What Kindness Isn’t
Maybe right now you’re thinking to yourself: Kindness? Really? The last Harvard Business School class reunion didn’t include a hand-held circle of MBAs singing Kumbaya. Maybe not, but the cream of the corporate crop has always known that a smart business strategy includes how customers are treated and perceived to be treated. In his article in the Harvard Business Review, Jeffrey F. Rayport writes about what was introduced by the Review two decades ago as “service recovery—a company’s ability to respond quickly,
The Return on Kindness (ROK) Plan: 7 Pathways to Profit
Generating kindness currency can happen by focusing on seven character traits, or seven pathways. These steps do not need to be done in any particular order, and what is even greater about them is you can reap the benefits immediately by just implementing one or two; no need to do all of them right out of the gate. As you think about your business model and consider where kindness currency can be spent, you might find that your business is already sufficiently doused in one or two traits while you want to focus on building more equity in other areas.
What Is Kindness?
Kindness in all of its simplicity is a loaded word. It’s a catch-term for a host of other traits, behaviors, emotions, and actions, which must be exhibited on a daily basis in order to cash in on kindness. Just as we pay for goods and services using cash, credit, and even barter, kindness currency varies. So let’s expand its definition by offering the many characteristics of kindness, the very characteristics that make up the seven pathways to profit: compassion,
Kindness: A Business Contradiction or Useful Convention?
Doing hard work, providing highly skilled services, innovating a product, or opening a business while expecting nothing in return is typically viewed as a contradiction to profitable operations. This is why when Mark went without compensation for the hours of expertise he patiently lent me without asking for anything in return, I was humbled. He provided an example I knew I wanted to follow and it made me think. I wanted people to feel about me the way I felt about Mark,
The 7 Return of Kindness (ROK) Pathways
It was go time! I was invited to speak at a conference on an island near Vancouver, British Columbia. I emerged from the ferry and greeted my driver. As I moved towards the car, my feet flew out from under me and everything went black. I woke up in a hospital the next day. My brain was foggy, while bolts of pain radiated from fracturing both ankles. Bedridden, and immobilized, my carefully laid-out plans collapsed and my income gone.
Profit of Kindness
What is The Profit of Kindness™ and Why Is It Important?
The Profit of Kindness™ is the art of building trusting, long-lasting relationships through open, non-adversarial interchanges that result in mutually beneficial outcomes. The Profit of Kindness™ is a heart-based approach taps into your emotions, our natural instincts, and deeply ingrained feelings. It increases your chances for success because you will be doing what you value and usually do well. Your focus will be more on giving and working with others more than simply winning.
Have Your Referral Sources Pre-Market You
When your referral sources recommend you, they should sell you to potential clients and make them eager to work with you. Then, when potential clients contact you, all you have to do is close the deal — if you want to work with them.
Most referral sources will pre-market you if they know you produce outstanding results. Most sources only want to recommend the best because it makes them look good and they prefer to associate with the best.
The Power Referral Program
Branding expert Dick Bruso has developed the Power Referral Program®. His system is premised on the belief that people do business with you for four reasons. Because:
They trust you.
They like you.
You are competent in your area of expertise.
You have integrity.
Here’s how Bruso’s Power Referral Program® works:
Create a list of ten people you love and who love you regardless of whether they are in the business you are trying to reach.
Attitude
Adjust your attitude. Assume the role of the person that you want to be; a person who has already achieved success.
“Always self-promote’ 24/7 and be very intentional.” Tommy Newberry the author of The 4:8 Principle (Tyndale House Publishers, 2007) states. “First, know what your end game is, where you want to be, how you want to be perceived, at least 10 years down the road if not 20 or 30. The clearer you know at the outset what you want your life and career to be,
Remaining Fresh
Networks are constantly in flux — people come, go, and move in different directions. They get tired, bored, burned out. Changes in their lives may prevent them from helping you. Your relationship with them may be wonderful for a while and then become less productive or peter out. Circumstances change; solutions that always hit the mark may no longer work.
At times, you have to make changes; some of your network partners may not be performing well or may be holding you back.