AUTHOR’S NOTE: Here’s a jewelry “humor” piece I’ve been trying to pilot to completion for a while. I figured it’s time to finally release it and see if it flies. Please rate and comment at the bottom. Be brutal. This piece has been gathering dust longer than your slowest-moving SKU.
How to Smile More at Your Customers (A Guided Meditation Exercise)
There’s nothing on God’s green earth better than a bright, human smile.
You can’t teach someone how to smile. (“Feel the smile in your EYES,” they write. Great, now you look like a hostage in a proof-of-life video.)
But you can learn to smile more frequently — by training yourself to feel genuine warmth toward your customers.
Try this.
Close your eyes. Take a breath. Think about the people who walk through your door every day.
These people are the lifeblood of your business. They chose YOU. Out of every option available to them, they walked into YOUR store.
Feel gratitude toward them. A small, warm glow in the center of your chest.
… every customer is a gift …
Let that warmth expand. It gets bigger with each breath. It radiates outward. You love these people. You are genuinely blessed that they exist.
… every single one of them is a GIFT …
That warmth now extends beyond your body. You are a beacon of goodwill. Your love of mankind is a cosmic force radiating into the universe.
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Now add ONE LAST THOUGHT to take this to the ULTIMATE level:
… even the watch battery people.
Whoa. Did you feel that? A disturbance in the force? Don’t let your cosmic empathy falter! This is where the battle is WON, people! Say it again! PUUUUUSH!
“Even the watch battery people.”
Say it aloud if you have to. Calmly and slowly now:
“Even ….. the watch battery ….. people.”
Aaaaaand … relax. You’re done.
Now you’re ready to smile brightly at WHATEVER the world brings through your door.
Customer doesn’t smile back? No sweat. Not everybody is ready for your brightest human smile — especially before noon. You can always downshift into Attentive Service Face: mouth pursed, chin raised, eyebrows arched expectantly — the look of a human ready to solve the problems of others.
But that’s another post.
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These notes were originally posted, in a somewhat different form, on David Squires’s LinkedIn account. Follow David on LinkedIn.
