Search

Mark Eastman

Is Real Customer Service a Thing of the Past?

by

 

It Doesn’t Have to Be

 

Customer service is a term that has been thrown around a lot. It’s often a marketing slogan rather than a core value. In this fast paced, information overloaded time that we’re living in, it’s easier now than ever to become part of the noise and make unrealistic promises.


Customer service is found in the heart, not the head.


When running a business, it’s easy for our focus to be on the bottom line rather than the customer, not that bottom line isn’t important. Bottom line is head thinking. Heart thinking is about serving the customer’s needs. It’s finding out what the customer’s goals are and helping them achieve them.


We all tend to naturally lean in one direction or the other, heart or head. It’s important for us to be clear which we are and adjust accordingly. Once we acknowledge that we can compensate accordingly.

 


If we’re operating our business well, both heart and head will be in sync.

 

 

The problem with heart thinking is that in an effort to help the customer achieve their dream, we over promise. We create unrealistic expectations and then when they aren’t accomplished there is disappointment. We need to be clear with customers and ourselves on what’s realistic and share that with them honestly.


Customer service is not about telling them what they want to hear. It’s about telling them the truth. It is hard to tell someone things that they don’t want to hear, but that’s better than telling them a lie. This kind of honesty is hard for a people pleaser like me. By wanting to help everybody with everything, ultimately, I do the customer and myself both a disservice.


This past week I encountered both sides of the customer service experience.


First – Our air conditioner at home quit one night this past week. The next morning, I made a few calls to HVAC contractors that I use as subs. The only one that answered his phone said that he was busy until later in the day. Then in a few minutes he called back and said that he could be out within the hour. Once there, he diagnosed the problem, it was going to require a new part that he could order and have the next day. Or if I would go to Wichita and get the part he would come back out and put it on. I did and he did, by 1:00 that afternoon the AC was working. Thanks Jim Finney with Finney Heating & Air for great customer service.


Second – I was meeting with a customer about a project that was going to include some painting. I have done a lot of work with this customer over the years and several of them included painting. While talking about the painting the customer told me they didn’t want “that painter” to do the work. When I asked why, they told me about some issues on some separate painting projects they had used him on. These consisted of using lower quality paint than they thought they were getting, scheduling delays, and lying. They had been working with him on a parent’s home painting project that the start date had drug out over two years. They even said they would have been okay with the timetable if the contractor had just been upfront and honest with them.

 

 


We need to start by being honest with ourselves. Figure out who we are and who our customer should be. We can’t’ be everything to everybody and we shouldn’t try.

 

This Is the Best Tired I’ve Ever Been

by

 

Being Exhausted Is Great If You Can See Positive Results

 

Being worn out at the end of a day of hard work is very rewarding. I’ve experienced this feeling after doing construction, working on mission trips, developing business systems, or writing blog posts. We’re made to experience this sense of exhausted exhilaration after an accomplishment.

 

Working through pain and fatigue to accomplish a goal is a superpower.


What we need to remember is where our superpowers come from. Corrie ten Boom uses a story about a woodpecker to make this point. “A woodpecker pecked the trunk of a tree, like they do. At that very moment lightning struck the tree and destroyed it, and the woodpecker flew away saying, ‘I didn’t know that there was so much power in my beak.’ I ask you, do you have the Holy Spirit, or does the Holy Spirit have you?”

 

 

Just like the woodpecker, we can do great things. But when lighting strikes, we need to remember Who split the tree.


Having superpowers doesn’t mean that every great thing we do has to be big. God can take the small things and use them for great. Pastor Lee told a story about a teenage girl who had grown up in a bad situation. After having tried to commit suicide she was meeting with a pastor. While sitting in the pastor’s office she saw the church’s youth pastor and his new wife holding hands and walking to their car. When they got there, he opened the door for her. The teenager said to the pastor, “That’s the kind of family I want.”


The actions of this young couple was a form of superpower and they weren’t aware it was being used, but it was. The small actions that had a big impact. We have the same kind of opportunities to use our superpowers every day, but it does no one any good if we don’t use them.


Actions speak louder than words.


There was a group of college students that grew up…shall we say spoiled. They hadn’t been expected to work any up to this point. While at college they signed to go on a mission trip without really knowing how hard and physical it would be. After returning from the trip while walking across the parking lot to their cars one of them said, “This is the best tired I’ve ever been.”


If you haven’t used your superpowers lately don’t let them go to waste.

 

How to Achieve Your Desired Life Results

by

 

Not to be Confused with Goal Setting

 

 

I think most of the time goal setting is seen the same way as budgeting – restricting, confining, controlling, restraining, and limiting. This is the opposite of how either should be seen.

 


Both should serve as a plan for intentionally building the life of your dreams.


Do you have a plan for what you want your dream life to be? I bet you do, we all do. Sometimes, for whatever reason, we choose to ignore these dreams, to push them down and forget them. Maybe it’s because we’ve had our dreams shattered or after years of waiting, we just gave up. Whatever the reason, you can decide to make that dream a reality or give up on it.

 


I remember years ago, before I knew about Dave Ramsey and Financial Peace University, I didn’t like the idea of budgeting. I thought it would keep me from being free to spend money or have fun. Then after going through the class and beginning to budget, I found it to be the opposite. I then had a plan for spending, it gave me more freedom than I had before. Budgeting actually gave me more control of my money.


Goal setting can give you more control of your life.


Our perception of words is part of the problem. We connect our own experiences with words which creates our own individual perspective. Goals is one of those words. Like budgeting, goals can feel constraining. Like budgeting, the opposite is the case.

 

 


Look at the negative, comedic way New Year’s resolutions are viewed. This is a good example of how the lack of intentionality is misleading. When we get caught up in the rhetoric we will just float through life without a plan. If we don’t bother to dig down and build our lives on a solid foundation, we will be blown in whatever direction the wind blows us.

 


A goal is a desired result. A desired result sounds good.


I don’t know of anyone who doesn’t want to achieve their desired results. If we are to live this life we have been given to the fullest, we need to be intentional to do all that we can to achieve the results God has planned for us.


 

Another problem with goal setting is that it can become overwhelming. Most of us have way more dreams and goals than we can ever get done. We built this mountain of things that we want to do. We’re the ones who let it get this big and we’re the ones who can make it smaller. To keep it from feeling so daunting we need to focus on one shovel full at a time rather than the whole thing.


We can’t blame anyone but ourselves for the size of our mountain.

 

It’s also important to remember that if we always set our goals small, we will never grow. We need to be growing and learning all the time. If your goals are always reached, then they aren’t big enough.

 


God has put a life dream in each of us. If we want to achieve it, we need to plan it. It doesn’t matter what you call it, what matters is that you do it. The mountain can be moved, it isn’t too big.


What matters is to align our plan with God’s and start shoveling.

God Does Not Call the Qualified

by

 

Rather, He Qualifies the Called

 

We have all been put here for a purpose. God has a plan for each of us. It is up to us to decide if we are going to act on that plan.


On our own, we feel unqualified and lacking, unable to do great things. The problem is that our perception of great, is a worldly one. We think is has to be some super big amazing thing. Our great may be opening the door for someone, serving on a committee, weeding a flower bed, running a business, or any other of a thousand things we can do to make others’ lives better.

 


Whatever our purpose, God has given us everything we need to accomplish it. It’s up to us to decide if we’ll use it or not.

 


Albert Einstein’s formula E=MC2 was evident in nuclear energy and we all know how powerful that is. Using this formula, it was determined that 1 gram of matter can produce enough energy to power a 100-watt light bulb for 30,000 years. Based on these calculations a 100-pound person (45359 grams) would be able to generate enough energy to power a 100-watt bulb for 1,360,770,000 years, yes that’s 1.36 billion. I don’t think we’re living up to our potential.

 


We have so much power at our disposal and we neglect to use it. We go through life without focus.

 

Author, philanthropist and life coach, Tony Robbins uses a racing analogy that shows how we go in the direction of our focus. “When your car begins to skid, the natural reflex is look at the wall in an attempt to avoid it. But if you keep focusing on what you fear, that’s exactly where you’ll end up. Professional racers know that we unconsciously steer in the direction of our focus, so with their lives on the line, they turn their focus away from the wall and towards the open track.”


You don’t need to be qualified; you just need to be willing and focus. God will take care of the rest.

A Day by Day Accounting of The Dog Playground Project

by

 

And What a Fun and Challenging Project It Was

 

We all expect things to take less time than they usually do. It’s no different when building an “out of the box” project like a dog playground.


Last week I wrote about the expansion and updating of Prairie Paws Lodging’s facility and what the project consisted of. This week we will review the daily accomplishments and struggles.

 


Preconstruction activities – Before onsite work could go too far, we needed to finalize what materials/processes would be used for the out of the ordinary construction. Some of this was addressed in last week’s solution. 


One challenge that we didn’t talk about was the need for 50-60 railroad ties. Our supplier wasn’t sure he had that many and couldn’t get more for a couple of weeks. I made a couple of calls and found more if we needed them.


With all the wet weather we’ve had, my go to trucking companies were behind schedule. This presented another major challenge, if we couldn’t get the sand and gravel we needed we weren’t going to accomplish much. Once again having the right connections we were put in contact with Dave Williams of D&Ts Hauling & Excavating, Dave came to the rescue and got us what we needed before we needed it.


Day 1 Monday – We began the day by gathering the first load of railroad ties and skid loader and got them to the job site. We disconnected and removed the portions of the existing fencing that would be relocated. Next we moved the existing pipe framed structure that served as a covered area for the existing run, this was also going to be reused.


The layout of the railroad ties was measured and marked. We placed the first few ties and filled between them with 4”-5” of fill sand and then 2”-3” of ¾” gravel flush with the top of the ties. This brought us out 8’-10’ along the 48’ long east side of the run.

 


Day 2 Tuesday – We started by picking up the concrete culvert and delivering it to the site. Then we picked up where we left off and laid a couple rows of ties west to approximately where they were going to stop. We filled between them with the sand and gravel as before. Then we moved a roll of artificial turf to the raised pad where the building was going to sit and rolled it out.


Day 3 Wednesday – It rained overnight and made things too muddy for onsite work so, I took used the time for organizing and planning.


Day 4 Thursday – We laid rest of the east-west rows of ties, spread more fill and moved the remaining rolls of turf to the areas where the pad was prepped. I began digging the hole in the sand and gravel for the paw shaped pool to set in. To minimize future settling and give us the best base we began compacting with a vibrating compactor. This meant we needed to temporarily roll the first turf back out of the way of the compactor. It wasn’t fastened yet, so this wasn’t much of an issue.

 


Day 5 Friday – We picked up another load of ties first thing today. Then it was more ties, more sand, more gravel, more compacting, and more turf. We cut the ends of the concrete culvert smooth and set it in place. Today we got the first roll of turf lined up, squared up and stapled in place. We knew we were going to be short of sand. I called Dave and he wasn’t going to be able to get any today.


Day 6 Saturday – Dave called me and said he could get me the sand I needed. Thanks again Dave. We began by picking up 35 bags of Quikrete to use for building and shaping the hill. The first thing we did on site was move the building back into place. This was done by temporarily fastening some 2x6s to the ties over the turf to serve as skids, this went well. After it was in place, we pulled the temporary skids and bolted it down to the ties. We spent a big portion of the day designing and building ends for the tunnel/hill out of treated 2×6 tongue and groove. After they were built, we began stacking Quikcrete bags and filling around them with sand and gravel. We ran a few bags short of being able to finish the hill.

 


Day 7 Sunday – No work today, it’s the Lord’s.


Day 8 Monday – It’s getting closer, but still much to do. More ties, more sand, more gravel, more compacting. We finished the hill with the extra bags of Quikrete, sand and gravel. The west side got an additional row of cross ties for future pens to sit on. We rolled out the turf to go over the hill and cut it as needed. Then we rolled out the last roll of turf and cut it around the building offset, remaining gate post and pool. All the turf seams were taped, and the perimeters were stapled down with a few exceptions in areas that needed some special attention.


Day 9 Tuesday – Things are coming together. We reset the chain link fence in the new location, reattached the remaining fence to the building, hung the panels back in the end of the building. Using up the last of the ties, most of the sand, last of the gravel, and we built a raised pad for the new private cottage to sit on. Due to the elevation around the cottage pad we installed some drain tile to one of the downspouts on the original building and buried it in gravel to prevent water from becoming a pond. Next we moved the cottage onto the new pad.


Before we left Ann had dogs out playing in the new yard.

 

Day 10 Wednesday – We did some backfilling around the outside of the ties with the left-over sand and dirt. Loaded up and moved onto the next project.


There are still a few things to finalize. The fire hydrant fountain still needs to be plumbed, but we haven’t got the hydrant yet. I need to install a window AC unit in the new cottage. As is usually the case there will probably be a few more things that might come up.

 

 

I hope this challenging project will give Ann many years of service and her boarders many years of fun and exercise.

Who Are You at War With?

by

 

It Doesn’t Have to Be That Way

 

A very successful businessman had succeeded at achieving most of his goals both business and personal. Yet, he still struggled with feelings of depression and anxiety. While in a hotel room on a business trip he became so depressed that he considered taking his life. As he sat there struggling with why he felt the way he did after all his success, he asked God, “Is this a joke?” Then he heard a voice say, “It doesn’t have to be that way.”

 

We can find ourselves fighting internal battles trying to figure out why things aren’t the way we thought they would be. We all have our own demons causing trouble. Like the man in Luke 8:26-37, there is help in fighting these battles, but it’s up to us to acknowledge it. Jesus asked the demon for his name and they answered Legion, because there were many.

 


Knowledge is power and power is in the naming of something.

 


When we are clear about problems and name them, it’s less threatening when we know what it is. We want to blame somebody for our problems, but we need to be careful about this. There are three fights regularly picked that are unproductive. Don’t be at war with the wrong enemy.

 


1st – Don’t be at war with yourself. Many of us are harder on ourselves than anyone else. We blame ourselves for everything that is wrong in our life. We are extremely critical of not having accomplished all that we think we should.


2nd – Don’t be at war with other people. Maybe we are looking for somewhere else to lay the blame, so we point the finger at others. It’s not my fault so it has to be somebody else’s. We don’t want to take responsibility.


3rd – Don’t be at war with God. Life is full of difficulties and hardships. It’s not fair that this happened to me or that I was born this way. Whose fault is it? It must be God’s fault. We forget that we live in a fallen world full of battles.

 


Satan wants us to be at war with ourselves, our neighbors and God. This is what he does. We need to be clear on who the war is with.


Remember that you have the power to choose who you are going to be at war with. No matter what’s going on in your life, IT DOESN’T HAVE TO BE THAT WAY.

I Love A Good Challenge

by

And Building A Dog Playground Sure Is That

 

Challenging and abnormal projects must run in my family. I’ve written about the grain bin house we plan to build for my niece Hannah.

Avoid Feeling Like a Sardine in a Tiny House

How to Determine If Someone’s Trash Can Be Your Treasure

How to Dream Big in A Small Space

How Do You Make Your Dream Become A Reality?

The Next Chapter in “The Saga of the Grain-Bin Home”

 

Now her Mom, my sister Ann, has once again joined the out of the box project roster.


Ann owns and operates Prairie Paws Lodging, a pet boarding facility. When we built her building originally in 2016, we took into consideration future expansion. We currently are working on the first phase of this expansion. As per an earlier post the original ideas have changed. Rather than adding on to the existing building we are going to set individual private cottages made by Pinecraft. 


Part of this expansion project includes doubling the size of the existing dog run. This involves landscaping it with artificial turf and installing dog amenities…I’m talking fun stuff like a pool with a fountain, a tunnel, a hill and a rope attached to a flexible pole.


When we built the original facility, we looked for a way to make cleaning up after dogs easy while maintaining a natural look and feel. We accomplished this by installing artificial turf over an elevated bed of gravel bordered by used railroad ties. This allows for liquid to run through and solids to be cleaned up.


 

Due to the existing run being natural grass and in a naturally low area, it would get muddy in rainy spells. So, when considering the design for the expanded run, it was decided that we would give it the same artificial grass treatment as well as some new fun things for exercising and entertaining dogs.


The project consists of building a 2100 square foot raised pad. The construction consists of railroad ties around the perimeter in rows spaced 12’ apart. In between the ties will be a 4” thick layer of fill sand covered with a 3” layer of ¾” gravel. The gravel and sand will be compacted with a vibrating packer to minimize future settling of the sand/gravel fill. Artificial turf will be spread over the gravel and attached to the ties. The existing fence will need to be removed and reinstalled along with some additional fence. The existing steel pipe framed cover will need to be moved for the building of the raised pad and then moved back to its original location.


In one corner of the run there will be a small paw shaped pool with a fountain. This will require figuring out the best way to get the water from the pool to the pump and to the fountain. In the future there will be an old fire hydrant serving as the fountain, so this needs to be allowed for now.

 


The most challenging part is building the tunnel/hill. We needed to determine what we were going to use for this. We considered pipes, barrels, tanks with the ends cut out and a few other things. Then we found some concrete culverts and the price was right, so this is what we decided on.

 


With Ann having a commitment for the week of June 17th she had no dogs scheduled to be boarded. This provides a good opportunity to work on the project with minimal disruption to the normal boarding routine. With the challenges of this project it may take longer than a week, check back next week to see.


Check back next week to see a day by day progress of the project, the challenges faced and see how the finished project turns out.

It’s Not Easy to Be A Hall of Fame Dad

by

 

But Nobody Said It Was Going to Be

 

There’s a Hall of Fame for almost everything, that’s not to say that is an easy place to be inducted into. It does speak to the fact that we like being recognized for what we’re good at. What do you want to be good at?


With this past Sunday being Father’s Day, Pastor Lee spoke about the Dad’s Hall of Fame. Every Dad should want to be there, but not all will make it. Being a “Hall of Fame Dad” doesn’t require a biological connection, it just requires connection. This can be; step, adopted, grand, brother, uncle, church, etc.


Here are three things that should be done well, to be inducted into the “Dad Hall of Fame”:


Make time – Time is the hardest thing to give. There never seems to be enough. There are so many things…really good and important things…we neglect to set aside time for our children. When we get someone’s undivided attention, we feel validated and worthy. This is the one thing that all kids crave. If you want to get inducted into the hall of fame, spend time with your kids.

 

 

Teach the difference of right and wrong – There are too many kids growing up without father figures in their lives. Most single parent homes have a mother who is working to keep food on the table and a roof overhead. This leaves too many young people learning right and wrong from other young people. Growing up without a father is a problem that goes beyond just humans.


Teaching right and wrong is part of the natural order of things as shown in the Absence of Fathers: A Story of Elephants and Men 


Years ago, in the Kruger National Park and game reserve in South Africa, the elephant population had outgrown what the park could sustain. A plan was devised to relocate some of the elephants. This was done with a harness and a helicopter. Due to the size of the large bulls, the females and young males were the ones moved to another game reserve.

 


What happened later in the second game reserve was strange. Rangers began to find dead bodies of the endangered white rhinos. At first poachers were suspected, but the rhinos had not been shot or poached. It was discovered that they were being killed by a marauding band of aggressive juvenile male elephants…the ones relocated from Kruger. Something had gone terribly wrong.


What had been missing was a large dominant bull to provide a role model and keep the younger bulls in line. The rangers then moved some of the older bulls to the new location and within weeks the bizarre violent behavior of the juvenile elephants had stopped. The younger elephants just needed an older male to teach them the difference of right and wrong.


Show love – Love can be shown in many ways; the most important thing is that it’s shown. This means more than just saying it. Love is about putting other’s needs ahead of your own. The Bible is full of examples of our Heavenly Father’s love for us.

 

 


If we do these three things constantly and to the best of our ability our chances of being inducted into the “Dads Hall of Fame” improve greatly. It’s never too late to start, so get started!

 

 

Over Promising Is Easy When You Have A Servant’s Heart

by

 

But It’s Not A Good Business Plan

 

At the risk of sounding like (or writing like) a broken record I want to discuss the big issue of promising to do more than we can. I have written about this on several occasions focusing on different aspects of this struggle.

Five Ways to Stop Over Promising and Under Delivering

How to Create Realistic Expectations for Customers – Part 1

Honesty Is the Best Policy – I Don’t Care How Hard It Is 


I may be overly optimistic, but in my experiences most of the professionals that I work with and/or associate with are driven by a selfless desire to help others. This doesn’t mean that there aren’t selfish people out there, but I believe they are the minority.

 


The problem arises when overly zealous unachievable statements are made and then not followed through.


Much of the time the over promising is encouraged by the person receiving the promise. I know when given an answer that wasn’t what they wanted; customers have pushed me into saying things that I knew weren’t possible. I let them do this because I wanted to help them realize their dream.
I have done the same thing to my suppliers and subcontractors. When trying to achieve a schedule, I urged them to give me answers that both them and I knew they couldn’t meet. This isn’t right or fair to anyone involved.


I have been dealing with this ‘over promising’ issue a lot lately. It was echoed this past week when I listened to a Michael Hyatt podcast about “How to Delegate Even If You Don’t Have a Team”. It encouraged me to not give up on shoveling this particular mountain.


How do we solve this problem?


First thing is to figure out what works best for you. This may be the hardest part…I know it is for me. Not every idea or plan is going to fit your needs. We are all different and this means our systems will be too. I’ve tried different things and give up when they don’t work immediately. The most important thing is to persist.


Prioritize your to do list – This is probably the hardest thing for someone with a servant’s heart. Everything on the list is given ultimate importance and this is where the problem starts. There simply isn’t enough time to do everything. So how do we prioritize the list. Michael refers to the Eisenhower Matrix in the podcast. Like any system, it’s a good way to organize tasks, but only if you use it.


Delegate – Sharing the shovels needed to move any mountain is a good plan as long as you have someone to share them with. Delegating is a part of the productivity plan in the Eisenhower Matrix. There are a lot of unconventional ways that delegating can be done. Thinking outside the box is a great plan, you just can’t stop at the thinking, there has to be some doing. Michael shares ideas for this in his podcast as well.


Say NO – This is probably the hardest thing to do with a servant’s heart. We want to help everybody. The problem is there simply isn’t enough time to help everybody. Saying no is the only way we can do our best work, it’s the only way to serve well. The Lysa TerKeurst book, “The Best Yes”, is a great resource for helping to prioritize which things we say yes to and why. Most servants don’t want to tell others no but wouldn’t that be better than to give them an over promised yes.

 


When we attempt to help everybody, we really don’t do a good job of helping anybody.

 

We can have the best intentions when we say yes, but “The road to hell is paved with good intentions.” Unaccomplished good intentions are not the best way for us to truly serve others well.

Building Blocks in The Foundation of a Good Life

by

Communication, Commitment and Compassion Should Be Three of Them

 

Whether it’s a family, a business or your life you’re working on, these three C’s should be included in the foundation. They need to be included in your foundation if you are going to build well.


Communication – is not about just being heard but more importantly about hearing. We are surrounded by so much noise we can barely hear ourselves think. Today’s technology has made it easier than ever to connect with people around the world, but this isn’t ‘communication’.


Just like what happened on the day of Pentecost in Acts 2:1-13, when the Holy Spirit came to the Apostles. They began to speak and even though there were people from every country, they could each understand in their own language. Even though someone is speaking to us in a language that we know, are we really hearing and understanding?


Communication is more about listening than talking.

 

Commitment – is the level of which we are dedicated to a cause or activity. You’ve heard it said that actions speak louder than words. It certainly is easier to say we’re going to do something than it is to actually do it. We often say things before we evaluate what the action is going to cost.

 

The Hell’s Angels have a creed that they are family and they will live, fight and die together. Their purpose may not be the best, but they are definitely ‘committed’ to it.


Our commitment is revealed by where we spend our time and money.


Compassion – is when we show genuine concern for someone else’s situation. It is putting ourselves in their place, “walking in their shoes”. This is difficult, not because we don’t want to, but because we get consumed by our own lives.


Part of what we have been put here to do, our purpose, is to serve others. Serving others requires us to look at things from their point of view. What is it that they want or need and how can we best help them to achieve it?


Building your life with these three building blocks in the foundation will provide a solid life.