When you think about what matters most for your business, where do you start? Is it numbers, employees, marketing, deliverables? If so, it may be time to pause and think about your customers, the main characters of your story. Not your logo, not your services, not your five-year-plan, but the people walking through your door or visiting your website, deciding whether to trust you with their time and money. They should be at the center of everything you do, because the moment your business stops being about them and starts being about you, it suffers.
Community Is Key
Being involved in your community is one of the best ways to show people that you care. We recently took part in a community event here in the Proctor District, the first Wine Walk, which brought hundreds of new visitors to the neighborhood. We’re a marketing company, not a retail store, so foot traffic is not an everyday occurrence for us. But for the Wine Walk, we opened our doors, provided nibbles for our guests, set out patio seating, and chatted.
We didn’t hand out business cards, people asked for them. Why? Because people don’t commit to a business they’ve only seen in an ad. They commit to businesses they feel connected to personally. For example, a retail shop might be discouraged if sales feel low because the Wine Walk crowd isn’t their typical shopper. But they’d likely have more luck offering inexpensive impulse items suited to a browsing crowd, or a $5-off coupon for their next visit. Applying the same principle, a restaurant might offer free samples; an insurance company could offer a quick home safety checklist; and a veterinarian could set up a nail trim station or a spot for pet photos. All of these examples open the door to a future relationship.
Strive for Excellence
Showing up is the start. Excellence is what happens after, but you can’t get there without keeping your customer’s story front and center. That means answering the phone the way you’d want it answered. It means delivering on what you promised, every time, not just when someone’s watching. A nail trim station, a home safety checklist, a coupon for next time, all of it works because it puts the person in front of you first. The moment any of it starts feeling like a business trying to meet its quota instead of a genuine connection, your business suffers. Strive for excellence in everything you do, keep your customer at the center of every decision, and you won’t need to convince anyone to trust you. They already will.
