Happy Sunday Everyone:
I was visiting with some of our amazing team members in Boise on Friday. We were talking about the market, how everyone operates, sharing ideas etc. I was explaining how our personal production team is in the process of recalibrating. We’ve gone through some changes, our business has grown, we’ve added team members, we lost Tina to cancer last year (amazing looking back on her how much one person can positively impact the energy on a team, we miss her). Bottom line is, I haven’t felt like we’ve been hitting on all cylinders even though our volume would suggest otherwise, Erica agrees with me, so we’re tweaking things to make them better.
There is a reason talking things out is good. As I was talking in Idaho around the table, I realized a key ingredient for me is questioning whether or not our clients and our business partners feel our appreciation. The harder question to ask ourselves is have we lost our appreciation in how we operate. I’m not sitting here telling all my business partners reading this that we don’t appreciate you, but I’m questioning if how we’re operating is showing you? There is a common theme I talk about with our team, process vs. purpose. Process is needed for scale; purpose is needed for connection. Process allows you to function consistently without emotion, purpose is what makes people involved feel like they’re a part of something bigger. Easiest example is process is closing on time and meeting all deadlines, purpose is understanding you helped a family get into a home and actually caring that you did.
Process based gratitude is also something that is 100% necessary. These are the pre-approval gifts, the closing gifts, the birthday calls/cards, the impersonal thank you cards. Set and forget. This is great for a client experience once. This is not great for long term relationships. Perhaps because I’m around all of this stuff so much, I’m slightly annoyed when I’m the recipient of an automated gratitude process. You can cross me off the list of wanting a brownie with a candle squished in a small box on my birthday. Automated gratitude is such a strange concept, it’s like saying automated love. I acknowledge there is a place for it, but it’s not my point today. My point today is about authentic heart felt gratitude and questioning if my actions are in alignment with my words. Best example I can give is thinking about my top 5 business partners. People 5-15 years ago if I saw them calling for the first time, I’d have cut off my arm to answer their call, is that how I treat them today? Think about your spouse. What I did pre-marriage to get Kim vs. what I do post marriage to keep Kim….I mean…come on.
So, my theme for our team, and most importantly for me personally is recalibrating our gratitude. We will talk about it daily. We will question our process and if our clients and business partners can feel our gratitude. The process is business; the purpose is personal. It’s about our mindset going into a call, it’s about our mindset writing a card, it’s coming into everything we do with a grateful mindset. Process is the easy part, the purpose requires the right people, the right mindset, and never forgetting people have choices. I only want to work with people who appreciate my business so why would we treat others any different.
We all know what we did to get the people we care about; the question is what are we doing to keep them?