GarthBox

Google reviews are nice. An email from a guest at your establishment is nice, too. Someone sharing their feedback about your product or service in the moment is fantastic.

All happen infrequently and while they sometimes provide useful data, it’s not nearly as helpful as what Mystery Shoppers can provide.

Mystery Shoppers–the good ones–do two things for a business. They not only review their experience as a customer or guest, but they also provide the ears to hear what others are really thinking and feeling.

The fact is that people are more willing to share their thoughts with a stranger than they are an employee or owner.

One of my favorite parts about owning a beer bar is when I’m in casual clothing and enjoying a beer at a table when all the sudden I hear folks from an adjacent table share what they really think about the place or the beer or the board game selection or the bathrooms.

It’s usually feedback I can act on: by either improving the thing they are complaining about or elevating the thing they are raving about.

Let me be clear about one thing: I’m all for creating a business that encourages and rewards proactive candor, immediate feedback loops, easy anonymous feedback opportunities, surveys and people that will be honest about what is and isn’t working in your business.

The reality is that it’s a numbers game and there are far more people keeping their thoughts or whispering their thoughts than openly sharing them.

To that point, if you don’t have any mystery shoppers enrolled in your business, it’s time to.

The cool thing is that it can be a friend or family member or a loyal customer.

(There are some businesses out there you can pay to do this, but they more so excel at providing feedback of their own experience rather than listening and gathering notes from the experience of others.)

And if you reallllly can’t think of someone to be the mystery shopper for you, then take a page out of the Undercover Boss playbook and be it yourself.

Stay Positive & Don’t Let What People Hate Or Love About Your Brand Be A Mystery

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Having recently gone through rounds of interviews at a few different companies, it became insanely clear who was bringing the energy to the table and who was hoping they’d find it there. (I joined the one who had the energy, of course.)

Having recently visited a handful of small retailers and food & bev providers (I’m writing this from a hotel room in Door County), it has become ridiculously clear who has the kind of energy that makes you just know they will still be in business next year… and those who have the energy of the people you just know won’t be.

Every storefront, every meeting, every interaction can be boiled down to the energy levels of the people involved. For the sake of this post, let’s just assume you’re bringing your positivity, A-game, excitement and courageous energy.

That, then, leaves everyone else and it also leaves you with two choices: either you try for a bit to share some of your energy in hopes of sparking it in others or… you find somewhere else that either matches or exceeds your energy levels.

Now more than ever, people are defaulting to finding somewhere else to take a job, somewhere else to spend their money, somewhere else with not just better service, but better energy.

It might be worth sharing this post so those who don’t have your energy level realize what’s at stake.

Stay Positive & A Smile Still Goes A Long Way

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Our brain only retains 15 percent of the information we consume when we’re rushing it.

That article we read quickly. That class we watched the videos on 2x speed. The podcast we listened to at 2.5x.

Alright, I made the 15 percent number up, but you believed it, didn’t you?

If it’s something worth doing, then it’s worth doing at a pace that ensures we not only have time to retain information, but breathing room for us to let our imaginations work between points.

It’s pretty damn rare to have a bright idea when you’re listening to a podcast at the fastest speed your platform allows.

Then again, if you’re optimizing for being able to say you consumed something rather than to share what you learned or ideated from it…

Stay Positive & Haste Makes Waste

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You really can’t get enough of them over an ongoing period of time.

Yes, getting a thousand reminders in a single day is obnoxious, but the sad part of ineffective leaders is that they think reminders are only warranted early on. Once you know, you know, right?

Technically? Yes. Emotionally? Not so much.

People need reminders that they are cared for. They need reminders of what the mission is. They need reminders of process and good behavior long after they’ve celebrated their 15th anniversary with a company.

If you’re in a leadership position, it’s worth starting your list now if you haven’t already; the list of all the things you ought to be reminding your team throughout the year.

Stay Positive & Those Are Boxes Worth Checking, Again And Again

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Oh how a marketer can focus on telling all the selling points.

And they focus on time spent on page and bounce rates.

Let’s not forget about sharing the backstory and the future innovations in motion.

Alas, many a marketer forgets to gauge their work by the joy one feels when reading/listening/consuming it.

Where there is joy, there are sales and time investments and loyalty.

Stay Positive & Let’s Not Forget To Make What We Do Enjoyable By Others

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With time you can get smarter and know more about a lot.

With time you can build up a true following.

With time you can write a book that changes the life of thousands.

With time you can achieve a lot.

Rather, with time and action.

Time can’t do much on its own.

It needs you to show up and put in the work, the reading, the connecting…

Stay Positive & Give Time A Hand

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Giving something tangible is nice.

Giving your time and attention is even nicer.

But giving someone a connection with someone else that might change their life?

That’s real generosity.

Stay Positive & Who Have You Connected Today?

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