NEW Rules for the NEW Game of Business
An Excerpt from John Assaraf interviewing Mitch Axelrod
JA: Let’s talk about one other area, the difference in small and big businesses. One of your new game mantras is “Love serve and love some more.” That is a very, very different approach with a mantra, especially in this world, you use “love serve, love some more.” Where are we going with this, buddy?
MA: I couldn’t get away with that fifteen years ago. I’d have been laughed out of the offices where I went in.
I’ve seen an evolution. You and I have talked about the science of axiology, the science of human values. A model I developed I call the hierarchy of human interaction. If you look at this one thing right here what I’m going to tell you has changed businesses around completely. The hierarchy is a three dimensional model.
The hierarchy from bottom to top is:
Obey, Serve, and Love. Let me explain.
MA: There are the three levels of human interaction:
The lowest level of human interaction is when you call up a company for service, you want a problem solved and you hear those dreaded words, “I’m sorry, Mr. Assaraf, that’s our policy here. Those are the rules. Those are our procedures.”
Just the words themselves make my skin crawl. That’s the lowest level of human interaction that ninety percent of the businesses out there are playing at meaning they spend more time trying to get the customer to understand why they can’t help the customer because they have their rules.
The policy approach to customer human interaction is the lowest level. Unfortunately, most companies do that. You will transform your business if you just up-level one level to service. Instead of saying, “Sorry, that’s our policy here” say,
“How can I help you? How can I serve you?”
Companies literally transformed their customer service with this question. And this is one of the things that we show companies how to do which has had such an enormous effect.
How do you convert customer service from an expense department into a new business profit center? When somebody comes and calls for service, never, ever put your rules and policies ahead of serving the customer, unless there is some potential legal liability. But if there is anything other than some legal ramifications, always put serving ahead of obeying.
You could stop there and transform your company. But here’s the highest level of human interaction; it is love. It’s the difference of saying to somebody, “How can I serve you?” which is a great thing to do in going through the process and listening to somebody and saying, “You know what, John, I really understand you. I understand how you feel.”
That shift to compassion, empathy, understanding, sympathizing with people, even if you heard that complaint fifty times that day, people will overlook bad service when they feel they are cared about. The thing that has resonated with me and for a lot of people I’ve shared it with, I do what I do for one reason, I play the game for the love of the game.
I believe that The New Game of Business is about playing the game for the love of the game. Why? Because it’s not just business, it’s personal. People love to be cared for. They’ll overlook mistakes. They’ll overlook bad policies. They’ll overlook most anything if you care about them. The insurance industry did a study; they realized that eighty percent of the customers would buy again if one thing happened that’s not happening. You’re not going to believe what it is–if the agent would just show up.
This mantra “love serve and love some more”, is almost like love until it hurts. I’m not saying that this should be a Polly Anna approach. This is a very pragmatic philosophy and strategy of business. People warm up to it. People respond to it because there are so few experiences out there that we have in the course of our lives that we can point to and say, “That person cared about me. That person served me and that person did everything they could and they did it in the spirit of love.” You know when somebody is doing something in the spirit of love and caring and serving as opposed to just doing it because they have to. That’s become one of my new mantras.
JA: It’s interesting because there is evidence when we love a plant, animal, or human, the response is great. One of the hierarchy of human need is love. We beg for it from the time we are born. Without it we become so small, we don’t grow and we don’t mature. I think you’re one hundred percent right, in the game of business we can love our customers. We can show them respect and love and kindness and compassion and in doing that we appeal to a higher sense of humanity. I’ve always believed that.
I was fortunate that my business partners we very, very successful, not just because they were smart businessmen but because they really cared about people and people knew that and everybody wanted to do business with them. To this day everybody wants to do business with them.
I think, by the way, Mitch, you have a book right there with your pyramid, “Love Serve Obey, The New Rules for Business in America.” “Love Serve Obey” with a great tag line underneath, “The New Rules for Business in America.” Huge. Just a thought for you.
MA: Thank you, John. I appreciate it. You know we’re all too close to our own stuff.
JA: It’s so unique. For those of you listening, I hope you don’t mind, there’s a great idea of how do you separate yourself, how do you differentiate yourself? Nobody is doing that in corporate America right now. Guess what, it’s what they need to hear. Every single business from a one-man operation or one-woman operation all the way up, if they follow the Love Serve Obey model, business would transform.
MA: Yes. And you know what? People get hung up on the words, they get hung up on, “Did I say the right thing?” What I try to do with people is say, “Just relax because when you’re coming from Love and Serve, people get it.” And you could make a mistake just to see how people would respond and apologize for the mistake and people will bend over backwards. You’re absolutely right.
And if you buy into the idea that it’s not just business, it’s personal, then love is actually good for business. It would be wonderful if it spread not just in terms of the client, the customer business relationship, but if companies who I believe a lot of major corporations have if companies could start appreciating their human assets as human beings, not just points on a balance sheet, they would never lose anybody. People want to be cared for and they want to be cared about and that’s really got to start from the CEO down.
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