100,000 people how to use their natural strengths to become more persuasive.

I have started to see articles that state a common theme. It is that all products and services will eventually commoditize to the point where it is virtually impossible to distinguish them by price or performance. This result is driven by a rise in international competition and the natural growth of multiple competitors in every space improving their capabilities to an equal level. I suppose we have lots of signs that this will come true because consumers are less and less loyal to any specific brand or organization, and getting VERY LOYAL to doing whatever is simplest in their lives. We will shop at any grocery store, get our shoes from any place that has something we need, and buy gas wherever it is most convenient and the pumps go fast.

If we continue down this road, there will only be two things that will really make a difference to customers, clients, patients, members, or constituents and that will be: 1 – anything that save them time and 2 – buying from a brand or supplier that the consumer has an emotional relationship to, and the best way to get that emotional connection will be that the customer perceives that the supplier is providing value in their lives OUTSIDE of the product or service itself. For example, I can get my taxes done by any number of firms at this point, so my choice is driven by the fact that we finally found an accounting firm that actually acts as if they care about us and they demonstrate that by communicating with us often to update us on law changes and such all year long – not just in November when they want our business again.

My guess is the vast majority of you reading this now provide a service or product that others do as well. I can also guess that your ability to differentiate is shrinking every day. If you agree with this concept, then it is time to reconfigure how you show the love to your customers. Since I am a technology guy, I suggest strongly that you develop digital tools to help you show the love so that the costs can be kept down for providing value and connection to them. By the way, using technology to show the love is not oxymoronic. The number one most trusted brand online is Amazon and they have very little contact between their human staff and their millions of customers, yet they show the love well. To make this easy, I am providing the following formula for you:

1. Build a high profile presence online by providing lots of information on your industry. Seek to help the world by sharing lots of content in video, PPT’s, infographics and documents. You will be making a statement that you are the industry expert and that also want to help people to learn important aspect of your industry. For example, if you are a bank, build online assets that teach people how to get an SBA Loan, or learn how to best save for retirement.
2. Rebuild your process for onboarding new customers. This is a high value process that too many organizations ignore. Most gather a few fields of information to take care of billing, but really don’t have a step-by-step process for onboarding customers so they feel valued, or like they have joined an exclusive relationship.
3. Develop a powerful organizational voice through which to talk to your customers on a regular basis. We have many channels today like blogging, Twitter, Facebook, podcasts, etc. When you talk to them be sure to run in a ratio where you deliver five things of value to them for every one thing that would be a promotion or sale for you. This is called "Earned Media" because you earn the right to talk to your customer through providing value on an ongoing basis.
4. Develop a new data model for your customers where you gather thirty to forty fields of information on EVERYONE who buys your products. This might need to be done over time, and that is OK. The end result needs to be that you have tons of data on your customers so you can use that data to build closer relationships with them.

This is a battle in the market that you do not want to lose. The era of earning a customers business through product or service differentiation is waning. There will always be small tweaks that might be unique, but in general, the economy is going to become an increasingly competitive place. If showing your customer that you care about them has not been a cornerstone of your strategy, or if you don’t even know your end consumer because you sell through distribution, I suggest you hold an emergency meeting and figure out how to connect with your customers at a valuable level.
　

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Powerful, passionate and creative, Scott Klososky is one of the first successful Internet entrepreneurs and is a highly sought-after technology and future trends speaker. He is the author of The Velocity Manifesto, Enterprise Social Technology, and Manager's Guide to Social Media.

The Five C’s of Effective Execution Pay a Key Role in Superior Customer Service. To have mastered these five measures means that you have mastered the way to superior Customer Service which will produce results for your company!

1. Commitment – Across the entire span of people who will be responsible to accomplish any portion of Customer Service Plan. Commitment starts with writing down the goal and the plans necessary to stay on the path to success. Each member of the team must agree on the goal and take ownership of their roles and responsibilities, and get it all in writing!

2. Communication – On a constant basis, communication processes are necessary in order to inform one another what has sales meetings, reporting processes, public charting, etc., and should be designed before the process of execution starts, so everyone knows how to quickly and effectively get the information they need. Communication with your customer, finding out what they want, what they need, is vital to the success of the sale.

3. Collaboration – Several heads are always better than one. Having a collaboration methodology in place that allows team members to make decisions, run meetings, understand responsibilities, etc. is critical to success. Share tips on Customer Service. Decision-making is one of the key differences makers in successful organizations and it makes sense to have a methodology for decision-making that is consistent, time-efficient, and leads to action.

4. Consistency – Having a predictable way of operating together. People are more successful who have a clearly established set of behavioral guidelines, and making them consistent ensures constant forward motion. Good Customer Service needs a plan and the tools to stick with what works!

5. Constant Awareness (Knowledge) – Making decisions requires knowing exactly where we are with respect to where we said we would be. In today’s competitive world, this is becoming more and more critical to organizations that are trying to integrate a goal-oriented culture. Effective use of technology is how successful companies and teams are creating a real-time knowledge base that allows quick allocation of resources, course correction, and decision-making. Someone needs to be responsible for making a report on a weekly basis on what is working and what is not working in reaching the customer. Knowledge is power and is needed to be passed to each employee who deals with the customers. Superior Customer Service comes from knowledge, teamwork, consistency, communication and commitment!

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Dr. Tony Alessandra is a behavioral and communication expert, and author of 17 books including The Platinum Rule, Collaborative Selling and The Art of Managing People. Today he is a leading business motivational speaker on communication, customer loyalty and sales.

We don’t often think about it–let alone talk about it publicly–but sometimes the greatest act of leadership is one of self-removal from our own team or company. Sometimes we’re faced with the question, "Do I stay, or do I go?"

In this video clip from The Extreme Leadership Summit, former Kineticom CEO, Simon Billsberry, discusses how he made that very personal decision for himself.

It’s rare to see a successful entrepreneur and leader being so candid and honest about such a personal decision in so public a forum. I highly recommend that you take a few minutes to eavesdrop on this insightful conversation. Perhaps it’ll help bring some clarity to your own stay-or-go decisions:

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 Steve Farber, author of Greater Than Yourself: The Ultimate Lesson of True Leadership, the president of Extreme Leadership, is a leadership consultant and speaker, and the author of the national bestseller The Radical Leap, The Radical Edge, and the newly released The Radical Leap Re-Energized: Doing What You Love in the Service of People Who Love What You Do.

As unique as we all are, an awful lot of us want the same things. We want to shake up our current less-than-fulfilling lives. We want to be happier, more loving, forgiving and connected with the people around us. So... we make decisions ("I'm going to hang out with happy people!"); we give ourselves lectures ("If you'd just stop feeling guilty, you'd able to do what you want); and we strive for markers of that accomplishment ("Just go to the completely intimidating party and meet one person!").

Brené Brown, PhD, LMSW, author of The Gifts of Imperfection and research professor at the University of Houston, has spent the last 12 years figuring out what keeps us from living -- despite our best efforts -- the kind of wholehearted, fully involved existences that we're trying to lead. It turns out that a lot of the assumptions we hold so dear and we believe will turn around everything are... well... just plain wrong.

1. Fitting In Is Not Belonging

There are so many terms we use every day whose meanings are gauzy, if not downright imprecise -- which makes it hard to get your head around what's really going on in your life. For example, contrary to what most of us think: Belonging is not fitting in. In fact, fitting in is the greatest barrier to belonging. Fitting in, I've discovered during the past decade of research, is assessing situations and groups of people, then twisting yourself into a human pretzel in order to get them to let you hang out with them. Belonging is something else entirely -- it's showing up and letting yourself be seen and known as you really are -- love of gourd painting, intense fear of public speaking and all.

Many us suffer from this split between who we are and who we present to the world in order to be accepted, (Take it from me: I'm an expert fitter-inner!) But we're not letting ourselves be known, and this kind of incongruent living is soul-sucking.

In my research, I've interviewed a lot of people who never fit in, who are what you might call "different": scientists, artists, thinkers. And if you drop down deep into their work and who they are, there is a tremendous amount of self-acceptance. Some of them have to scrap for it, like the rest of us, but most are like this neurophysicist I met who, essentially, told me, "My parents didn't care that I wasn't on the football team, and my parents didn't care that I was awkward and geeky. I was in a group of kids at school who translated books into the Klingon language. And my parents were like, 'Awesome!' They took me to the 'Star Trek' convention!" He got his sense of belonging from his parents' sense of belonging, and even if we don't get that from Mom and Dad, we have to create it for ourselves as adults -- or we will always feel as if we're standing outside of the big human party.

The truth is: Belonging starts with self-acceptance. Your level of belonging, in fact, can never be greater than your level of self-acceptance, because believing that you're enough is what gives you the courage to be authentic, vulnerable and imperfect. When we don't have that, we shape-shift and turn into chameleons; we hustle for the worthiness we already possess.

2. Guilt Is Not Bad For You

I'm just going to say it: I'm pro-guilt. Guilt is good. Guilt helps us stay on track because it's about our behavior. It occurs when we compare something we've done -- or failed to do -- with our personal values. The discomfort that results often motivates real change, amends and self-reflection.

I interview people of just about every faith you can imagine, and a lot of them will say, "Oh, I've got major Catholic guilt" or "I've got major Jewish guilt." And I'll say, "Tell me about it." And they'll say, "Well, if I don't show up for Shabbat every Friday, I'm a bad son. My brother always goes."

Clinically speaking, that's not guilt. That's shame, and one of the worst things about shame is that we often don't know when we're feeling it. When I'm interviewing subjects, I hear, "I'm worthless. I'm a piece of crap. I don't blame my parents for hating me -- who wouldn't?" And this is shame. We may not know how to name it. But we know how to feel it -- and it is a totally separate emotion from guilt.

A clear way to see the difference is to think about this question: If you made a mistake that really hurt someone's feelings, would you be willing to say, "I'm sorry. I made a mistake"? If you're experiencing guilt, the answer is yes: "I made a mistake." Shame, on the other hand, is "I'm sorry. I am a mistake." Shame doesn't just sound different than guilt; it feels different. Once we understand this distinction, guilt can even make us feel more positively about ourselves, because it points to the gap between what we did and who we are -- and, thankfully, we can change what we do.

3. Perfectionism Is Not About Striving For Excellence

For some of us (including me), what I'm about to say is horrifying: Perfectionism is not about achievement and growth. Perfectionism is the belief that if we live perfectly, look perfectly and act perfectly, we can avoid the pain of blame, judgment and shame.

Most perfectionists (also including me) grew up being praised for achievement and performance in our grades, manners and appearance. Somewhere along the way, we adopted this dangerous and debilitating belief system: I am what I accomplish and how well I accomplish it. A ticker tape began to stream through our heads: Please. Perform. Perfect.

Healthy striving, meanwhile, focuses on you. It occurs when you ask yourself, "How can I improve?" Perfectionism keeps the focus on others. It occurs when you ask, "What will they think?" Research, unfortunately, shows that perfectionism hampers success and often leads to depression, anxiety, addiction and missed opportunities, due to fears of putting anything out in the world that could be imperfect or disappoint others. It's a 20-ton shield that we lug around thinking it will protect us when, in fact, it's the thing that's really preventing us from taking flight. Another way to think about it? Consider Leonard Cohen's song "Anthem," which says, "There's a crack in everything. That's how the light gets in."

4. Vulnerability Is An Act Of Courage

There are a few myths about vulnerability that I think keep us from being wholehearted people who can fully give and receive love. The first is that vulnerability is weakness. The second is that it's optional.

First of all, vulnerability is not weakness. It's probably the most accurate measure of our individual courage. When I ask research subjects to give me an example of being in situations where they feel vulnerable, they say, "Taking responsibility for something that went wrong at work" or "Telling my boyfriend that I love him" or "Calling my friend whose child just died" or "Sending my kid to school knowing she is struggling but knowing she has to figure it out" or "Meeting with the hospice person who is going to be taking care of my mother."

Sometimes I hear people say "I don't do vulnerability." But you do it, everyday. We all do it. We all have those moments. The only choice you have is how you handle those feelings of being terrifyingly, painfully exposed. Maybe you turn them into rage; maybe you turn them into disconnection; maybe you numb them; maybe you turn them into perfectionism (which, by the way, is what I do with them). But you do something with them.

The key to transforming them into courage instead is learning how recognize them, feel them and ultimately make the choice to simply be there, with that horrible tangle of uncertainty and risk. When you know what you're feeling and why, you can slow down, breathe, pray, ask for support -- and make choices that reflect who you are and what you believe.

This article was published originally on The Huffington Post.

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Dr. Brené Brown is a researcher, writer, and a unique speaker whose reputation is built on her ability to explore vulnerable topics with tremendous honesty, warmth, and humor. She is a leading expert on Authenticity, Vulnerability and Courage; and the author of #1 New York Times Bestseller Daring Greatly. She is also the author of The Gifts of Imperfection (2010) and I Thought It Was Just Me (But it Isn't) (2007). Brené Brown's 2010 TEDx Houston talk on the power of vulnerability is one of the most watched talks on TED.com, with over 9 million views.

 

We learn by doing.

Think about the basic skills you've acquired in life. You learned to walk by pulling yourself up, turning loose and taking a step. You fell the first time, but you got up and tried again. Each time you did it a little better than the time before. You were learning by doing.

You learned to drive a car by taking one out on the highway with an experienced teacher who could give you instructions and point out your mistakes as you drove.

With each endeavor, you started as a novice, and you learned proficiency from the mistakes you made.

It's that way in any undertaking. When you take action toward your goals, you will make mistakes. Don't worry about it. Everybody makes them. Successful people learn from theirs. They know the difference between a productive failure and a non-productive success.

In a productive failure, you don't achieve your objective, but you come away with new knowledge and understanding that will increase your chances of success on the next try. A non-productive success occurs when you achieve your objective, but you're not sure what it was you did right. You can build on productive failures. You can't build on a non-productive success.

The more actions you take, the more productive failures you'll experience. The more productive failures you experience, the more you'll learn. Thomas Edison experienced 1,100 productive failures before he found the right filament for his incandescent lamp.

To turn your mistakes into learning opportunities, follow these suggestions:

Have measurable goals. You won't know whether you're moving toward your goals unless you have some way of measuring the motion. That's why your goals should be specific.

Acquire a learning mentality. You must become better tomorrow than you are today just to stay even. Develop an attitude towards life-long learning.

Seek positive and negative feedback. Encourage those you trust to give you both legitimate criticism and earned recognition.

The greatest enemy of your creative powers is smug complacency -- being satisfied with less than what you are capable of doing.

Make a strong and permanent commitment to invest your life and talents only in those pursuits that deserve your best efforts.

Then, act on your ideas, because we learn by doing.

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Dr. Nido Qubein is an international speaker and accomplished author on sales, communication, and leadership. He is president of High Point University which has an enrollment of more than 4,000 undergraduate and graduate students. He is also chairman of Great Harvest Bread Company with 220 stores in 43 states.

"Nobody sings solo," was our CEO Eddie Carlson’s favorite line when he was our leader at United Airlines and I was the group vice president of marketing.

On my office "wall of fame" are names of leaders and mentors with whom I’ve worked over the years. They taught me the importance of being disciplined and thinking strategically.

Some of those mentors include: Virgil and Mary Putnam, my parents on the Iowa farm; Jim Taylor, my high school principal and journalism instructor; Eddie Carlson, Chairman & CEO of United Airlines; Neil Armstrong and Gene Cernan, the first and last men on the moon; General Paul Tibbets, Commander of the B-29 Enola Gay that dropped the bomb ending WWII; Zig Ziglar, the great motivational speaker and author; Phil Guthrie, CFO at Southwest Airlines and Braniff and my teammate in other ventures; Herb Kelleher, co-founder and Chairman of Southwest Airlines who hired me as CEO; and Krista, Mike and Sue Putnam, my wife, son and daughter who always seem to know when my GPS needs a course correction.

There is a common thread with all of them. They think strategically, speak candidly and I have counted on their support in both good and turbulent times.

In 1981 when I left my position as CEO of Southwest Airlines and became CEO of the financially challenged Braniff International, we flew a 747 with 300 passengers from Dallas-Fort Worth Airport down to Harlingen, Texas for the Commerative Air Force annual air show and fly-bys. They maintain a fleet of WWII aircraft, including "FiFi," which is the only remaining B-29 from the 3,000 that flew in WWII.

My reward was to fly on the mock bombing run in the nose position with General Tibbets as the pilot and commander of the flight. He was quiet, humble and a patriotic American. He shook my hand and said, "Thanks for trying to save Braniff." I thanked him for what he did. He simply smiled and said, "I just did my job."

General Tibbets is a great example of strategic discipline in turbulent times. Jim Collins and Morten Hansen in Great By Choice, HarperCollins, 2011, devoted a chapter of their best seller to Southwest Airlines for its ability to withstand the winds of turbulence for over thirty years. Their research concluded that Southwest still adheres to 80 percent of the vision we wrote in 1979. They call it SMaC for Specific, Methodical and Consistent.

We had a disciplined NO list: No more than one kind of airplane, No first class, No meals, No seat assignments, No interlining of tickets or luggage, No high fares. And we just stuck to the things we were doing well. We were not a traditional airline. We were in the business of mass transportation and we kept the focus on people and nurtured a feeling of family amongst the entire Southwest team.

We hired people based on their positive attitudes and then often developed their skills. Keeping it simple was the key to our success, and we vowed to be disciplined and stick to the vision and the flight plan we wrote that was just 52 words long.

Southwest has gone from 3 airplanes and 80 employees in 1971 to over 600 airplanes, 50,000 employees and 40 consecutive years of profitability. Strategic discipline works in good times and in turbulence. Do what you do best and stick to it.

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Howard Putnam speaks on leadership, change, transformation, customer service, teams and ethics. He is the former CEO of Southwest Airlines and the first CEO to take a major airline, Braniff International, into, through and out of Chapter 11, getting it flying again in less than two years.

Customers are fickle, demanding and opinionated. Keeping your customers loyal, satisfied and saying positive things about you is crucial. There are plenty of things that must be done via your technology, people and processes to make your culture customer
focused. Here are 5 strategies that need to be incorporated into your daily efforts.

1. Be nice. Sounds easy but we all know from recent service experiences that "nice" does not always happen. When it does, we remember it. Jaume Tapies, chairman of the luxury hotel group Relais and Chateaux, says, "The difference between a good hotel and a bad one is one word: care. Find people who care and you will have a great experience." It is time to check your niceness factor.

2. Be easy. Reduce the hassle factor. No one wants to repeat the same information twice. Customers want to talk to one person. Disney has reduced the hassle of the waiting in line experience with advanced technology. Ask your teams – what barriers and boundaries keep them from delivering an easy customer experience?

3. Say thank you. Customers want to feel special. Customers don’t want to be one
of many. Instead they want to feel connected to you and the brand. Apple store
employees use a process called The Five Steps of Service and the fifth step is a
fond farewell and an invitation to return. How do you end the contact with the
customer and do they feel appreciated? The lasting impression makes a difference
in the customer’s decision to return.

4. Do something extra. Call your customers within 30 days of a purchase to check
on satisfaction or tell of a new offer. Write a handwritten thank you note. Send an
extra item with an order. It is pretty easy to wow the customer with simple acts.

5. Connect 24/7. A Sitel Study shows 57% of customers search online first for
a solution when experiencing a problem. Customers want you to know where
they’ve been, what they’ve done and what they need. Working in silos will cause
your customers to flee fast and be vocal about it as they leave. How well are you
managing all the touchpoints?

Customers want to be loyal. It is easier and saves them time. These 5 strategies will help create the experience that will keep them returning.

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Lisa Ford is a speaker with over 20 years of experience presenting to businesses, associations and government. She speaks throughout the United States and internationally on topics of customer service, leadership, team issues and change. Her recent book is Exceptional Customer Service - Exceed Customer Expectations to Build Loyalty and Boost Profits.

Until I began researching happiness at Harvard, I thought that if you just worked harder, you’d be more successful, which of course would make you happier. But my research showed that formula doesn’t work. Every time our brain records a success, we change our goalpost for success.

Get good grades? Then you need to get into a better school so you can get a better job. Hit your sales target? They raise your sales target. Maybe once we retire rich, we can be happy. Thus, happiness remains elusive. We teach our kids the same broken formula.

Our brains work the opposite way. A positive brain has a unique advantage over a negative or stressed one. Intelligence improves, sales rise 37 percent and productivity increases 31 percent. In fact, a happy brain improves every business and educational outcome, and many of our health outcomes like longevity and fatigue.

But embedded within this research is this revelation: You can train your brain to raise your level of happiness. Even one quick, daily positive exercise for as little as three weeks can make an impact on your happiness. Start this way: Every day, until you get next month’s magazine, take two minutes to log and describe in detail the most meaningful experience of the past 24 hours. Research shows this doubles the impact of the experience on your brain and increases your happiness.

This simple habit will rewire your brain and improve its ability to create the happiness advantage.

This article originally published on success.com.

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Shawn Achor is the founder of Good Think, Inc. and the author of The Happiness Advantage. In 2006, he was Head Teaching Fellow for "Positive Psychology," the most popular course at Harvard at the time. He holds a Masters from Harvard Divinity School and has spoken in 45 countries to a wide variety of audiences, including bankers on Wall Street, students in Dubai, and CEOs in Zimbabwe. Watch Shawn Achor’s TEDxBloomington video on TED.com, The Happy Secret to Better Work

My daughter Azalea recently had minor surgery. Everything turned out just fine, but ahead of time she was a little nervous. Specifically, she was concerned about being wheeled away from me, into the operating room.

Enter… The Bubble Parade!

To ease her fears, the pediatric nurses created a "bubble parade" by blowing little soap bubbles from a wand as she went into the O.R. Immediately, Azalea smiled and forgot to be afraid.

As a parent, I felt gratitude for this small but meaningful touch.

The Bubble Parade: Great example of a fascinating customer experience

As a marketer, I was awed:

I’d just witnessed my daughter’s customer experience switch from anxiety to anticipation in less than 10 seconds.

This interaction was:

» Simple to execute

» Immediately beneficial

» Virtually free

» Replicable

» Rewarding for both the customer and the employee

This moment reinforced my belief in the power of fascinating customer experiences to build connection and loyalty, often with little time or expense. The hospital was no longer a commodity– it was a hero.

In my book, I outline six Gold Hallmarks for a fascinating brand or experience. The first Gold Hallmark is: Create a strong and immediate emotional connection.

Marketers talk about "emotional connection," yet rarely do we literally help customers literally feel an emotion. When we do, we can transform our customer’s entire experience.

What is your company’s version of The Bubble Parade?

If Florida Hospital can turn the sterile environment of the O.R. into a magical Bubble Parade, what tiny detail could transform your company’s customer experience?

Can you identify a pain point in your buyer’s process.. and turn it into a high point?

How can you involve your employees in the process of doing something heroic for your customer?

If you can find even just one way to engage your customers, you can switch them from avoidance to attraction. (Azalea has already asked when we can go back to the hospital for another play date.)

Now, here’s my question for you:

Have you recently had an unexpectedly simple yet power experience like this? Something that sparked a strong and immediate emotional response toward a product or service?

Tell me about it! Leave me a comment below. I’m always looking for new examples to highlight and share.

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Sally Hogshead is an international Hall of Fame Speaker and the author of FASCINATE: Your 7 Triggers to Persuasion and Captivation. She has developed a scientifically-based system of influence, based on the brain’s hardwired patterns, and she has taught over 100,000 people how to use their natural strengths to become more persuasive.