In the service industry, awareness is a must. You have to be fully aware and fully present to give the level of service that makes people take notice and want more.  Walt Disney ~ "Do what you do SO WELL that they will want to see it again and BRING THEIR FRIENDS." Chances are your customers are doing business with some of the world's finest service organizations, and because of that, your company's service experiences will be compared. So you need to ask yourself, how do we measure up in comparison?

Many times during training and competition, an athlete will experience what I call "don't" thinking.  In "don't" thinking, people tell themselves what not to do.  For example, a hockey player with whom I work used to tell himself, "Don't screw this up, don't swing too hard, and don't hit the ice before the puck."  This type of thinking is not helpful, because by directing the mind to what is not supposed to be done, it increases the likelihood that the athlete will feel stress and anxiety.  This state, in turn, makes it harder to pay attention to the task at hand, and thus people are more prone to do exactly what they were hoping to prevent.

- Jason Selk, 10-Minute Toughness

Customer service is measured by how you "show up," and how you present yourself in graphics impacts your service impression.  So what if you aren’t a Graphic Designer and have zero experience with editing image files and creating something that is visually attractive.  I have a simple solution for you that requires very little learning, and it does not depend upon the use of expensive software. Microsoft PowerPoint (yes, PowerPoint!) gives you just what you need to do some very basic design. What’s better? In less than 6 minutes, I can show you how to do some of the basics in 3 very quick videos.

The secret to developing win/win solutions is to listen to the people closest to the problem, recognizing that their honest input and insight are vital to team effectiveness.

-John J. Murphy, Pulling Together

As a mother, I often tell my girls to always consider each side of a story and to be cautious about thinking that everyone understands things as they do. This lesson could certainly be used in the service industry. In all of our businesses, internally we "talk" a language that only "we" understand. It may be acronyms, certain words that have double meanings, numbers, etc. Several of my team members can speak an entire sentence using acronyms, and I would understand, but of course, our customers would not. An acronym that we use everyday is SPT, which we call "Spit" and is a very important database/program. Telling our customers that we "will check the 'Spit' to confirm their project status" would no doubt cause confusion. 

“If one does not understand a person, one tends to regard him as a fool” ― C.G. Jung 

You need to set your goals and define your limits before the actual negotiation begins.  After you know your goals and limits, you can decide on your opening offer.  Your goals and limits carry you right to the end of the negotiation, enabling you to decide when to close a deal and when to walk away.  The very process of setting limits gives you power in a negotiation, because the process forces you to focus on what else you will do if you fail to reach an agreement.  I call that your or else.

-Michael C. Donaldson, Negotiating for Dummies