I am reading  The Apple Experience right now. I’m only a few pages in & it’s a great book already.  It’s clear that a lot of their success is based on their stellar customer service & how they make their clients feel.  I mean, c’mon, anyone that follows a brand with such religion-like zeal, must have some pretty compelling reasons, right?

Being a consumer as well as a professional business woman, I’m finding that most businesses right now are so worried about their bottom line that they hesitate to offer extras.  Or they hesitate to follow through on extras that they actually offer. Or basics they offer.  Sigh… Or at the opposite, panicked end of the spectrum, they are training their staff to be all up in your shiz so much that you pretend to be on your cell just so you don’t have to tell another sales associate that you DON’T NEED HELP THANK YOU VERY MUCH. (This is only annoying & rarely, if ever, actually helpful.) But it seems that not many are doing it well right now & Apple happens to be.

I was thinking about that and I started day-dreaming about starting a business that is all about making the client happy & only that.  Doing nice things for them to make them smile.  Being kind for no reason.  Sending them little presents.   Just making people happy.  Nothing else. No demands, no returns, no warranty issues. (I don’t know – I didn’t write up the WHOLE business plan, but you get the picture.*)

Then it hit me – we CAN give in that same way, even if we are selling a product or service & are worried about making money.  We can give using social media.

Why don’t we try this: give a smile, give a laugh, give a human interaction? Yeah, from our brand, from our business but we can let potential clients know that we’re people-humans behind that logo. We can be nice!  It doesn’t cost anything but a little time & effort! Think about it: Can you take a few minutes out of each day to comment on a client’s profile, to re-post a helpful link, to create a funny graphic to share?**

*I did start formulating an idea that would be subscription based but then I got back to work building websites.

**Side note: I also just finished reading Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook so I’m pretty jazzed about social media right now.  Blame Vaynerchuk.  Also, read it!