Without a Sense of Pride

Everything matters.

If you own a restaurant, the value that you create isn’t found only in the food you serve. It’s found in all of the little details. It’s found in your service. It’s found in your decor. It’s absolutely found in the cleanliness of your restaurant. But if everything is wonderful and your bathrooms are filthy, the mystique is ruined and the value diminished.

I’ve been in a McDonald’s (not really a restaurant) where even the bathrooms were immaculate because the owner or manager had a sense of pride. I’ve also been in expensive restaurants where the service was awful and the restrooms were worse than a roadside rest stop. Without a sense of pride that extends to the last detail, the value is destroyed. It can transform an experience.

What does this mean for you as a salesperson, a businessperson, and a success-minded individual? It means everything matters.

You take pride in your ability to create value for your dream clients by developing the business acumen and the situational knowledge that earns you the right to be their strategic partner. But you also need to take pride in preparing for each and every sales interaction, something many people overlook. Being unprepared destroys value.

You take pride in the consistency of your follow up. But you also need to take an equal pride in the quality of your follow up. Consistency can’t be overshadowed by poor quality. Poor quality responses, answers, or proof providers can destroy value.

You take extreme pride in ensuring that that value you that you sold your dream client is delivered. It’s true that these big outcomes count for more than anything else. But you can die the death of a thousand paper cuts if that pride doesn’t extend to all of things that you might overlook—but that your client doesn’t.

There is too little attention paid to small details. But small details are game changers, and improving them takes a little extra effort and lot of caring. Without a sense of pride, you create a lot less value than you might otherwise.