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Signature Moments

Have you ever wondered if there was something more you could do to extend your brand or message? Well, there is.

One opportunity that is usually overlooked is at the point of when your customers are exiting your business. Add a signature moment that adds that little punch to the engagement. As a Visual Translator, I find that taking photos of attendees at the wall acting as if they are doing the work, is a great piece of memorabilia and a signature moment for them. It also gives me another chance to communicate my brand and my work through various channels the attendee wishes to use. It’s both branding and a signature moment.

Take a look at your business. When is there an opportunity to add that moment outside of the normal business transaction? Now fill it with something that is uniquely you.

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Attracting Customers Is Not Enough

generic-5es

In the Experience Economy, the authors use a flow process. Over the years of working with them, assisting clients with customer and employee journey maps, I realized that the first stage of most journeys begin with “Attracting”.

Attracting is good, yet the idea of attracting merely means you want them to notice you and nothing more. This term creates no call to action. Because of that and that I tend to never let an idea go, I rethought the whole initial process and change the beginning from Attracting to Enticing.

Look at an experience or business you have. Are you merely trying to attract attention or is it that you want people to enter your business? Me, I want to entice people inside. I want them to engage not merely notice. Enticing truly means you are actively generating interest that is sparking curiosity in the mind of your prospect in hopes to make them your customer.

If you would like to learn more or remap your customer journey, let’s chat.

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Guided Change

I have written, tweeted and even presented a fair amount about change. Change in personal, business and organization environments. The one thing I have not shared is that desired change is guided.

change

Many speak about change as if it was a package you can just pull from the shelves, It’s not. Proper change is a guiding process which requires outside supporter, experts and journey guides. No desired change happens in a vacuum, we all need someone else to guide us along the path, because each of us travels at a different rate and course. There is no one single plan that can work for everyone.

Over the past many years I have worked with some powerful teams help clients with change. In every interaction, the clients that were the most successful had a clear picture of what change would look like and feel like. By creating what they wanted to become and mapping it out, could individuals, teams or whole organizations understand the path that they needed to take and the obstacles to overcome. Most importantly, they knew they had a guide to help them when they faltered or got off course.

Take as an example of personal hardship and eating disorders. a young woman who had fallen into a ritual of poor eating to fit in with the crowd. When she finally realized, after great pain and medical issues, that she needed to change, she found a guide coach who could help her change, not change her. Soon she was on the road to who she wanted to become, and not what others wanted her to be. Read her story here and see how she is now helping guide others along the path she once traversed. The Unpolished Journey.

The second thing I have rarely shared about change is that it is never over. Change is ever evolving as time passes and events unfold around the change that is happening. With change, you can only describe what you believe you wish to become, map the path and begin the journey. Change is not a destination, but truly a journey where new ideas and revelations are revealed that may take you even further. As with Morgan Blair, founder of The Unpolished Journey, her journey of change rippled out around her, changed her from traveller to guide.

Now let’s take an organization who needs and wants to change. Healthcare organizations are being forced to change. These organizations are being directed from external forces. This method of change is not good nor will they control their outcomes. This is a spiral down and not a journey forward. Companies like Starizon are gathering people to help make change a positive path. Even the team members that help the transformation are called Guides and the client as explorers. In change, we explore options and possibilities and our guides help us, never lead or dictate the paths taken.

Change is transformation. We move from one state of being to another. Transformation is the journey we take to self discovery and change. Just as illustrated below, change is only possible in the future state, the past is unchangeable. In order to cross the gap of change, We need to redefine our purpose of why, map the process of ‘How’ to achieve ‘What’ we want to become.

Change Deltasm

To learn more or chat about how mapping your bridge to the future, just contact me when you decide that you want to take control of your own change.

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Misalignment Hassles of Life and Business

Have you ever experienced a car that was out of alignment. The strangest of noises occur. Excessive wear on the tires, possibly leading to unusual balding patterns. Eventually this misalignment can cause costly repairs and replacement if allowed to go unchecked.

Misalignment is true of our personal life as well as for business. Unlike the alignment of a car, realigning ourselves can be much more complicated. Like your car, unless you are trained at detecting the conditions and causes, you can cause greater harm than good. When we attempt to repair our own problems and try to realign that which is out of alignment, we tend to allow for subtle imperfections or incomplete repairs to save time or money. Hint, there are no savings to doing correctly.

Take a look at one of my favorite diagrams for personal and business. Now, imagine that every interaction you want to create for another, be it friend or client, you want to be memorable.

BPC Alignment

Ask yourself some basic questions as they relate to staging this experience.

  1. What is the Experience you are staging for others? (The Experience)
  2. What are your beliefs and are they focused on the purpose of this experience? (Culture)
  3. What is the promise you communicate to others that will become part of the experience you want to stage? (Brand)
  4. Where will this experience happen and is it a reflection of your promise and beliefs? (Place)
  5. What language or phrases will you use that can be associated only with the experience? (Language)
  6. What elements of decor or environment pieces will support and theme the experience? (Decor)
  7. Where will the interaction of the experience be found? (Engagement Zones)
  8. Finally, are all these elements of an experience in alignment?

If you are a business or organization, this alignment model becomes quite complicated and at times almost impossible to make work, but stop there. As I have said in the past and posted about, I don’t believe in the “Impossible” only the improbable. All things are possible once you understand how. If you don’t,then find someone who can help.

Just like taking your car to a service station to get realigned, it is best to seek others outside your organization or yourself to help guide you through the process of realignment.

Until next time. Focus on the creation of memories and not the mechanics of the Experience for the experience happens when the memories are created.