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| Does Your Business Bloom Beautifully? |
A trip like this takes some planning. My wife was the event coordinator on this one. She did a great job researching everything and laying out the plan of events. It was one of the best and most enjoyable vacations we have ever taken. We were able to see parts of the life in Hawaii tourist never really see. We felt much like two local hippies doing our thing. We did not get treated like tourists, except for the bike rental shop. The rest of the time we kind of looked like we lived there. Our body language smelled local. We did not travel to the popular tourist sights, we did not wear matching Hawaiian shirts and we did not see places where tourists were standing in line. We decided to make this trip to Hawaii different than the others. We wanted to see and do different things.
We did ride our Harley to the southeast side of the island. We took the Harley to where the road actually ends. There was a beat up old school that still was in operation near the end of that road. We could see homes that resembled 'stick built huts' in and about the dirt roads and driveways tucked into the trees. We watched the locals on the southeast side of the island come out of their tents, which were their real homes lined along the miles of rough looking beaches. We smelled the food barbecuing along those beaches and watched many of the men cooking and fishing to provide their sustenance. There were no fancy hotels with lines of tourist buses scooting around in this place. It was local and local only. There was, however, a McDonald's burger joint in town. We ate there and it was packed with local families. It was a strange experience. Some of the people in the restaurant picked up that we did not belong there. Body language.
When we returned the rental bike we described where we spent that day. The owner of the rental shop mentioned that we were not supposed to go to that part of the island. It is known to be a dangerous part of the island for tourists. We did not see a tourist bus nor any tourists in the whole area when we spent the day there. Those folks do not like the idea of how much the tourists have taken over on the other sides of the island. The folks that live in these parts want to pull away from the rest of the business and politics of the other sides. The want to live their local life undisturbed. He was amazed that we did not have trouble travelling to this part of the island. Just enough body language to get us by. We looked and acted just like the locals and did not glow "tourists!" Body language.
Back to the flight home. We had just settled down into our jet plane seats to return home from one of the best vacations we have ever taken. We were filled and satisfied. We were content and happy. Then out of the blue, while others were still coming aboard to take their seats on the jet ride home, a lady bent over to tell us we had taken her seats. She had her boarding tickets in hand and began to describe how my wife and I were sitting in her and her husbands seats. She was very intense and not very polite. My wife and I were very accommodating and very polite. Body language. We had had a great trip and it showed. They had not had a great trip, and it showed.
After some comparison of both sets of boarding passes, her husband discovered she was wrong. She was reading the isle markings on the seats incorrectly. She did not apologize. He was embarrassed. Body language. My wife and I shared 'looks' with each other that represented the idea of "Ah oh, somebody is not happy." We shared no words, just body language. We must have been afraid that the 'witch' might hear us. Body language.
We have heard how you are supposed to do as the Romans do..."when in Rome do as the Romans do." Make your adjustments and move on. To this day, my wife and I still use that experience on our flight home from Hawaii as one of the best experiences we had on that trip. It was an extreme lesson on the effects of body language. The stewards on that trip became our entertainment laboratory while they tried hard to interact well with this couple. Eventually, the stewards became frustrated, too. It was a wonderful piece of laboratory experiment in human body language. Body language won the war between all of them. Words completely disappeared. When the drinks came down the isle on the carts, the stewards would lean over in front of the couple with a can of soda in their hand and look to the lady with their facial expressions raised up with high eyebrows, as if to say, "Want anything to drink?" It was comical to witness. No words, just body language. It was amazing.
We felt fortunate to be the only people they spoke to the entire trip on the flight. My wife told me to be nice because I was going to offer them one of the books I happened to have in my bag. It was the classic piece written by Dale Carnegie, "How To Win Friends And Influence People." I still have to go back to that book once in awhile. I backslide easily. My wife kept me from backsliding again on that flight. We had a full flight of real entertainment of our own right across the isle. Layers and layers of body language. One silly little flight. So many levels of body language. It was unbelievable.
By the way, how is the body language of your business doing? Did you know your business has body language? It does. You may not know it, but the people outside your business doors are just like my wife and I who were watching this couple from across the isle. They are checking out your business body language and they are doing it in stealth. They will talk about your business much like we are still talking about that couple. The only difference in the two examples is that we do not know that couples name, your customers know your business name. How is the body language of your business doing?
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| Make Sure Your Model Exposes Its Beauty! |
The passionate looks we passed on to the stewards working hard to try and please the 'wicked off' couple caught the attention of the stewards. Body language. Our pleasant smiles and compassionate gestures of approval for what the stewards were trying to do attracted the stewards interest to our space. They were extra polite with us and even offered us free movie rentals and extra treats while we rode home. Body language. Does your business perform positive body language? If you do not believe it counts for much, think again. You are missing the valuable use of an important tool that is sitting unused in your tool box. Shame on you. Do not act like the couple across the isle. You will limit what your business can and should attract.
Your business model has a personality that comes with its operations. Which personality do you think will win long term, the one the couple across the isle performed or the one my wife and I performed? As much as this seems simple to see, it is not easy to perform. I have been wicked off before and I am certain I have acted just like the lady was acting. When we are in the wrong kind of mood, we deny it has any negative effect on our surrounding relationships. We assume all relationships will return repaired and back in the same order they were before we had our fit. Not true.
Does your business quietly send off negative business body language? Does it know what kind of language it is sending off? Do the customers agree with your point of view about how your business body language is being interpreted? Are you in denial about how they perceive your business body language? Do you turn on the main overhead lights when a customer comes into the store because you had them off while nobody was there to save on heat and energy? What kind of body message are you sending with this type of language? Remember this, the customers will act just like my wife and I across the isle. They will judge every single move your business makes. They will watch every little piece of body language your business performs. It will either offend them or attract them. The type of language will be the key to how they react. It will have nothing to do with how well priced your business stuff is marked. It will have nothing to do with how well you display the 'on sale' stuff. It will have nothing to do with the brands you sell. Your business body language will speak louder than you are willing to admit. Make sure it is projected out in a positive way.
I think the couple in the isle that never said a word on the whole jet flight home did not comfortably work things out. I would be surprised if their life together did not progress into more of the same kind of language. I know I would not want to go to their business model if they owned one. Even though they were extreme as an example, small parts of what they did wrong would not be tolerated by customers for very long. It does not always take extreme discomfort to scare customers away. Sometimes simple and small wrong gestures is all it takes. Work harder on cleaning up your business body language. Yesterday I got turned off by a small gift shop owner who was sitting in her little chair waiting for a customer to arrive. I wanted a small cup of coffee. She did not have any made that day because she said she thought it was too hot and it has been slow lately. She never got out of the chair to make one cup. Her body language said, "No." I am a small business owner, I fully understand decisions surrounding slowness and costs. I respect that kind of stuff. Yet, the extra mile was on the surface and she missed the opportunity to hand it out. She missed the body language her business sent. Does yours do the same thing?
Get the body language of your business model corrected into something that spills all over the positive side of everything. If you do not believe it matters, shame on you. You do not need to believe me on this important subject matter, your check book will eventually prove it to you. The stewards did not offer the 'wicked off' couple extra treats and a free movie on the same flight we shared. We call that a tip!
Until next time...
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