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“Yes, yes. Come in. Come in.”

That’s how it all began.

This is a story about breakfast cereal, making friends in another country … and a beautiful customer-service mindset.

You all know what it feels like when you hear something that just makes you stop and think.

Like the quote from Helen Keller, “What people think of me is none of my business.” Ha. I just love that.

What makes us do what we do?

We need to make a living, sure, but there are any number of ways to do that.

Beyond making money, why do you do what you do? Why did you choose the profession you chose … or the one you’re considering getting into?

The following email from a former client tells you everything you’d ever want to know about why I got into coaching. I wanted to share it with you, because it makes me happy … and because it can help you serve more of the people you want to serve.

I coach a lot of business owners. It’s what I do. People often think of me as a speaker and speaking coach, but first and foremost, I’m a business coach. I help people with all aspects of starting and running a successful service-based business.

And it’s not just the how–to’s. We go deeper than that, often focusing on those intangible elements that can separate those who make it from those who either struggle or simply don’t make it.

Two of the biggest separators?

Back in the heyday of the passenger ship, there was a man who owned a steamship with an engine that wouldn’t run properly no matter what his crew did to fix it. So, he called on an outside expert to diagnose the problem and get the engine running smoothly again.

It didn’t take long. The master mechanic came on board, listened intently to the engine for a while, reached into his toolkit, brought out a hammer, and fetched the engine housing a mighty whack. Instantly, the engine started humming like it was new.

I talk a lot about the importance of serving prospective clients vs. selling them.  That distinction is at the heart of our attraction-based marketing system, an approach that works wonders, especially for people who just can’t bring themselves to do the traditional sales thing.

But, let’s be clear … and this is important … serving someone does not mean charging them less than you’re worth or giving away your service.  It doesn’t mean sacrificing for the other person’s benefit.

I’m not a sports person. I love gymnastics and skating, girlie stuff, but that’s about it … except for baseball.

My partner, Tom, is a baseball guy, so I started watching some of the Atlanta Braves’ games with him years ago. And now, I watch at least some of most of the games for a little break in the evening. And I care about how the guys do from night to night. I almost feel as if I know them personally. I refer to them by their first names. They’re “my team.”

The players on the team are all high-performing professionals or they wouldn’t be in the major leagues. But they started out the season as the worst team in baseball. They were awful, and it was hard to watch.

They played themselves out of contention for the playoffs early in the season. So, what was there to play for? Pride? Sure. Personal stats? Sure. But it would have been easy for these guys to just play out the season in lackluster fashion and shuffle off come October to hope for a better result next year.

There’s a definite allure to running your own business.

You get to be your own boss, set your own hours.  

You’re not dependent on a corporate entity for a job, and when you’re successful, you’re the one who gets rewarded!

What’s not to like?  Everything about that looks great.

And so, a lot of people take the leap. 

But they often aren’t very clear on what they’re getting themselves into.

If you asked them the things they need to have in place to create and sustain a successful service-oriented business, would they be able to tell you?  More importantly, would they be able to do what it takes?

I want to share with you a simple, but powerful, practice I got from Brian Tracy that’s really made a difference for me.

Things change so fast and so relentlessly. Who doesn’t find themselves wanting to stop the merry-go-round and just cling to the comfortable and familiar every now and then? And who among us never resists change?

Of course, resisting change done to us is one thing. It can be a necessary and healthy thing to do. After all, not all change is good. But here’s the crazy thing. We often see ourselves and our clients resisting change of our own making!