Standing Out

Have you ever read the article "In Praise of the Purple Cow"?  The title sounded familiar, but when I read the article it didn't sound familiar.  I learned from this article that we need to find a way to stand out or be different with our companies.  But in a way that people will say "wow".

I took a class at work many years ago about providing "Wow Service".  We were split into groups and someone mentioned that Disney Cruises gives Wow Service.  At the time I wasn't so sure, however, since then we have gone on two Disney Cruises and I can definitely say that they do give Wow Service. Both our room attendant and our wait staff were so kind.  On our last cruise our son got sick on the last day and so we told the room attendant that he wasn't feeling well, but we wanted him to try to eat something so we went to lunch and when we returned the attendant had fixed his bed up with "Cars" sheets.  This is not normal; they usually just have the plain white sheets that most hotel/cruise rooms have.  While our son was quite sick he was so happy to see the Cars sheets and snuggled right into the bed for a long nap.  It was the special touches that made us feel special.  It also makes us want to return again and again.

I thought about the wow service this week as I was working on some repairs at one of our rental properties.  I thought that I really needed to pay attention to the birthdays of our renters and their children and send a birthday card (or maybe even a little gift).  I think that would help them know we care and hopefully make our properties a Wow experience for our tenants.  While there is more that I think we could probably do, I would definitely like to start doing some things to help us stand out from other landlords.  Hopefully by doing that also it would have the renters be willing to refer their friends or other people they know who may be looking for a place to rent.

As for my $100 challenge this week, with the repairs on the rental property and then going out of town for the holiday weekend, I did not have time to work on the $100 challenge project this week.  I hope that next week I will be able to get another party set up and start selling my bread again.  I do have some people who have said they are willing to have a bread party so I need to follow up with them one the repairs are finished on the rental properties.