It’s the middle of March, and you know what that means –March Madness! The time of year when the whole country stands behind the team they think will win it all. During the tournament, it’s always fun to watch for the underdogs. Who will be the team this year to take down some of the big-name teams?

It’s fun to see how these smaller, underdog teams come together to beat teams no one thought they would beat. And when the underdogs win, it’s usually not because one person carried the team, it’s typically because one person stepped in, made a big difference and inspired their team to play better. The same phenomenon can happen in your customer service department as well.

You know what it’s like when one person who’s in a great mood comes in to work and, just through their simple joviality, inspires the entire team to perform better that day? It’s amazing how much the emotions you display can help or hurt others around you.

Your emotions influence people just like ripples in water. You’ve seen what happens when you drop a stone in a calm pool of water. The rings caused by the rock spread out in circles until they reach the shore or disappear. But those rings influence the water all around them; just like your emotions influence people all around you.

In order to be the best CSR you can be, go into work each day with an attitude that it’s going to be a great day. Treat the customers you speak with using your great attitude. If you are happy and upbeat with them, they’ll feel more confident working with you and you’ll book more appointments. Use that positive attitude with your co-workers and they too will catch on, feel more confident and book more calls. Who would have thought that something as simple as having a good attitude could have such a big impact in your ability to book more calls? But it does.

Positive attitude precedes positive outcome.  Just like players playing in the NCAA tournament have the ability to inspire and rally their team to a win, you too have the ability to lead your team to more booked calls.

Try it out. Go into work tomorrow with a happy, positive attitude. Look for ways to share your attitude with co-workers and customers. Serve your customers you’re your co-workers in unexpected ways without expectation of recompense. Then, at the end of the day, look how many calls you booked. You will see a difference, I promise.

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Imagine if you had to walk to and from work every day. One day, on your way to work, you see a field of tall grass that offers a shortcut that’ll shave fifteen minutes off your walk; you decide to cut through the field. On the way home, you take the same path through the field and save time getting home.

For the first couple of trips, you may have a hard time following the new path. But after 15-20 trips, it’s clear there is a defined path. After several weeks of walking to and from work using the same path, there is a well-defined route through the field that you can easily follow, even in the dark.

Now, assume you meet the field’s owner at the end of one of your walks and he looks back over your path with mild distaste, but doesn’t forbid you from walking it. What are the chances you’ll take a different path the next day? My guess is slim to none. You know this path and you’re comfortable with it. In fact, unless Farmer Joe specifically asks you not to walk the path, you’ll probably continue to do it even without thinking. Your path has become a habit; part of your memory that you use with very little brainpower.

Now, imagine that one day you discover a different path that will get you to work even quicker and more efficiently than the previous path. You try it out and find that it works, but habit always pushes you to your previous path. Despite the old habit, you force yourself to continue to use this new path. Farmer Joe is pleased that you’ve made this course correction. You see, although he knew in his gut that there had to be a better way, he didn’t have the time or wasn’t quite sure how to help you figure it out.   Over time, you and Farmer Joe notice that the old path you once knew so well has begun to grow back until it is as if it were never there; the new path has become your new habit.

As elementary as this story is, it’s a great illustration of how you form similar paths in your brain. When you have one thought, or action, and continue to think, or do it, then over time it will become your habit, forged in your memory. As you learn new things, you’re faced with a choice to continue in the old habit or push forward to forge new paths.

You’ve heard the phrase, “Practice makes perfect”? The reason for that is when you practice something over and over, you create paths in your brain; then when it comes time to perform what you’ve practiced, it’s a habit; you don’t really need to think about it…you just do it. The great philosopher Aristotle figured this out over two thousand years ago; he said, “We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.”

Being excellent at booking calls and creating a wow experience when a customer calls is no different. If you’re focused on it and practice doing it regularly, you’ll become excellent at it and it will become habit. But it takes effort. Just like it took effort to forge the new path on your ay to work, it will take effort to change your thinking pattern to where you can book virtually every call that comes in.

In order to be the best, take the principles we teach here at Power Selling Pros and think through them, even when you’re not on the phone. Think about different situations that you’ve experienced where you can use the principles. Whether you’re at work or at home, practice using them on the phone as well as with co-workers or your family members. It sounds odd, I know, but I promise if you practice like this, your communication skills and your responses to customers will become wow habits and you’ll undoubtedly book more calls.

This week, choose one principle you have a hard time with and practice using it. Again, think of situations where you can use it, or where it would help you, and role-play those situations with someone. Learn better call handling and communication skills. Forge new habits that will help you achieve your end goal. Then, when you get on the phone, focus on using the things you’ve practiced. Once you do this, you’ll increase the number of calls you book and wow your customers.

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