How to Wow your Clients

The comedian Steven Wright once observed, “If at first you don’t succeed, then skydiving definitely isn’t for you.”

It makes sense, because if you’re someone that fails at literally everything from the get go, maybe there are better options than jumping out of a plane 10,000 feet in the air and trying to land in one piece.

Thankfully, business is not like skydiving. 

Not only can you bounce back from mistakes in business, so long as what you’re offering is reasonably good, you have a lot of chances to go from good enough to great and then to outstanding.  But…

You have to iterate—to continually improve on what you’re offering.

Some businesses are, of course,  better at this than others.

These businesses regularly improve what they offer, and very often do so in ways that are hard to place a finger on and even harder for competitors to copy.

They just seem to continually get better at what they do, have more and more regular customers over time, and manage to stay consistently profitable through good times and bad.

Gramercy Tavern is one of the world’s best at this, and the thing leading to its success is what the founder, Danny Meyer, calls the ABCD process.

This process basically boils down to the following:

Always be collecting dots so you can always be connecting dots.

In his book, Setting the Table, Meyer explains, “Dots are information. The more information you collect, the more frequently you can make meaningful connections that can make other people feel good and give you an edge in business.”

In the context of a restaurant such as Gramercy Tavern, this means having a system to collect information about where a guest likes to sit, what their favorite item on the menu is, whether they do not like to be interrupted or “checked on” unnecessarily, and so on.

Each “dot” collected here allows the restaurant to personalize their service, to wow their guests with unexpected hospitality, and eventually to turn these people into regulars.

This process isn’t just about providing exceptional service

 It can apply equally as much to the other parts of a business. 

For example, building a brand is all about presenting “dots.”

The “dots”, in this case, include everything from the colors and font you want people to associate with your brand to the promise your business offers, the problems it solves, the benefits it provides.

Over time, people connect these “dots,” and your brand solidifies in their minds.

The core skill underlying the entire process is to listen well.

You learn what “dots” people care about, what problems people have, or what benefits people want, by listening to them.

It’s true that you sometimes have to listen with your eyes—to watch what people respond to positively or negatively.

But, one way or another, listening is a must. It’s the prelude toward creating memorable experiences, fantastically useful products, and productive, long-term relationships.

Speaking of which…

Over the years, we’ve helped many of our clients develop memorable brands, create engaging video campaigns, come up with refreshingly new product designs, and more.

What would you like to see your business doing better?

What could you do to wow the people your business serves?

Whenever you’re ready, let’s chat about that. We won’t have all the answers right away, but after hearing where your business is at now and where you’d like it to be in the future, we can most definitely help.