Treat them as you do your best customers: Week 46 - Employee Recognition

I announced in May, 2010, the 52 - Week Employee Recognition Plan. This is the 46th week. The step this week is:

• Treat Them As You Do Your Best Customers; They Are.

Who is more important? Customers or employees.

In terms of building a brand, building buy-in for its message and for its purpose, who hears its message first?

Chicken or egg theology issues aside, the first person to hear your message is your employee. And without their buy-in, without their passionate engagement in creating and communicating that promise to in-turn their customers....your brand remains just that yours. And no one ever finds their life made better, sweeter, more rewarding.

Your first customer is your employee.

Your most important customer is your employee.

They have to buy that message, every hour of every day, in order to create it, tweak, refine it, redefine it and deliver it to the market.

They not only buy it, they invest the majority of their waking hours and those of their families in making it believable, meaningful, and delivering financial results.

Recognize that. Recognize them. Recognize they bring the others. They bring the customers and the success and growth for ...their business.

Or don’t. And they won’t. And you won’t either.

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You can start with any week of the 52 - Week Employee Recognition Plan and make that your first week.

You can take one of those weeks and turn it into a month or commit to an accelerated pace and complete 6 of the weeks in one month.

You can create your own week of employee recognition. Share that journey here. Share it in your blog or Twitter or Facebook.

But, do something to recognize your employees! They set your brand apart as your ultimate competitive edge.

And the more you recognize their achievements, the more achievements you'll see and they'll enjoy, along with your customers and and shareholders, partners and vendors.

Comments

[Philip Jackson]

Good day, sir. I've been reading through articles about customer satisfaction in blogs. That's how I was able to find this post. After reading this, I've realized that the employer is the start of a "chain". That chain being:

1. Rewarding your employees.
2. Employees will be motivated.
3. Employees will deliver good service.
4. Customers will be satisfied.
5. Customers will give good feedback.
6. All goes back to 1.

This is how I've interpreted this post. Correct me if I'm wrong, sir.

[Zane Safrit]

I see nothing incorrect, invalid, illogical with your comment.

Thank you for taking the time to leave it.