Big Brands

Unscripted

December 15, 2015 · By Amy Swift Crosby

The Babylon of Customer Service: Babington House. Image from babingtonhouse.co.uk

Do you feel better when “Reservations” emails your hotel confirmation, or “Freya at Babington House“?

Do you feel better when the agent goes off script and says, “yah I hate it when that happens. Let me see what can be done,” OR, slowly, and much-too-long-windededly, says, “I’m sorry you had that inconvenience today. Let me go through the options on the menu that may help in resolving this issue. Would you mind if I placed you on hold while I review the materials (that I should already have memorized)?.” No one talks like this. Why does Customer Service?

So.
Yes I mind.
I mind that you can’t even talk to me without reading prompts.
I mind that you don’t sound like you’ve ever seen my problem before.
I mind that I can’t ask anyone there a real question without an answer that is pre-rehearsed, pre-recorded, pre-dehumanized…

Have all the policies you want – but package them with flesh and a beating heart, please.

Thank you One Fine Stay for being original. And flexible. And generous. Your policy said no. You said yes.
Thank you flight attendant Rob on the Jet Blue LAX – BOS route for being hilarious – we were patient because of you.
Thank you Tolbot Inn manager Dan who offered to call a friend at a hotel in another city to see if we could stow our bags while we toured for two hours. We didn’t need it. But you offered. And that was money in the bank.
Thanks Brittish Airways for making a miracle happen at 7am and running in heels through security.

Thanks to everyone who doesn’t act like a robot, who feels our humanity, and goes out of their way to make it better.
We’d do the same thing in your shoes, and should.
In the age of automized everything, let’s remain personal – as much as possible. As small business owners we can’t always, but we certainly can a lot.

No Pants.

December 1, 2015 · By Amy Swift Crosby

Screen Shot 2015-11-15 at 9.05.17 PM When we’re little, people love to see us running around naked. But that gets more awkward (hopefully!) as we age, and it’s the same for our talents. People are forgiving of the raw, unselfconscious efforts of a teenager singing her first recital, or of a first blog post, or even a first recipe, but as you practice and hone your craft, the critics have more room…and justification…to analyze, judge – as well as delete, ignore, swipe. As you get better (and most people do), the bar gets higher. Expectations (from yourself and others) become built in to whatever you put out there – because if the last time was great, the next time will be greater. You begin to walk in bigger shoes, or in this case, wear big, grown up pants.

Remember when Elizabeth Gilbert wrote Eat, Pray, Love, and then did a Ted Talk about how her next effort couldn’t help but be a disappointment? This is not a comparison to a New York Times best selling author…but sometimes, when I do good work, and there’s applause (even from one), I say to myself, “How nice. But can I pull it off again?” There’s some kernel of doubt that lives in me and wonders if that was the last time, a fluke, a one-off. I’ve never been right about this, but the more I talk to other people about this fraud/fail/anomaly syndrome, the more I see that I’m not alone. I guess it’s just so fun to knock it out of the park that it becomes addictive – and we all want that impact every time. If there were a secret to killing it, always, I think we’d all buy it.

But it’s almost impossible for every project, book, product, video, post or presentation to be a best seller. Seth Godin writes ten to twenty blogs for every one he publishes. But knowing this, the thing we can start to understand is what does work, and why does it work, and did it do something for someone somewhere that was useful…without the pressure of epic performance. Ingredients for greatness reveal themselves when you aren’t panicked about…being great.

So calm the eff down. Eyes on the road. Do your work. Measure results. Scrap what’s mediocre. Keep the good stuff. Press play.

Then do it all again.

That’s pretty much the big secret.

Solve If With What.

November 23, 2015 · By Amy Swift Crosby

No rational human welcomes the feeling of uncertainty – that uneasy sense that you can’t see around corners or don’t know where a road might lead. Of course recent events make us feel that the world is more unpredictable than ever. But when you depend on yourself for success, financial stability, reputation, life’s work – the mercurial feelings that demand clearer answers exists all the time. Will this idea work? Is this partner right? Why didn’t anyone RSVP? I don’t even know what I don’t know, which means I really don’t know enough. EEEK!

Because we can’t see the future, and because we have to do something as answers are revealed and work performed, here’s my plan (for myself) every time these feelings arise.

I’m going to give – an in giving, try to create a little bit of certainty for another human being. It gets us out of our own way. And offers the very thing we ourselves often crave; Unexpected grace. But I’m not going to just do anything for someone else. I’m going to do something specific – that only I can do. Could be a talent, a connection, a word, a way of seeing something, to someone who needs it.

Here’s what it does: it gives us a little tiny bit of knowing that we moved another human forward toward something they really, really want – with something only you have – and were meant to give to the world. It gets us out of our own way.

In honor of thanksgiving, let’s just give some small (but hugely useful) thing. To someone. Somewhere. Freely.

It’s medicinal.

DualitÃ©.

November 17, 2015 · By Amy Swift Crosby

Photo thank you @reyalfashion

On level one, you just want to cry and grieve and do something (anything) to help.
On level two, you have to deliver work for a client.
On level one, you want to let them know you care, that we are connected, that their tragedy is in our hearts and minds.
On level two, you have to make dinner.

What happened in Paris, and what is in the news every day, challenges us to live two lives. In one, we go about our days, having meetings, pitching work, seeing friends, making plans, complaining about resolvable problems.

And that’s normal, right? That’s life. You have to run your business, feed your family, listen to a friend complain about traffic.

I find it really challenging to do all this, while I feel all that.
You can’t be all business.â€¨But you can’t be all heart, either.â€¨The only, only take-away for any of us can be that these events have a grounding, sobering affect.â€¨Stupid sh&t just doesn’t matter. â€¨But a lot of other things just really do.â€¨â€¨ I hope somehow goodness can prevail.

Last Days

November 10, 2015 · By Amy Swift Crosby

Last Days on the boat. See you in nine months.

The last days of anything always feel melancholy. Sometimes it’s as simple as the season – saying goodbye to summer. Other times it’s the end of a partnership, a relationship, a business, a project. But last days have such an important role in the way we punctuate our lives – professionally and privately. Last days mean we are in deep presence and appreciation for what was – what it meant, why it happened. But so much of self-help dogma is about finding silver linings and escaping that uncomfortable edge. Well-meaning friends say, “this is just a transition” or my favorite, “when one door closes….” etc. And we tend to agree with them. But maybe we shouldn’t re-market these themes back to ourselves. Because that’s what they are. Marketing. We are typically selling ourselves out of feeling uncomfortable. But why NOT be a little bit blue about the end? Why NOT sit in that feeling for more than a minute? And why do so many of us feel we need to tell ourselves “I didn’t want that anyway” or “maybe it worked out for the best.” Well maybe it did, but maybe it effing did NOT. Maybe you wanted it really badly but didn’t get it. It’s so easy to talk ourselves out of what’s “hard” because enduring it, being in it, seeing who you are in those dark places is brutal. But is it possible we could come out better for having not pulled the parachute too fast?

Risk can be terrifying. Unknowns can be torture. Relationships can feel unsteady. Work can have curveballs. Confidence can be shaken.

The nausea of vulnerability and change are places we don’t voluntarily dwell. But maybe we don’t have to make that go away so fast. There’s something for us in the rabbit hole, as anyone who has ever had dark, uncertain days can tell you. But we have to be there (and stay there for a minute) to find out.

Whatchyou Sayin?

November 3, 2015 · By Amy Swift Crosby

Y Trespassing ou are not for everyone, even if you think you are.
Your customers aren’t all women between the ages of 28 and 42. They’re just not.
Your pricing should be consistent, based on experience, and for certain circumstances, (gasp!) negotiable.
But some things aren’t negotiable, and you should know what they are.

So often we don’t get what we want or what we were expecting because we haven’t been clear.
Sometimes we lack confidence (but don’t want to admit it, even to ourselves.)
Sometimes we don’t know better (and don’t want to admit that either.)
Sometimes our rules, boundaries, pricing, messages, target audience…want to be all things to all people.
Our intentions are good, but not filtered.

I love this sign because it doesn’t mince words.
Could we be clearer in what we say – and what we mean?
Probably.

Might get more of what we want (or at least what we need.)