(Time to read this Blog is about 4 minutes)

Before we get to the main topic, here are a few things to get you thinking or smiling:

1. My Biz Quote of the week:
   “If you don’t listen to your front-line staff, your customers will have to…and it won’t be pretty.”  
   …Donald Cooper.
    
2. Quick Biz Tip:
   7 ‘fill-in-the-blanks’ statements that I love to use with my clients and audiences:
    
   Below are 7 insightful ‘fill-in-the-blanks’ statements that I use with my Biz Coaching clients and Management Conference audiences to get them thinking differently about some fundamental realities in their business.
    
   And, here’s my special offer.  The 1^st three Blog readers who email me asking for telephone coaching using these 7 statements as a framework will get an hour with me…no charge.  Just email me at donald@donaldcooper.com .

   Cooper’s 7 insightful statements to get you thinking differently about your business:

   1. You just can’t get _______________ anymore.
   2. I wish our customers would stop _____________________.
   3. About __% of our target customers don’t even know we exist.
   4. About __% of our target customers  aren’t aware of all the value we deliver.
   5. People do business with us because we’re _________________________.
   6. People who don’t do business with us think that we’re too ______________________.
   7. The 3 most important things to do to grow our bottom line this year are:
      a) ______________________
      b) ______________________
      c) ______________________
3. Fun Fact: The US Federal Deficit grows by about $8 billion every day!
    
4. ‘Fun Facts about Amazon’: Amazon was launched in 1995 as a tiny online bookseller in Jeff Bezos’s garage in Bellevue, Washington.  Here’s what Amazon has become:
   1. Amazon delivers about 830,000 packages every hour. To do that, it deploys:
      • 100 cargo jets,
      • 40,000 semi-trucks,
      • 60,000 trailers,
      • and 120,000 delivery vans.
   2. On top of that, Amazon hosts nearly 50 millionwebsites and owns more than 100 subsidiaries across a variety of market sectors – including tech, groceries, medicine and media.
   3. All of this is supported by over 38 million square feet of data-center and office space.
   4. In addition, Jeff Bezos is the founder of Blue Origin, a privately-owned aerospace company. The company’s mission is to “build a road to space” by developing reusable rockets and reusable launch vehicles for space tourism, cargo, and ultimately, human spaceflight.  
   5. And, Jeff Bezos, who started that tiny business in his garage 35 years ago has become the 2^nd wealthiest person on the planet.

Now, to this week’s important topic:

Confidence is #1:

Every five years a leading advertising trade magazine asks thousands of people to rank, in order of importance, various factors affecting their buying decisions.  In their most recent survey, ‘Confidence’ was rated #1, Quality was #2, Service #3, Selection #4 and Price was #5. 

Personally, I think they missed the real point by not asking the important follow-up question… “Exactly what is it that you want to be confident about?”  I think that when people rank ‘Confidence’ as #1 what they’re really telling us is that they want Quality, Service, Selection and Price…and they want to buy from businesses that have integrity and shared values!  They want it all and they want to be confident that they’re getting it all…and that’s why they put ‘Confidence’ as #1. 

Does that sound like your customers?  They want to be confident that you understand them, that you care about them, that you know what you’re talking about and that you’ll deliver what they want, when they want it.  So, whatever product or service you sell, to be your customers’ ‘Preferred Supplier’ you must create  that you’ll deliver all those things. 

Everything we do, or don’t do, creates or destroys confidence.  How we look, how we sound  and how we perform at every touch-point matters.  So, we must act with absolute integrity and we must have high standards of performance, appearance and behavior in every part of our business, not because we’re old, or mean, or cranky, but because anything that destroys confidence, destroys our business, and must be eliminated.  Always explain to your Team why we have high standards…but never apologize for them.

Remember, customers also want to be confident in themselves.  How can you coach them, help them and encourage them to be confident in making wise purchasing decisions and to wisely use, care for or consume what you sell?   How can you be their ‘Caring Coach’?

Bonus thought:  Every business has a fundamental decision to make.  ‘Are we trying to get our customers to do what we want them to do…or are we 100% committed to helping them do what they want to do?’

Action to take:  Create a small team of some of the best minds and hearts in your business to look at every part of the business with you.  Thinking and feeling like a customer, make a list of everything you see and feel, at every touch-point, that might destroy customer confidence…everything that creates confusion, suspicion, resentment or doubt, or causes stress.  Then, create a list of the specific things that you’ll change or do to create more confidence, more clarity and less stress.  For each improvement that you commit to make, get specific about what will be done, by whom, by when, at what cost, with what outcomes, measured how and rewarded how, to make it happen.  Document commitments and follow up.  The world is run by those who follow up!

That’s it for this week…

Live brilliantly and be kind to each other!       

Donald Cooper 

Donald Cooper speaks and coaches internationally on management, marketing, and profitability.  He can be reached by email at donald@donaldcooper.com in Toronto, Canada.