The Experience Economy: Part 2

I talked last time about the experience economy or creating a positive emotional experience instead of a transaction.  This is vital for your business’s success.  What experience are you creating?  How do people feel when they walk into your office?  First impressions are vital.  Of course, you can create those first impressions face-to-face, but many folks’ first impression of you and the company is your outgoing voice mail.  Have everyone get a partner and call each other’s voice mail and tell them what their first impression is.  I have called several voice mails, and sometimes, it’s just a number.  I don’t even know the company or the person I am trying to reach.  It’s uncomfortable.  Instruct everyone to have a warm, genuine, outgoing message that conveys connection.  Have them stand up and smile when they are saying it.  Many of the outgoing messages I hear are monotone and boring.  Most don’t even say their name or the company name.  Ask yourself, “What would they want to hear in order to make them want to do business with us?”  Is it a fun place to be and work?  Or is it boring and serious?  You may want to have some guidelines on this so it is fairly consistent.

I would recommend that everyone go through the 12 steps to great relationships (previous blogs) so that you have some tools to use to truly work toward creating a positive emotional experience.  And everyone needs to be involved in this process.  One or two people can create a negative impression that may be hard to overcome.

Of course, you must ask yourself, how do we act when our competition is doing this as well?  The answer is take it to the next level.  What is the next level?  What comes after creating a positive emotional experience?  The answer is transformation.  Can you offer clients a transformational experience, one that actually makes their life better at work or at home?  How do you do this?  Offer classes for them.  Buy them inspirational books and send them inspirational blogs, photos, videos, and articles.  Offer to help them to overcome whatever it is that is keeping them up nights.

When you do this, your competition isn’t even up for consideration and you will have more business than you need.