You CAN make a difference

A number of years ago, 2005 to be precise, Ken Blanchard and Barbara Glanz published a short book called “Johnny the Bagger.” It is based on a story than Ms. Glanz used in her talks. Her signature, for her customer service talks, was a room surrounded on all sides by colorful posters. She told stories about customer service examples in business and had highlights on the colorful posters.

One of the stories started with her receiving a call from a front line employee from a supermarket. She had spoken to the supermarket in the previous month. The call came from a 19 year old bagger named Johnny. Johnny told her he had Down’s Syndrome, he was proud of it, and that he didn’t think that he could do much to impact customer service. Then he told her about an idea he had.

He said that when he would come home from work he would think of saying he liked and if he couldn’t think of one he would make one up. With the help of his father he would write the idea on a piece of paper 6 times and each night they would print off 50 copies. He cut out each quote and wrote his name on the back.

When he got to work he put the slips in a bag where he worked and put one in teh customers each bag after he had finished packing up the groceries for them. Isn’t that fantastic? My wish for each of you is that you have a wonderful weekend and that you can each find such an idea to influence the people in your world on a daily basis.

A month later the Store Manager called Barbara. He told her a story. He was making his rounds one day and noticed that one of the lines at the checkout stand was three times longer than any other. He called for more cashiers. But no one moved from the line. He started asking and they told him they wanted to get Johnny’s thought of the day. Well as you can imagine the concept spread and before you knew it customers were being pinned with flowers that could not be sold. A Snoopy decal was used at the meat stand. All kinds of things happen.

It is many times the smallest things that can sometimes make the largest impact. Are you able to think of something that would influence your world as significantly? The time is now.