Bill Hanifin
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If you live in America, I hope you are taking a day off to celebrate the birth of our country with family, friends, food and fireworks.
If you’re in the business of creating customer loyalty for your brand or organization, it’s a good day to make a distinction between what we celebrate today as citizens of the USA and what we are hoping to achieve in business.
The dictionary defines loyalty as “faithfulness to commitments or obligations” or “faithful adherence to a sovereign, government, leader, or cause”. Some deep thinkers contest that loyalty is something that can be shown only to persons, not to institutions or things.
On a personal level, I believe we’re all cognizant of building loyalty among those persons close to us including those we work with on a daily basis. Walking out characteristics of honesty, reliability, and trustworthiness are steps on the path to the ultimate goal.
The Bible gives us this standard of measurement, “Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends”. If you have friends or family members who have served in the military, you can attest to the wisdom of this statement, no matter your faith or beliefs.
The standards of loyalty which Americans celebrate today transcend any comparison I could make to database marketing in hopes of getting the next transaction or building wallet share. But there is a pearl of wisdom here to consider when we think of how we, as business-people, treat our partners, employees, suppliers, shareholders, even our competitors.
If we live our days by putting others first, seeking to treat them fairly as we hope to be treated, i.e. “the Golden Rule”, we might be surprised to find that others seek out our counsel and deliver us an added degree of respect.
Both are the seeds of true loyalty that can become a real business asset and help us stand out among others in a crowded market.
Happy Independence Day!
