When Do You Brighten A Room? - Curt Tueffert

It has been said that there are two kinds of people, those who brighten a room when they enter it, and those who brighten a room when they leave. The question is; “Which one are you?”

People bring things into the room, into a conversation, into a meeting, into a connection with our customers, vendors and fellow employees. Typically, they bring in an attitude. Attitude is usually the first thing that brightens a room on entering or exiting.

Have you ever been in a meeting where one of the attendees kills the flow with their facial expressions, body language or comments? They walk around like Tigger without his tail, like they just sucked on a lemon. There is a diagnosis for these types of people who brighten rooms when they leave; Emotionally Constipated! You know them; they roll their eyes at any and every positive message. Their sarcasm is cutting and hurtful beyond the light hearted words that are used for humor. The glass is always half empty. They have a world view of scarcity instead of abundance. They are quick with comments of what they cannot do instead of what they can do. If the diagnosis is emotional constipation what is cure? From this writer’s perspective, a good start is ATTITUDE.

Think about the meetings, the sales calls, the phone conversations with someone with a great attitude. It brightens the room when they enter the meeting, makes the sales call more engage, and builds a stronger connection on the phone. The best thing about attitudes is that they can change. The worst think about attitudes is that they can change. The good news is that we can have a powerful impact with the simple change of an attitude.

I Am Passionate About Customer Service! Are you? Since we are all in the customer service business, we have a choice. Are you passionate about it? Do you have an attitude that brightens a room when you discuss customer service, or are you so emotionally constipated that just the mention of customer service brings anger, resentment, bad experiences, and apathy?

Here is my secret to having a PMA (Positive Mental Attitude) about almost anything. It comes from a speech by Lee Iacocca when Chrysler was in tough times. He addressed the crowd and made the comment “Yesterday ended last night.” Meaning – it really does not matter what happened in the past, today is a new day and a chance to brighten another room, to impact someone with a great, fresh, powerful, positive attitude.

Customer Experience 2.0 – A core value, THE competitive edge.

Customer experience is a sum total of the products, people, and processes they come in contact with when they create a relationship with you and your company. We are faced with a fresh new year, a new president, and a new (and challenging) economy. How will that impact customer experience? Here are 4 Great Customer Experience Insights for 2009.

Insight #1: Without Customers We Don’t Have A Business. We Have A Hobby (Peppers and Rogers, Return on Customer). Customers are more and more adept at differentiating value and price, service and delivery, and other decision points to align with partners like you. More products are becoming commodities, customers are bombarded with marketing messages, and information is just a few keystrokes and web pages away. Everyone has to strive for the best customer experience regardless of the economic times. We all impact the experiences of all our customers.

Insight #2: The Main Thing Is To Keep The Main Thing The Main Thing. The Chinese term wei gee portrays the dual nature of a crisis; Danger being one element and Opportunity the other. Customers are being challenged right now, they’re cutting back, and you can either prepare for danger and ride it out or advance and seize the opportunities as they present themselves. Our collective Customer Experience will present more opportunities to delight our customers in these times. Front line sales people, customer service professionals, implementation teams, service repair technicians, accounting collections and payables, and all levels of management can choose to create great Customer Experience touch points…daily. The upside is adding customer and keeping the ones we have. The downside of not providing great Customer Experiences is the loss of customer trust, and eventually the loss of customers (see point #1)

Insight #3: The Time To Get Creative Is Now. As budgets shrink and purchasing departments take more control of the price/value proposition, you have to get creative in how you position your company in the minds and purchase requisitions of customers. By creative I mean nimble. Can we present an alternative solution to meet the customer’s needs? Can we listen more and talk less? Can we practice an increased degree of empathy in all of our customer’s departments? They are under pressure to perform and therefore, so are we. The more we can strengthen our value proposition, the greater chance we will get to solve our customer’s challenge.

Insight #4: The Way To Our Customer’s Heart Is Through Our Employees. When our employees are not engaged in the customer experience, our customers know; yes they are that smart. “While you can make some customers happy through brute force, you can not sustain great customer experience unless your employees are brought-in to what you’re doing and are aligned with the effort. If employees have low morale, then getting them to “wow” customers will be nearly impossible”. (CxP Law #4 – 6 Laws of Customer Experience). It is everyone’s responsibly and mission to help each other get grounded in why we are here, how we can create awesome customer experience, and then do it again and again. Walt Disney said “You can design and create, and build the most wonderful place in the world. But it takes people to make the dream a reality.”

People are getting more impatient. Google.com drives the demand for “I want it now.” An article mentioned a Gen-Y teenager who said the problem with Mc Donald’s is it’s just too slow. We are faced with both employees and customers who expect and often demand a great Customer Experience. Let’s give it to them; today, tomorrow, and everyday after that.

Right Thinking Requires Right Actions...

Prioritizing Requires Right Thinking – Curt Tueffert


Your thoughts determine your actions. Your actions, repeated, build habits. Your habits, assembled, become your character. Your character determines the results you achieve in your life.

This month, I would like to place a challenge before you. As you read the statement above, ask yourself how this applies to your job, your professional development, and your personal philosophy.

Your thoughts determine your actions: What are you thinking during the course of the day? What “self talk” are you feeding your mind? Are you beating yourself up or building yourself up? You see, it all starts in your mind. What thoughts you generate will eventually result in actions you take. If your thoughts about customers are positive, your actions will reflect the positive impact customer have on you. If your thoughts are negative, customers are more of a burden and pain. That will impact your actions, both at your job and how you professionally develop.

Your actions, repeated, build habits. We want to build positive habits, yet we have to go back to what actions you are taking to build those habits. The habit of professional and personal development can be tied back to the actions you are taking (or not taking) to develop the habits. Are you reading the right books, networking with the right people, attending the right seminars, listening to the right CD’s. If so, these actions…REPEATED…will develop positive habits. If not, your habits will tend to be marginalized and dull. I am training for a half triathlon relay. I am doing the swim portion, 1.2 miles. My actions of repeated swimming, build habits of swimming 3x per week, extending the length of the swim and the technique. My actions build my habits.

Your habits, assembled, become your character. Take all your positive and negative habits and bunch them up; they become your character. What is your character like at your job, in your professional development and in your personal philosophy? Are you a man or woman of high character? It is never too late to build a strong and positive character, just change your thoughts, create new actions, and they will build positive habits. Character is who you are when nobody is looking. Bring your good character to your job every day and you can change the way you impact your peers, your customers, and your world.

Your character determines the results you achieve in your life. Results are what we demand from each of our employees. Why, because our customers demand it. Why? Because the marketplace demands it. In your professional and personal life, you demand results. These can be positive, negative, or neutral. Bottom line, life is a results driven experience. I believe we can have more positive results based on the foundation of a strong character of honesty, integrity, and fairness.

We all have choices. We al have options. I choose to have positive thoughts which will result in powerful actions, which will built healthy habits, which will strengthen my character so that I continue to produce results. How about you?

Brick Wall Motivation Video

For those interested in contacting Brick Wall Motivation for speaking and training services, here is the demo video.

S.M.A.R.T Goals

Do you have goals? Do you have them written down? Do you know where you wrote them down and do you review them often? One quick way to outline your goals is using the letters S.M.A.R.T.

Specific - Are your goals specific in nature?
Measurable - Can you measure the progress to get to the completion of the goal?
Attainable - Are they attainable. Are you setting goals too high or too low?
Realistic - Reality check here. Can you REALLY pull off the goal?
Timeline - Do you have timeline? By ________date I will ____________?

Let me know how you are doing with your goals. Drop me a line at tueffert@aol.com

Review - Over Promise and Over Deliver

I just finished reading this book. The premise is that there are (3) touchpoints; Product, System, and People. When you want to exceed expectations, you need to read this book and determine if you are really overpromising and overdelivering in the product, systems and people areas of your company.

I highly recommend you invest in your team by reading this book.

Book Review - 5 Stones For Slaying Giants

Raves Reviews

"This book is a WINNER! It's written as a story that's loaded with practical tools that can be immediately implemented in your business and in your personal life."

Dr. Tony Alessandra, Author The Platinum Rule and Charisma

"I just read your book, 5 Stones for Slaying Giants, and I was truly blessed. Your book contains practical suggestions for creating success. Everyone should read it!"

Dr. Eli Jones, University Of Houston Excellence In Selling Program

I wrote 5 Stones For Slaying Giants as a way to get people thinking of how they can make an impact on themselves and others. I have sold over 1000 books and I recommend this as a gift to everyone you meet. For more info and to purchase 5 Stones... go to www.tueffert.com or www.slaying-giants.com

Reaching Your Goals

Camelback Mountain - Phoenix/Scottsdale Arizona

What does it feel like when you set a goal before you, commit to making it happen, and then celebrate when you achieve it? I have been hiking to the top of Camelback Mountain in Scottsdale, AZ for many years. Each time I make the climb, I reflect on the view from the top and what it will look like when I get there.

Why do this? Because I can. Because I can create the right amount of positive self-talk to help me overcome the hundreds of reasons not to.

What are your goals, dreams, desires? What brick walls are you facing which prevent you from achieving your goals?

What will it take to stop to voices of "cant do" and replace them with"can do?"

2007 Blog Launch

Welcome to the Brick Wall Motivation blog. Something new for 2007. The goal of this blog is to inform, educate, and motivate the readers, customers, prospects, and friends.

I want to add value and to provide strong content. As you continue to check the development of this blog, let me know how I can help you in reaching your dreams, goals, and desires.

To your success,

Curt Tueffert - President
Brick Wall Motivation