Take Yourself With You Wherever You Go
Posted on Tue, Feb 21, 2012
I heard that expression from a friend the other day and it just stuck in my mind for so many different reasons. She used it in reference to a person who was pushy and obnoxious. She had known this person for many years, having gone to school with her, worked with her, done business with her, and lived in the same community. Her reference was to the idea that “once a jerk always a jerk” and that a change of environment doesn’t necessarily change a person.
I believe there are more applications for that term than just the negative connotation of “once a jerk always a jerk.” By reversing the negative into a positive you could say “once a nice person always a nice person.” We take our reputations with us, both positively and negatively. The collection of impressions helps us to form our opinions about a person or a business.
Even when we are away from our business we are still generating opinions in the way we are dressed, by the way we carry ourselves, the use of appropriate manners, and even down to the professional looking business card we hand out. People are constantly forming feelings and opinions about you and your business.
Disney has a great expression for this phenomenon, which is part of their creed of doing business and that is “everything speaks.” Disney puts a huge amount of effort into making sure that the smallest of details are addressed, from the piece of paper on the ground to the smiles and attitudes of all of the cast members. The use of the term cast members reinforces the “everything speaks” business philosophy. Disney employees, who are made up of mainly part-time employees, take a special ownership and pride in working at Disney World.
What does this mean to us? First, we are ambassadors of our business. The way we conduct ourselves away from the business is just as important as the way we conduct ourselves while we are at our business. It also means that we must maintain a certain level of professionalism because our business is being judged based on those opinions. We can modify the first statement by saying “if someone acts like a jerk how professional can their business be?”
We are being watched and analyzed constantly today. Very few people shop a store without going online first and learning more about the store. If people are writing negative comments and opinions on a website or a blog and say that a store is a bad place to shop, those comments can have a devastating effect on that business. The next part of this powerful expression deals with the element of alignment. How many times have we seen, or been to, a magnificent store and then received an advertising piece which doesn’t have the same feel or look of the business as we perceived it?. For instance, when a store promotes or advertises more expensive merchandise ,but when you go into the store all you see is merchandise with a cheap feel and look. When a business is out of alignment it sends confusing messages to the prospective customer and we all know that a confused customer does not buy.
“Take yourself with you wherever you go” also reminds us that you can’t change the spots on a leopard. We are who we are and our biggest challenge is knowing who we are in the mind of the consumer. It always amazes me the impression a customer will have about a business compared to what the owner believes that the customer believes about the business.
Now for the good news – wouldn’t it be nice to have a public perception of you and your business as someone who is constantly improving itself. By doing that, the customer accepts change and is more forgiving when change is difficult. Yes, we take ourselves with us wherever we go and that means we should work to improve who we are and what we represent. People respect people and businesses that never stop trying. So the next time you have an encounter with a difficult person, you need to maintain your values and take the high road, because what we are really talking about here is the power of the brand. Brands take years to build and only seconds to destroy.
Our lesson is simple; the impression, or brand, we take with us and project to the world must be who we really are and who our customers believe we are as well. It’s time to look at ourselves the way the public sees us and perceives us to be. Make sure that what we are taking with us is what we want to take with us.