At the end of the day, what ever product you sell or service you provide, you are selling an emotion.

Apple is a great example of this. You are emotionally sold when you open their deliberate packaging. When you interact with their friendly software. When your problems are solved at the Genius Bar. You get to experience wonderful emotions over and over.

If you are a consultant you sell emotion through your integrity, when you show up early, or fished a project under budget. These are all emotional wins and you are selling them constantly.

Saving someone money. Making someone money. Offloading work for someone. A firm handshake. Listening with intent. These are all emotional wins.

It is you job to find all the places and moments in time where you can provide emotional wins.

I was at Target the other day picking up some vitamins when a group of teenage kids started popping open boxes of diet pills and cramming the bottles into their jackets. Shouting, literally throwing the empty boxes around, just causing a scene the entire time. All right near an employee filling shelves at the other end of the asile. I informed him, but he just shrugged. I informed another employee who aimlessly pointed in the direction of a manager. So I gave up.

If a business doesn’t care, imagine how little a customer cares.

When caring becomes no ones job things start to fall apart. Soon quality suffers then customer service. Then a business will scratch their heads wondering why they’re failing. Everything will be undone, and it can happen overnight.

People generally do not like confrontation and will go out of their way to compliment you even when you have totally screwed up. The easiest place to catch yourself doing this is after a mediocre meal. I’ll too easily let the owner know “it was great” when in fact the meal was a barely edible.

It is critical to be honest with yourself, how you run things, and the product you push out to customers. Whether it is software, physical goods, or a service, never blow smoke up your own ass. Listen to the negatives. You know where most of the rough edges are, which ones to keep and which ones to round out. But there are hidden ones, which is why secret diners are such a great way for restaurants to truly get to the problems they never knew existed.

It is hard to learn form the positives. One, because you accomplished something you already knew. But more importantly, you will actually be paying attention when a negative is brought to your attention.

People who are openly negative are rare, but honest. Listen and determine whether action is required or not.

Work used to mean doing what your told. You had a boss and he told you what to do in a very literal sense. You always knew where you stood, what was coming down the pipeline, and when you would be done.

Work is no longer that simple. Work today means figuring out what needs to be done next. And figuring out what needs to be done next is incredibly difficult because the pipeline still exists. So when you are done with the obvious things, making calls, taking meetings, updating your website, you can feel restless, wondering what to do.

This is the struggle. This is where real growth and change can happen. If you can figure out what to do next, you’ll win.