(Mary experienced our “Creating Happiness” program with a group of CEO’s)

There are probably infinite ways to celebrate Cupid’s big day, but most Valentine gestures can be separated into two distinct groups: Those made as a result of going through the motions, and gestures that are sincere.

You know what I’m talking about, right? It’s the difference between:

“Oh, geez, it’s Valentine’s Day. Gotta ask my daughter to pick a card for my wife…”

and

“Oh, here comes that extra special day to show my honey I love him! Wonder what he’d most appreciate this year…”

The former is a version of “phoning it in.” In business, it translates to telling your team to give “service with a smile” without giving them a reason to smile, or dramatically changing a product or service without checking if that’s what customers really want. Operating this way is taking the path of least resistance, the easy way out – and then some businesses actually expect to be rewarded for what is really a lack of effort, feeling and thoughtfulness!

Sure, going through the motions is movement, but it’s not moving customers to feel the desire to give you their money, repeat business and referrals. That’s because business relationships need the same things all relationships need to succeed: They need the “E” in front of the motion – like I always tell my clients, “Emotion is Energy in motion“ – and the emotions must be POSITIVE and SINCERE.

So what does it take to unleash you and your team’s capacity for loyalty-building positivity and sincerity? In short: You’ve got to increase your “EQ” and not just your IQ. Your emotional intelligence is what will help you deliver on the customers’ needs to feel appreciated, valued, secure, confident, happy, and all the other emotions they secretly wish they could get from the people they buy services and products from.

With that in mind, here are 5 tips for putting an end to the “empty motions” (that can eventually put an end to your business), and creating customer love and loyalty through “customer relationship mastery:”  

1.   Become conversant in the language of positive emotions. There are a wide range of positive emotions, many of which your customers would love to experience: Happiness, appreciation, the joy of being heard and understood, respected and supported, to name only a few. That’s why creating customer happiness and positive emotions entails a basic set of skills in “Emotional Intelligence;” authors Travis Bradberry and Jean Greaves do a great job covering the basics of the language of emotions in their book, Emotional Intelligence 2.0. My www.ReturnOnHappiness.com site is chock-full of information, articles and now even book recommendations. One of my favorite books on creating happiness is available right on the side bar of this tip. How about starting a book club with your team – reading and discussing one book a month? Talking about how you can move from customer service to delivering happiness will broaden everyone’s thinking.         

2.   Know and work from your strengths. When you know your strengths and consciously work from them when interacting with co-workers, team members or customers, you increase opportunities for positive emotions to take root and grow. When you help team members do the same by listening for and focusing on their strengths (what they are doing right) rather than on weaknesses (what’s wrong), you will build relationships with employees and customers that are resilient, stronger and longer. Starting today, promise yourself that when you hear someone speak you will listen for what’s best in them and where they are strong. Then, give them sincere feedback on their goodness in the form of acknowledgement.

For instance, Mary Jane comes to you to tell you about a difficult call she had with a customer and how she handled it. You listen for her strengths when she is telling the story, then reflect them back to her: “Mary Jane, I know that call was challenging for you. Kudos to you for rising to the challenge! You skillfully brought that customer out of a near rage, dealt with his negative emotions and defused them. By being empathetic instead of defensive, you really won him over. That was great work!”  (Pssst. Not sure of what your character strengths are? Find out by taking a fr*e character assessment here: www.viacharacter.org.

3.   Keep employees plugged into their unique strengths. As you become savvy in your growing knowledge of positive emotions and strengths, and become proficient at catching employees doing things right, start creating opportunities for team members to get to know and act from their strengths. One of my favorite clients had all their reps take an assessment to discover their top strengths. Then they each wrote their top five strengths on a sheet of paper that they hung outside their cubes: “My name is Erin and my top strengths are…” Some decorated the paper with drawings, pictures or quotes that inspire them or show them their strengths in pictures. Whenever they enter their cubes, they get a powerful, feel-good reminder of what’s great about them – the strengths they can leverage to create exquisite customer experiences. This gives them a sincere reason to smile and be in a positive mindset as they prepare to care for your precious customers. Give people the opportunity to do what they do best!      

4.   Anticipate changing customer needs. Your customers needs are changing as you read this. Make it your business to find out how! Conduct polls on your website or through social media like LinkedIn, Facebook or Twitter. Call a dozen customers a month (that’s just three customers a week) not to sell them anything, but just to talk to them; listen carefully for what’s new and what’s keeping them up at night. Then whenever possible act on what you learn! Being proactive, and a thorough, responsive listener are some of the most powerful and sincere relationship-building techniques I can think of when caring for customers (or your special Valentine)!

5.   Spruce up everyday language with positivity! Simple changes in the everyday language reps use with customers can dramatically amp up customer love for your organization. Drop wimpy, negative, going-through-the-motions phrases like: “No Problem…I can try…I’ll see if…No, I can’t…That’s not possible/not the way things are done here…” and the like. Replace them with happiness-generating responses like: “Absolutely!…Certainly… It’s my pleasure…Sure thing…I’m on it… Let’s take care of this right now…I’d be happy to….What I can do is…” Your customers will feel the positive difference and begin to deepen their emotional attachment to your organization – their loyalty. They will feel more confident and more secure that you are sincerely there for them – that you genuinely care about their success and happiness.

My “unwritten rule” for all of these tips: Do them! Be religious about your commitments and consistency when it comes to earning customer loyalty and love. Start now, this Valentine’s Day, by going beyond the hearts, flowers and chocolates to deliver the sweetest of all emotions – positive, sincere appreciation. Employees and customers who feel your organization’s sincere commitment to them will reward you richly with their loyalty, love and yes, over time: Profits. As Ken Blanchard once said, “Profit is the applause you get from taking good care of employees and customers.”

Happy Valentine’s Day!

JoAnna

PS: Enjoy a few “Feel Good” moments with this short video (and great song). It’s one of our all time, big-broad-smiling favorites! Pass it on. www.freehugscampaign.org

The emotion of happiness is entwined with another profit-generating emotion: LOVE. Tomorrow being February 1 there has been, of course, a lot of retail fanfare heralding Valentine’s Day. The marketing is working, because every place I go I’m thinking about love!

And when you think about it, what is customer loyalty if not customer LOVE? After all, what is it you’d like your customers to be saying about your business when they talk to friends and colleagues? You want them saying the same things you say about your favorite businesses:

“I love that restaurant… Just love my car dealer… I’m sticking with my insurance company-it’s one of a kind… No matter how my hairdresser cuts my hair, I always love the way she does it… Gotta love my mechanic!… Don’t you just love their coffee?”

Such declarations of love for businesses are more than words: Neuroscientists studying consumer behavior have discovered that when you see the logo of a company you “love,” the area in the brain that lights up is the very same place it lights up when you are thinking about a person you love. Loyalty is an actual emotional attachment that causes blood to flow to the emotional centers of the brain!

So when you’re thinking about creating positive customer experiences and happy, loyal customers, you want to think, “How do I create the emotional connections that exceed (and maybe even anticipate) the customers’ deepest needs for things like security, appreciation, acknowledgement, confidence and care,” to mention only a few. In other words, “What’s going to make customers love doing business with us?”

The answer to that question begins with happy and engaged employees (happy employees are 31% more productive!) who go above and beyond for customers, who “romance them” to make ‘em happy and loyal! And the starting point for this skill is YOU, because it’s your job to consciously create an environment where employees feel good about themselves in your presence.

Two weeks ago I gave you three steps for creating a strong foundation for employee engagement and customer loyalty. Today I’m sharing five “make the most of every moment” tips that you can put into action anytime, and should do as often as possible. These actions are high-yield investments in your employees’ “emotional bank accounts,” the resources employees draw from to provide exquisite customer service.

1. Whenever possible, “Manage by walking around” to tell team members what they are doing right. “I love the way you handled that difficult customer!… I appreciate the way you completed your monthly report right on time… I feel so great when I see firsthand the great job you all do – bravo!”

2. Set the tone for each week on Mondays. Remind employees how important they are to the company mission. Set up clear goals, and motivate them to pursue those goals! Remember that what you focus on expands. (And you might want to increase their ability to get and stay motivated by signing them up for my Monday Morning Motivation).

3. Create a “Happy Hour” every Friday. No drinks required! What is required is asking employees to share, briefly, the efforts and accomplishments they are most happy about or proud of that occurred during the work week.

4. Ask, engage and involve employees. Ask them what makes them loyal. What makes them fall in love with a company, a product or a website. Ask them, “How can we create a company people can fall in love with?” How can we create remarkable experiences that customers will come back for and tell their friends about?” Listen carefully and put some of their suggestions into practice.

5. Strive for a Positivity to Negativity Ratio of 5:1 – Deliver five messages of acknowledgement, praise, encouragement, affirmation, recognition, assurance, congratulations, and other positive reinforcements for every one remark fueled by criticism, sarcasm, shame, cynicism and other negative stuff. High performance teams do this, and so can you! It takes practice.

And here’s a unique opportunity to get everyone thinking “Happiness” immediately:

Sign up TODAY to host a screening of The Happy Movie (the registration deadline is tomorrow, Wednesday, February 1) or travel to a venue where the movie is playing. Then we’ll all watch The Happy Movie “together” on World Happiness Day on Saturday, February 11, 2012.

Whatever you do, keep your efforts sincere, simple and consistent. You want to make progress – and there is no standard of “perfection” here. There are just some businesses that are great places to work and to do business with – businesses people love, and businesses that aren’t great and don’t have customers who connect with them emotionally. Which one do you want to be?

“Happiness,” I answered, explaining that my work was about helping companies understand and activate the link between employee happiness and customer happiness so that customers would come back, buy more and bring friends with money.

The time flew by as we had a nice conversation about the importance of the customer experience and how it affected loyalty and buying behavior. Just before we got off the plane he said he wanted to leave me with “a little piece of advice.”

He said, “Don’t use that word.”

“What word?”

“Happiness,” he replied. “CEOs don’t care about happiness; they care about bottom line results.”

I chuckled and smiled as he packed up to leave. “Well I’m off to teach them that when they start caring about happiness they will see better bottom line results.It would be great if you could join us!”

I wish I could remember who he was – I would send him a copy of this month’s Harvard Business Review (HBR). The cover story reads

THE VALUE OF HAPPINESS -
HOW EMPLOYEE WELL BEING DRIVES PROFITS

We’ve come a long way, baby.

HBR’s spotlight on the “Happiness Factor” has five articles just on that topic. Two decades of research from the fields of psychology, neuroscience and economics have finally converged, giving us a broader and more detailed picture than ever before about the power of emotions – how feelings trigger specific responses in the brain and impact what a person values. Wouldn’t you know, the collective results of years of studies now definitively link a happy thriving work culture to better business performance.

Some notable findings: People are happier when they feel valued and appreciated, and when they feel that their work makes a difference – both in the overall success of the company and in the world. People are happiest when they’re given the opportunity to play to their strengths at work and use them to grow. (This won’t be new to you. You’ve read it here before.)

They are happiest when they are appropriately challenged with stretch goals that take them into their “stretch zone,” but not into the “panic zone.” Science has proven that people blossom when challenged and wither when threatened. Isn’t it about time we “get it” – that fear as a motivator works only in the short term? In the long term, fear-based cultures wear people down and disengage them.

Happy employees are more productive and perform better than unhappy ones over the long term. Period.

Happiness as a business strategy has proven incredibly profitable for retailer ZAPPOS. CEO Tony Hsieh’s evolving business model combines three faces of happiness – pleasure, passion and purpose, as he explains it – and has created a culture of committed “Zapponians” who come to work each day driven to “Deliver Happiness.” They’ve gotten so good at it that they now teach other companies to do it!

To get on board and create the kind of happiness in your business that engages employees and keeps customers, here are three things for you to do. I suggest you do them in the first quarter of this year:

Identify your core values. What values lie at the “heart and soul” of your company? What fuels the culture? Are people connected to the values? What do you do to activate that connection on a daily/weekly/monthly basis? (We have a great report to help you uncover those values: Making The Tangible Intangible)

Identify your story. Stories build your brand. What stories do you retell over and over? What memories do you create? What do your customers remember and retell? What emotions do you evoke when customers do business with you? What important role do you play in their lives? Is it time to change your story?

Identify pockets of “Positive Deviance” that exist in your company. Every company has a department, a division or a group that seems to do things a little differently, a little better than the rest. Who’s doing great things in your culture? What group is most optimistic? Who does the breakthrough work? Who’s the healthiest or the happiest? Take a look at what they are doing and figure out how to make their positivity contagious in other areas of the organization. No one fits the bill on the inside of the organization? Then look at who’s doing a great job in your industry, category, or neighborhood. Who is getting positive results? What can you learn from them and bring back to your organization?

Take your values, your story and your potential and use them to change the conversation in your company. Nothing changes until the language and the conversation changes. I know my clients are starting to assimilate the knowledge I bring when I hear changes in their language and the topics of conversation. When I see the shift from problems to possibilities, I know I am getting somewhere.

Happy companies are productive companies. There is a clear connection between how your employees feel about coming to work and how well they treat your customers. It’s a new year! Start asking yourself, “How can I create a company (or department, or division) that’s great to work for and great to do business with? How can I create a culture that THRIVES?”

If you need a little help with that, call me. I’m happy to teach you everything I’ve studied and know about the power of happiness as a profitable business strategy.

Make it a Happy New Year!

JoAnna

Our very first wish for each other at the beginning of a new year is a wish for happiness. One would think that with all that wishing, we’d be a little happier for it.

Happiness doesn’t come just because we wished for it, it comes because we intend it to.

In a changing, challenging and sometimes downright negative world, we need to put a little effort behind being happy if we want to invite it, feel it and encourage it to grow.

I intend to nurture my own happiness, because for me it’s been hard to come by. I wasn’t genetically programmed for it. Happiness comes for me as the end result of focusing my attention on things I can appreciate and love and by minimizing the fears that try to hijack my well being.

Some days it takes re-framing situations before I can find something in them I can appreciate.

I learned how to become happier. And I am so grateful for that learning and for all the new opportunities that now come my way because I know how to teach companies to become happier places. I teach the people in them to take responsibility for creating more positive emotions in a deliberate way for themselves and customers.

So here we are – a new year – 2012. It’s a significant year.

What will you do to step up to its significance?

What do you intend for your happy new year?

I intend to create more kindness and less criticism.

I intend to speak my truth more clearly and succinctly.

I intend to sit in silence more often.

I intend to look for and find things to appreciate all day long, every day.

I intend to rewire my internal circuitry by creating more positive pathways in my brain and by going to my heart more often to create internal coherence of body-mind-spirit.

What do you intend for your happy new year?

I intend to use my imagination more to visualize what I want.

I intend to do things that scare me and take me out of my comfort zone and expand into my stretch zone.

I intend to dance more and sit less.

I intend to stretch more.

I intend to change lifestyle habits that don’t support my desire for vibrant good health and vitality.

I intend to keep more gratitude lists and do the exercises that are proven to help reduce stress and create positive emotions (not just happiness – there are lots of positive emotions!)

I intend to create more positive emotions and radiate positivity as a result.

I intend to savor the good stuff more.

What do you intend for your happy new year?

I encourage you to start your list if you haven’t yet. In my workshops I teach that intention is a force as powerful as gravity because it can pull you towards what you want. It enlists the sophisticated circuitry of the human brain and searches the environment for just the thing you were thinking about.

Think about what you want – at work, at home, at school, in relationship, for your body, for your soul, for your good health. Think about it, and write down a list of intentions. The act of doing that will begin to get your brain on your side (despite any genetic tendencies) and working on your own behalf.

It’s the best time of year to create the habit of happiness.

I’ve set up a blog post with a condensed version of this tip – visit me there and share some of your intentions. I will witness them just as you have witnessed mine – you helped to make them more real to me by your attention.

Thank you for giving me another opportunity to be of service to my favorite community – people that care about their customers!

JoAnna

PS Check out Wayne Dyers book on the “The Power of Intention” – you’ll be amazed!

“Let yourself be silently drawn by the
strange pull of what you really love.”
Rumi

Before this year melts into next, take a little “Time in” to reflect, remember, review, re-frame, relax, rejuvenate and then, reawaken that childlike quality within you that is in its essence pure joy, pure wonder.

Take a glance back and ask:

What did I love doing the most this past year?
What touched my heart? What did I truly appreciate?
What made my heart sing?
What would I love more of next year?
What can I leave behind and let go of because it no longer supports me?
What’s the most meaningful part of my work and how can I spend more time there?
How can I be kinder to myself and others next year?

In the magic and wonder of the spirit of the season, you can use your Positive
Leadership skills to savor and enjoy the goodness of your past year and set up
your positive intentions for your new year.

Ask others to share their thoughts on what they loved the most and what touched their hearts.
Ask others about the things they appreciate and want more of. Share in the good vibes
these conversations cause. Emotions are contagious ~ spread around the good ones!

What a wonderful idea at holiday time – spread around your own wonderful
combo of positive emotions – mix and match, pick and choose:

We wish you a holiday season filled with any and all of the above! Caring is contagious ~
please help us spread the word ~

Many blessings,

JoAnna Brandi & Company, Inc.

My schedule allowed me to stay for only two days, so I sat in on every session I could and chatted with all the speakers I could find. Even two days was enough to leave me optimistic and really excited about where customer-focused businesses are going and how committed they are to creating positive customer experiences!

Business leaders like Jasmine Green of Nationwide Insurance, Jamie Naughton of Zappos, Tom Feeney of Safelite, and Melinda Parks of Sprint are candidly speaking out, with great passion and transparency, about the journey to becoming truly customer-focused. It’s not always a straight road, it’s hardly ever easy, it requires enormous discipline and focus and it’s truly worth all the effort!

Stunningly, so many of the speakers talked about the same underlying fundamental – how taking great care of employees leads to measurable results in customer loyalty efforts. It was terrific! You can almost imagine the perpetual grin on my face and the continual nodding of my head as I was listening in the audience.

I had the honor of kicking off the first day (The Loyalty Summit) and spoke on “The Spillover Effect: How Positive Work Cultures Enable Loyalty.”  I started my talk by sharing some of the evidence-based science behind positivity – how positive emotions biochemically and measurably affect the brain and the body in beneficial ways. I talked about how the body is “electric” and emotions contagious.

I shared the fact that Positive Emotions evolved in humans because they serve an important purpose – to build and broaden our capacity to create solutions! When you can shift from the focus on the negative to focus on the positive you literally create an opening in the brain – one that makes you smarter, quicker and more creative. We’re way beyond the “smiley face” stuff! This is way beyond having a positive attitude. This is about the deliberate creation of positive emotion.

There’s an enormous payback to business when we focus on creating more “Positive Capacity” in our organizations.  More positive emotions bring more Creativity, Connectivity, Resilience, Cooperation, Collaboration, Enthusiasm, Energy, Meaning, Appreciation, Psychological Health, Physical Health, Growth, Flexibility, Respect, Empathy, Expansion, Motivation, Willingness and Openness (not to mention less fear and less narrowed thinking). WOW!

In fact nearly every business outcome is increased when people are happier about coming to work – sales, productivity, accuracy, customer engagement and yes, profitability.

I shared how managers can use this science to create a positive workplace and engaged employees – and that’s the best competitive edge you can have in any economy!

I wish you could have been there.

I’d like to show you my appreciation for subscribing to my bi-monthly tip by sharing my entire PowerPoint presentation from the event with you. Simply click on this LINK to review my slides and consider the profitable power that a positive approach to management can have on you, your team and your customers!

(Know what else is cool? Both clients and readers of my tip tell me that when they apply these concepts to their personal lives, they see benefits there as well. Love it!)

I’m happy and humbled to say that, according to the NACCM, this presentation hit home with attendees. I received a 4.8 out of 5 rating from attendees, and a beautiful endorsement from NACCM Conference Director Kelly Schram. I share it with you because it illustrates what happens when I myself follow the positivity and happiness lessons I have learned through my research and from the teachings of my wonderful mentors.

When I spend time in my strengths fully engaged in what I do, foster positive emotions amongst my clients, and manage my stress and energy, my business benefits. Here’s what Kelly wrote:

“Very rarely do we invite speakers back to the NACCM from one year to the next. JoAnna Brandi is the exception – and for good reason. JoAnna consistently brings us new content and fresh perspectives that keep attendees engaged, and kindles their customer care passion so much so that they take action when they return to their organizations. JoAnna’s talks are both inspirational and highly applicable, and attendees make sure we know this by rating her one of our top three speakers at every conference.”

Thank you, Kelly, and NACCM team! And thank you for being part of my journey.

Practice positivity!

JoAnna Brandi

PS As always I will continue to share some of my NACCM learnings and conference highlights in future tips and in my blog. I’ve been on the road presenting a lot. Now that I’m back in the office I will have more time to go through my notes and share them with you.