This past week I read 2 blog posts that made me stop and think, “yep, you’re dead on with this one”. One was from Michael Hyatt and the second from Seth Godin. I subscribe (if you don’t, you should) to both of these blogs and they have generated numerous “ah ha” moments over the years.
Hyatt’s post, which I read first, was entitled “The Difference A Little Extra Effort Makes” (read here). In this post he talks about how the difference between winning and losing is sometimes a very small adjustment, just a little extra effort. An example he used dealt with water. At 211 degrees water is very hot, but increase the temp 1 degree and it boils. For us non-chemistry majors, the difference in the energy released when water boils is huge. I thought this was a great metaphor for the difference we can make if we put forth just a little more effort.
Then I read Seth Godin’s post titled simply, “Who Cares?” (read here). To help make his point, he used an example of 2 similarly priced hotels down the street from each other. One where the basics are covered, but not well and the other where they get it right because they pay attention to the details. His point was that it doesn’t cost more for a business to do it right. Instead it’s all about caring enough to put forth the effort to get it right.
That’s when the light went off and I thought back to Hyatt’s post. I would argue it’s possible to put forth extra effort and still not be successful because you don’t really care. At the same, one can care about doing the right thing, but if you don’t put forth the extra effort the result might not be what you want.
However, when you combine caring about doing it right with putting in the extra effort to get it right, you’ll hit the sweet spot of a great customer experience every time!
