My company’s July edition of our newsletter just went out this week. And I’m really happy with it. Actually I’m pretty much always “really happy” with it.

What I’m really pleased with is the main article that speaks directly to leaders who feel like they have to “go it alone” inside their business or organization. This JUST isn’t true.

I love showing business owners and CEOs how to engage employees and managers who would in other circumstances put in their work but little else. Most know by now that mere employee compliance is not competitive in any market these days!

Please take a look at the July edition and see what you think. You can find it here. And if you want, you can subscribe for free here.

NOTE: The content for the newsletter is unique to the newsletter so it’s worth a look if you like what you read here.

I came across this letter by Thomas Jefferson to his favorite nephew, Peter Carr.

Carr was beginning his university studies and Uncle Thomas gave him a bit of advice. The date was August 19, 1785.

The advice still applies today:

In order to progress well in your studies, you must take at least two hours a day to exercise; for health must not be sacrificed to learning. A strong body makes the mind strong.

There is no habit you will value so much as that of walking far without fatigue.

I don’t know about you, but I’m going for a walk!

You know when you take on the wrong customer. Don’t you?

Founders and CEOs know. Operations and technical support staffs know. Sales professionals know too.

Still we do it.

And in these days of economic challenges we do it more and more.

The rational is easy to come by. “We need the revenue.”

We tell sales and marketing, “If it moves, sell to it.”

And when our operational people and engineering experts complain we silence them with, “I know it’s a one-off and we’re not set up to do it, but figure it out anyway.”

Finally our financial officer might whisper, “I’m not sure we’re making any money on these kinds of sales.” But we’re long past caring at that point.

Why? In our heart-of-hearts we know this won’t end well. Wrong customers are wrong for a reason.

Here are a few thoughts about what makes this wrong-headed move…well…wrong-headed. This is what I’ve seeing the last 24 months. You’ll likely have more to add.

One - going after the wrong customer blows up any semblance of sales process you might have had. Your sales pros will have to violate everything they believe, marketers too. Your sales rookies will gain some very bad habits. And the distrust the operations often feels for sales in the first place will only deepen. The walls between sales and operations will grow higher.

Two - going after the wrong customer reverses any success you’ve had in creating operational excellence. Forget lean. The people on the plant floor will feel “the chaos” flooding the shop and it won’t come in on little cat feet. It will look more like a rock band’s fog machine with the dial set to London Fog.

Three - going after the wrong customer will take your finite resources of time, talent and treasure away from your “right customers”. They won’t thank you. Nor will they “feel the love” like in the past. Instead, they will sense the quality of your products, service and attentiveness slide. “Why stay?” That’s the question that will form in their minds.

Four - going after the wrong customer will UP the stress level of every employee and every family of every employee. Those who can leave will leave the moment the opportunity presents itself. By the way, the ones leaving will in many cases be the ones you can least afford to lose.

What would you add to this list? What makes acquiring the wrong customer so destructive from your experience and point of view?

Remember when you see “the wrong” someone with a few dollars in their pocket and willing to let you sell to them…just keep walking.

All I can say is “fight the urge!”

“Oh my God, they GET me!”

That’s the answer to the question; “how does a business know they’ve found spot-on customer relevance?”

You know when customers can’t help but exclaim, “oh my God, they GET me!”

You can read how I get to this punch-line here. That’s not the exact point of this post.

In fact, the point of this post is that I HAVE a punch-line and that I use it…OFTEN.

I say it passionately, urgently and with a great deal of verve - the spirit and enthusiasm animating artistic composition.

Why?

Because there is content and then there’s CONTENT.

Because there are strategic moments in everyone’s conversation and communications where you’ve got to cut loose and take a few communication risks.

Because you owe it to your audience, conversation partners, and clients to highlight your “take away” with nothing less than your communication best.

Mike Sansone calls this “content oomph”.

“Oomph” is about connecting, vitality and punch. It’s no accident that many dictionaries suggest the term is meant to sound like the bellow of a mating bull.

Every winning coach that ever blew a whistle knows what “content oomph” is.

Every ER nurse that ever cried out “ASAP” knows the meaning of “content oomph”.

And every artist that refused to allow their art to go unnoticed knows how to insist on “content oomph”.

The surprising thing is that we can lose the confidence and clarity necessary to create “content oomph”.

Are you a leader? A business owner? Executive director of a non-profit?

Do you know your vital punch-lines? Have you constructed your must-connect messages with “content oomph”?

YES! would a good answer.

And “I’m not sure” would to be enough to keep me up all night crafting content with lots of punch.

Sleep good!

“I have never been praised for my work at any job.”

The young professional who told me this wasn’t complaining. He was “just” reporting the facts of his career to date.

He had heard me make the point that celebration and praise are essential practices inside any company or organization committed to delivering extraordinary customer experience.

An informal conversation began. Soon there were four others sharing their work experience and the lack of praise inside their organizations.

Sad to say these were all Iowa residents telling stories from the Iowa marketplace and business community. (Though I suspect this isn’t “just” an Iowa issue!)

The “whys” behind this can be offered up. At this point I don’t care.

Organizational cultures that cannot offer up appropriate forms of praise when employees and colleagues demonstrate progress and clarity of purpose are broken. Period.

Are you a leader, manager or supervisor? Can you think of a time and place when you praised the progress of someone in your department?

If not, you have no right to complain about “those people”. Those people are just like you. And they respond to encouraging recognition and praise just like you.

This Sunday afternoon I watched 8 year old boys play in an i9 flag football game. The air was full of praise. That’s how kids get better. Adults are wired the same.

Let’s remember that when we step into the office, walk the shop floor or pass a colleague in the hall tomorrow morning!

After all, what does it cost you to praise an employee who is making progress? HINT: it will never show up on your financial officers spread sheet!

Stories connect people. Even the smallest portion of your story has the power to connect.

3 weeks ago I was conducting leadership training at an Iowa community college.

At break one of the participants asked me where my hometown was. “Columbus, Nebraska!” I said.

Another participant off to my side heard my answer and instantly volunteered, “That’s my hometown too!”

We connected! And so I asked for one more slice of his story, “What did your family do for a living in Columbus?”

“My dad was the head football coach.”

And instantly I knew I was talking to the son of my high school football coach. A man who had played a very important role in my life but whom I had lost contact with.

“What’s he doing now?” I asked, uncertain of what kind of answer I might get.

“Probably playing golf. He lives here in town and is retired.”

That afternoon to my great joy I had coffee with “Coach” - a man I love and had not seen in 38 years.

Stories connect. Even the smallest slice of a story.

Never hesitate to tell yours.

You might just be surprised by the sudden and satisfying connections you make!

Not long ago Gavin Heaton came to Des Moines, Iowa. This was a rather remarkable event…for me at least.

Having read Gavin’s blog for a long time and benefited a great deal, it was for me like meeting Shakespeare. Well, not exactly like meeting Shakespeare. Maybe it was more like meeting Seth Godin with an Australian accent. Still, a very big deal!

Now last week Gavin wrote this blog post suggesting that social media in some ways parallels stage performance. Hence the question raised in the title of this post; “what is Gavin up to?”

How can this Australian suggest that the world of “conversation” has any thing to learn from the world of “presentation”? How is it that the theater arts inform the social media arts?

Has Gavin Heaton gotten off The Cluetrain?

Look who he pulls as an informative resource, “Etienne Decroux – a physical theatre practitioner who created a grammar for the bodily articulation of movement.”

Gavin notes that Decroux “discovered that to appear REAL to an audience, performers had to appear 25 percent larger than they are. Yes, they needed to be larger than life.”

And then LOOK at the conclusion he draws, “In social media we see this everyday. A predominantly text based form, social media in various guises requires that we write ourselves into existence. It requires us to write as a performance. And those participants who appear REAL are larger than the words that they use, their ideas magnified through the lens of Twitter, Facebook or blogs.”

How can you talk about “authenticity” and being 25% larger than life at the same time?

It’s not easy for me to write with my tongue planted firmly in my cheek. So it’s time I let that organ assume a more natural posture.

Gavin is onto something. He promises to explore this a bit more. And I will be reading all he has to say.

I’m not a social media expert. But I have a coke with more than a few on a good day. And I “tweet” at a goodly gathering of them. If you’re not reading The Servant of Chaos, give it a go. Heaton is up to something!

Tweeted this today: “You can’t give what you don’t have: if you’re not clear on right customer/right customer experience, no one else will be!”

I see so many people who expect colleagues, coworkers, employees to be mind readers. And then when customer experience fails they wonder why.

Too many employees are left to guess who they’re there to serve and what good service looks like.

Turns out Bob Dylan was right: “you got to serve somebody” - so figure out who that “somebody” is for your organization, church or business.

Bottom line: Clarity makes focus possible. But that means you have to make a strategic choice at some point and choose the right customer for you and your organization.

FYI, on twitter I’m Bigwags (a high school nickname)

“What’s the difference between creating a customer and making a sale?”

When I take questions after a keynote or breakout session, some form of that question comes up 80% of the time. It’s a good question. Actually it’s a stunningly awesome question!

Here’s why.

If your business is all about making sales you’ll be about transactions…mostly. Not a bad thing. But over time you will look more like a commodity than a branded product or service regardless of what you tell yourself or the marketplace.

You will supply a conventional level of service and support, whatever is expected within your industry. You will do this and justify the cost as “what it takes to make the sale“.

You will work hard to be efficient. You will learn the ways of “lean manufacturing” or the “lean office” or whatever “lean” ways match your business. Again not a bad thing. That is what it will take to make the sale and still show some profit.

Quality will be your watchword. And you will wonder why some customers buy inferior products from your competitors. This will shake your belief in customers to the foundation, because your life long doctrine has been, “quality speaks for itself.” And so you will learn that quality may speak for itself, but not loud enough for you to make the sale when you feel you should have.

And some day you will lose customers, even ones that like you and golf with you and drink with you at trade shows. Because, as is inevitable, someone will offer your customers nearly the same quality or better at a lower price. Then it will be your competition’s opportunity to “make a sale”.

That is what it is like to manage, work and market inside a business focused on making sales.

Now, let me ask you this: is your mind starting to supply the difference between “creating a customer” and “making a sale”? I bet it is.

Why don’t you take a stab at telling me what “creating a customer” is all about?

You already know, even if you have never formally made the distinction.

Why? Because some business refused to “make the sale” ONLY when it came to you.

Sure, there was a transaction. But there was “something more” going on, a lot more going on.

They created a customer and it was you!