I’ll Be Waiting

I’ll be waiting for a change
I’ll be waiting for a sign
I’ll be waiting for a voice
I’ll be waiting for a moment in time …

I’ll be waiting to know
I’ll be waiting to feel
I’ll be waiting to hear
I’ll be waiting to see a change …

I’ll be waiting patiently
I’ll be waiting quietly
I’ll be waiting knowingly
I’ll be waiting at long last …

I’ll be waiting for a change
I’ll be waiting to know
I’ll be waiting patiently
I’ll be waiting for you …

               Author:  Stacie Lykins

Where is your pot of gold?

Most businesses think of only their customers/clients as their “pot of gold”.  A slight adjustment of thought & inquisitiveness could prove beneficial for management.  While customers & clients are essential to any business, without the dedication and hardwork from employees, there would be no business to tend.

March is “Employee Spirit Month”.  Show your employees your appreciation for all they do.  Reward them with their very own “pot of gold”!

An article from Harriet Meyerson of www.ConfidenceCenter.com

Irish folklore includes a legend that says if you
can find the end of a rainbow there will be a pot
of gold there guarded by leprechauns.

With that in mind, here’s a delicious employee
morale booster to make your employees feel valued
and appreciated.

1. Buy Hershey’s Nuggets that are wrapped in gold
paper, or any candy wrapped in gold paper.

2. Put the candy in a clear plastic bag.

3. Write a not of appreciation on an index card
that has been folded in half, and punch a hole in
the corner.

4. Tie it to the bag using gold ribbon.

5. Give them to your employees who will treasure
your Pound of Gold rewards.

7 Ways to Make a Client Feel Important

Customers are people first.

This means that each of your clients, like everyone else, wants to feel important. It a universal truth – we all want that feeling, and will gravitate towards those that make us feel that way.

Hint: Having Customers gravitate towards you is a very good thing.

Here are seven ways that you as an individual, regardless of any corporate policies or systems, can make Customers feel more important, written from the Customer’s perspective:

Please use my name. I know I may have a Customer or registration number and that I might need to give that to you. But I also know that once you put that number in the system, you know my name. Use it. If I hand you my credit card, now you know my name too. Please use it.

I want to be a part of the “in” crowd. That’s why I like being invited into Frequent Flyer clubs, frequent buyer clubs or anything that provides me with discounts, special services, education or surprises. If you have this kind of club, invite me to join. If you don’t have one yet, please think about starting one.

Ask me for my advice. I have an opinion, and if asked in the right way, at the right time, when I know you really care about the answer, I’ll give you that advice. Opinion cards may be OK, but I would love to be asked personally. Give me the chance to tell you what I think, and I’ll reward you with more of my business. I don’t often get asked for my opinion and it feels good. And who knows, you might even get a great idea for a new product or service.

Acknowledge me. I know you are busy sometimes. I can see the line. I even understand that your system might be down, or that you have five people in the phone queue. I’ve been there, I work too. But when I call or come by, acknowledge that I am there and let me know you are glad I’m in the line. A smile and a hello, or a “We’ll be with you shortly” will go a long way. Acknowledge me and I’ll understand. Ignore me, and well, how do you feel when you’ve been ignored?

Surprise me. A little extra something with my order or a hand written note would be nice. A special discount “just because” or a free sample of dessert. It doesn’t have to be a big thing, and it doesn’t have to be every time. If you get a good surprise, do you want to share it with others? Me too.

Apologize. I hate it when people try to prove they were right, or don’t mention that fact that the order is three days late, or the surcharge can’t be removed, or the item is out of stock. But again, I know things do happen. When things do go wrong though, please give me a simple apology. Here’s the funniest thing. When you make a mistake, and then apologize (perhaps even including a surprise of some sort) I’ll love you more than ever. Apologies and good service recoveries are so rare that you can take my dissatisfaction and turn it into loyalty, if you will do this right.

Listen. Most all of the other things I’ve told you require you to listen. I can tell when you are really listening to me and that makes me feel very good – because true listening is rare, sometimes even at home. Listen to my concerns. Listen to my ideas. Listen to my order, so we don’t have any misunderstandings. When you really listen, you can’t believe how good that makes me feel.

All of us can do most of these things each day. When we do we will make our work more enjoyable, easier, and quite likely will begin creating legions of loyal Customers immediately.

And before you go, read these seven things again, with the voice of one of your Customers in your head, as a reminder of how you can make each of your Customers feel more important.

Kevin Eikenberry is a leadership expert and the Chief Potential Officer of The Kevin Eikenberry Group (http://KevinEikenberry.com), a learning consulting company. To receive a free Special Report on leadership that includes resources, ideas, and advice go to http://www.kevineikenberry.com/leadership.asp or call us at (317) 387-1424 or 888.LEARNER.

Obstacles & Challenges

A healthy dose of positive encouragement is a necessity in our daily lives.  Know options are always available, if we are open to thinking outside the box, is comforting and can bring a sense of peace to what is often relayed as something negative and not within our reach. 

Here is a quote that reaches out to encourage you to know that while there will always be obstables and challenges, we have the power to still reach our dreams.

“When obstacles arise, you change your direction to reach your goal, you do not change your decision to get there.”  ~Zig Ziglar

Enhancing Your Integrity

Here are two questions definitely worth pondering:

Am I a trustworthy leader? What makes me think so?

Excerpt from Management Insights: Discovering the Truths to Management Success  by David Cottrell, Ken Carnes & Mark Layton

The authors remind us that building employee trust is critical to leadership effectiveness – and the pathway to that trust is integrity.

Action Steps for Enhancing Your Integrity

• Establish integrity as your top priority. Make it the cornerstone of all your actions and decisions.
• Never compromise your integrity by rationalizing a situation as an “isolated incident.” People are watching everything you do – there are no “isolated incidents.” Firmly decide where your boundaries are, communicate those boundaries, and then stay within them.
• Never allow achieving results to become more important than the means to their achievement. For long-term sustained results, how you win is just as important as winning, itself.
• For greater success as a leader, maintain your integrity and keep earning employee trust by continually asking yourself these three questions:
  • 1. Are integrity and trust my top priorities? Do I subject my life and work to the highest scrutiny each and every day?
  • 2. Are there areas of conflict between what I believe, what I say, and how I behave?
  • 3. Has compromise crept into my day-to-day life … “under the radar”?

Lifesavers in the ocean of infertility

It’s been said that many professionals within the field of infertility, especially that of third-party reproduction, are thought to be lifesavers, almost God-like.  You know …. the be all, end all.  Your clients or patients seek you out as their “last hope” to make their dream a reality and you eagerly set out the lifesavers in the ocean of infertility. 

Let’s face it.  These clients/patients have dwindling hope and you … their lifesaver … are eager to express ability and value to your knowledge and experience.  With confidence, you’re prepared to provide the necessary testing, evaluations, exams, procedures, legal paperwork, screenings, etc. all the while showing your empathetic and compassionate concern.  So these clients do as you ask.  They gather paperwork, hunt down important medical records, inject themselves daily, succumb to  embarrasing ”to-do’s” and procedures not to mention the million questions, provide sample after sample of DNA and blood draws, sign this & that, fork over the deed to their home, their life savings AND sometimes the life savings of their relatives …. so they have one more attempt to make their dream of a family a reality.

Then someone drops the bombshell.  “Mr. & Mrs. Jones …. the results look promising …. IF you use a gestational carrier. ”  A what?  A who? You have just gone from “be all, end all” to …. “some help YOU are!”.  Your clients are then sent home to “surf the web” for information about surrogacy, egg donation and the like.  If you or your staff can think of it, there might be some literature around the office about an agency or two that might be able to help them out.  Of course, this is not your specialty so why should YOU have to EDUCATE your client on how a surrogacy comes to be; how all the parties finally come together to make a dream come true?

There’s not a rule that states you must help educate and prepare your client(s) / patients to make informed decisions about how they will bring a child into this world via a third party.  That’s not YOUR job right? However, wouldn’t it be great if your clients/patients looked you in the eye at the end of their 12-15-18-24 month journey and said to you, “Thank you for caring enough about us as human beings to have suggested such great contacts (Partners for Fertility).  Because you cared, we were able to see the value in educating ourselves on third-party reproduction, find a carrier who met our desires and needs, experience an involved pregnancy, labor and delivery and finally become parents.  We’d like to introduce you to …. <insert your name here>, Jr.!  Oh and by the way, Partners for Fertility provided invaluable services.  From helping us to find just the right agency to being at the hospital for the delivery.  It took so many people to make this work and in the end, our dream came true!  We can’t thank you enough!!”

Infertility clients and patients all want two things at the end of the day. 
#1 – to have a child
#2 – to be shown compassion and empathy for their particular circumstances
Your desire to help them succeed from beginning to end, demonstrates your compassion and empathy.  Helping them to educate themselves and making different options available  so they can make informed choices as to what is the right plan of action for them, speaks volumes.  And trust me when I say …. they WILL remember either your kindness or your lack of concern.

Options and choices are things every human being desires.  Third-party reproduction generally strips an individual of most of these.  Will you be a lifesaver?  Give your clients & patients what they desire & deserve …. options & choices. 

                                                 by:  Stacie Lykins
                                                          Director
                                                          Partners for Fertility.
                                                          Partners4Fertility.com

Hello World!

It’s official!  Partners for Fertility is open for business and we’re excited to begin this journey.  We look forward to helping others cross “Bridges to Baby”.  Won’t you join us on this exciting venture?  The first of it’s kind, P4F’s focus is to help support those professionals who work within the fertility and infertility fields with a specialized focus on surrogacy-related issues and relationships. 

Please visit us at http://www.partners4fertility.com or call us at 352.455.2009.  We would love to hear from you and how we can help YOU succeed!

To your success,
Stacie Lykins & Anne Berglund