Business Coach : Repeat Customers
-Now as a business mentor, what action steps should an entrepreneur take in order to begin saying positive words over their life, over their business, and over everything they do?
-Right. Well, one is– you had mentioned this earlier– who are you surrounding yourself with? It’s super important that you’re surrounding yourself with those positive people. A business coach or A group of friends and I get together, and we call it The Redwood Forest. It’s basically if you look at a target, who are you surrounding yourself with? If you have somebody who’s putting negative energy in you, you may need to move them into the outer parts of the target.
-The outer rim of The Red Forest.
-Absolutely.
-OK.
-And so you need to move those people in that are going to energize you and get you excited. And one of things about entrepreneurs is when they get together, they get excited. And when we get here as a group and we’re just hashing out boring things, we still always leave energized because it’s like, oh, yeah, that’s awesome. OK. And we walk away, and we’re ready to take on the world.
-I think it’s so important that you become that energy guy. If you’re a guy right now– like I know I took algebra multiple times, I wasn’t good in Spanish, I didn’t do that well in school– but if you can come into a business and you can bring the energy– I mean, if you hired a guy right now for whatever the starting rate at Chick-fil-A is, and he is the energy guy, and he just does a great job and he says, “My pleasure. Thanks for coming to Chick-fil-A. My pleasure,” and he says it with enthusiasm, and he greets guests with enthusiasm, and he greets his teammates enthusiasm, you almost won’t be able to keep from promoting him at some point.
-Absolutely. And one of the reasons why– and I mentioned this just a few minutes ago is that it’s because he’s going to do that and others are not going to do it. So what’s he going to do? He’s going to influence those others. Definition of influence is leadership. So he’s stepping into a leadership role even though he may not be able to count money to save his life. But yet he’s influencing others to be a positive impact.
-Positive words, if nothing else about you, positive words, I know, have affected your life.
-Absolutely.
-Because with your mom being an alcoholic, with your dad just disappearing on you, with you having the physical ailments you had, with all the things you’ve dealt with, I’ve never heard you say consistently, negatively anything. You’re always positive. And even when you’re down, if you’ve had a rough time, I say, how are you, and you say, I have nothing to complain about, or I’m doing great, or, you know, getting better. Or you’re just very aware of it. I know you’re intentional about it. If you need help learning how to be intentional, hire a business coach.
-Right.
-All I could say as your friend, I appreciate it a lot.
-Thank you.
-But I know that that’s something we could all pick up on. I think it’s huge.
Now, the law of reciprocity– the law of reciprocity, the universal law that exists in business and in life is simply treat others the way that you want to be treated. That’s basically the idea. It’s called The Golden Rule. Why is it so important for entrepreneurs to keep that principle in mind of doing unto others as you’d have them do unto you? If you need help with the answers, hire a business coach!
-Well, one of the things is that as an entrepreneur it’s easy for us to get the shaft. It happens all the time, whether an employee steals from you– I mean, we’re setting ourselves up– if somebody trips on a bumper outside your restaurant– no that that’s happening right now–
-Not that it’s happening now or ever has happened in the history of Chick-fil-A anywhere across the world.
-That’s correct. And they’re going to sue you because you put the bumper that’s been in the same spot.
-Sue you, as in other companies, not Chick-fil-A.
-Correct. Yeah. If that was the case. But when it’s all said and done, you get to decide on what you’re going to do. And the thing is that I don’t want to be treated that way. I shouldn’t be treated that way. So I’m going to treat them with honor and dignity and respect no matter what. And it’s so important in business.
-You go over with a lot of the clients who’ve invested in my businesses or I’ve worked with over the years. I have consistently tried to do right by them. And I’ve noticed that they do right by me. And I’ll just give you an example of how you’ve done this for me. My kids called the other day. I’m getting old, so I say, “the other day.” But they called, “Dad.” I’m like, what’s going on guys? They never call at work. Dad. What? You know, Dad. What? You know. What’s it going on, kid? Arthur Greeno dropped us off stuff at the house. And he dropped off a gift box.
-Yes, I did.
-With some books in it and t-shirts and basically Chick-fil-A promotional and swag items.
-Yeah.
-They were going crazy. And you did that for me, and you didn’t have to. And when I found an article that was written about you in a newspaper or in a magazine, I was like, well, I’m going to get that made and framed and sent over to your place. Did you start this problem? Did you start this little game? Maybe. But it’s a deal of you generated that law of reciprocity. You threw the boomerang out. [WHIP] [WHIP] [WHIP] [WHIP] And it came back to you. [WHIP] [WHIP] [WHIP] [WHIP] And I’ve noticed that everybody I have a relationship with it seems like one of us started that boomerang, and now it just keeps coming back. And it’s exciting to see that.
And I think it’s contrary to the world, because in the world it seems like in the world we’re like, I’ll give you something if you give me something first. If you give me something, maybe I’ll give you something.
-Yeah.
-You know, you give me. What do you have for me? And then I’ll see if I– and it’s the opposite. So I think that’s amazing that you’ve done that.
[WHOOSH]
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