How to Get the Feel of Your Business
A Mastery client was telling me he was uncomfortable talking about his feelings.
He was obviously dissatisfied with the way his business was performing, and was equally disappointed in the resulting chaos it brought to his life.
So, I asked him an uncomfortable question.
"How do you want your life to feel?"
"What?" He seemed unsure.
I kept quiet.
I also knew that his employees were a perpetual source of frustration for him. I again questioned him, "How do you want your employees to feel about working for you?"
He seemed to be getting annoyed. "Huh?" was all he could muster. I think I heard him scratching his head over the phone. I could feel him squirming, but knew how important this was for him to think about.
His customers complained a lot, and sometimes seemed skeptical about the value they got for their money. So, I asked him, "How do your customers need to feel about doing business with you?"
And, finally, he burst.
"Feelings schmeelings! I don't want to talk about feelings. I want to talk about facts!"
Some Facts About Feelings
"OK." I complied, grinning with excitement. We had reached the core issue. "Here are some facts I want you to consider.
• No matter what kind of business you have, what people are really buying from you is the entire experience of doing business with you – not just the product or service you offer. That experience needs to create a powerful emotional impact, a feeling people want to repeat.
• The fact is that people make decisions based on their emotions and whether or not it feels right to them. You've got to care about what feels right to people if you are going to make your business work.
• The fact about most sales efforts is that too many business owners work too hard trying to appeal to their customers' logic, reason, and conscious mind, paying little or no attention to unconscious needs and emotions.
• And, like it or not, it is a fact that your business is a reflection of you. So, if you're indifferent about the way people feel about your business, then you risk the very real possibility that people will reward you with that same indifference."
In my experience, it is a rare business owner who genuinely doesn't care. So it holds true that there are many business owners, like my client, who inherently hope that the experience of their business is positive – but don't intentionally do anything to make it that way.
Are You 'In Touch' Or 'Out of Touch?'
"The facts are," I said to my dear client, "that you seem to be quite out of touch with everything you want out of life and business. You're not considering how your business affects everyone who comes in contact with it – including you. Until you break through that, you will not be able to create a world class company."
• If you want to live life on your own terms and not just take what life throws at you, then you've got toname those terms and identify what you really want. You have to renew your commitment to them daily and enlist the support of all of your stakeholders – especially your employees and your customers.
• If you want a business where people love to come to work and give their absolute best, then you've got to get in touch with what is important to them. If you don't care, they won't care. If you care deeply, then surround yourself with others who care as deeply.
• If you want your customers to be repeat buyers, raving fans, and refer everyone they know to you, then you've got to care about their emotional needs and expectations. They have to feel that you care – and that you truly want your business to work for them.
"Your business must work to be in touch with everyone." I said.
I knew my client knew this, and, ironically, I knew that if he was to remain my client and experience the full success of E-Myth Mastery, I had to demonstrate to him the experience he had been withholding from himself, his employees, and his customers. He had to experience my caring that he didn't care.
It wasn't calculated. It was real. I did care. I cared enough to ask him the questions that made him uncomfortable and challenge his responses. He was my customer and I cared.
Simply holding him accountable to recognize his feelings about the business really marked a turn. He soon found that spark that was missing in his life. He worked with his employees to find that spark for themselves. His customers sensed the new-found sincerity and began referring people left and right.
Over the course of the next several months, he began building a whole new level of trust and confidence with his customers and his employees, all because he decided to shift his attention and become intentional about getting in touch with them.
Feel The Change
One thing is certain – there wouldn't have been any change unless he had been courageous enough to face his discomfort.
You can trigger your own shift of attention by asking yourself the three questions I asked my client. Write down your thoughts – a short paragraph or whatever few words come to mind.
1. How do you need to feel about your business in order to be satisfied with it?
• What would have to change in order for you to feel that way?
2. How do your employees need to feel about working for you in order to get engaged?
• What must change in order for them to feel that way?
3. How do your customers need to feel in order to become raving fans?
• What more can you do to make them feel that way?
Real change is within your grasp, and like anything else, it comes down to where you focus your attention and your intention.
If you can simply resolve to pay more attention to the kind of emotional impact your business creates for everyone who touches it, and be brutally honest in your observations, then you can immediately be more intentional in making sure your business leaves everyone feeling cared for.
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