Episode #119: Built With Love – Your Product

Finding Your Groove With Kathleen Thompson

My brother-on-law made me an Irish whistle holder that was work of art. What made it different? It was built with love. You know it feels when you buy or are given something that’s made with love? It’s completely different from something that was made to be purely useful – or cost effective. Today we’re talking about why it’s important and how to build what you make with love.

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On This Episode

Rhythm of Life – Smoke Gets in What?
Random Riffs – Let’s Call it What it Is
Feature Segment – Built With Love –Your Product

Today’s Quote

Nothing is so common-place as to wish to be remarkable. – Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

Rhythm of Life – Smoke Gets in What?

I’m standing in the kitchen preparing to make blueberry jam. All I have left to do before actually making the jam is to boil the water that will seal the jars. The first time I made jam this year, I used a tall stock pot with a vegetable steamer. This time, I’m using the actual canning pot, which is huge.

Listen to the episode to hear what happened – before I even started cooking! Oh, and I wrote some new words to an old song, which you can also hear.

Random Riffs – Let’s Call it What it Is

Clark Howard, a consumer advocate on the radio, talks a lot about “customer-no-service”. Well, I had my own experience with that this week. Listen to the episode to hear what happened.

If you’re responsible for or participate in customer service, how about making it an actual service? Why not mean what you say, rather than telling people what you think they want to hear and not acting on it? Remember – it’s not what you say you love, but what you actually do that matters.

Feature Segment: Built With Love – Your Product

I asked my brother-in-law to make me a holder for my Irish whistles. I wanted to have them standing up so I can quickly pick one up and play it exactly when I need it. And Kevin made me one. But it isn’t just a whistle holder. It’s a work of art. Because he built it with love. For the craft. For the wood.

On this episode, we’re talking about building what you make with love. How it makes all the difference in how people perceive it. Feel about it. People don’t love what works. They expect that. People love what gets built with love.

Zappos Shoes is known for their customer service. They build that with love.

Dinners at the Farm is known for their exquisite farm-to-table dinners. Every aspect of the meal is built with love – from planning, to cooking, to serving.

These businesses are so remarkable that people talk about them. They share with their friends. That’s one way to tell that you’ve built something with love. People talk about it – in a good way.

Two authors have written about this.

Seth Godin – Purple Cow

Jay Baer – Talk Triggers

According to a study done by Examination Labs in 2017, 19% of all consumer purchases in the US were directly caused by word-of-mouth activity. And business-to-business referrals had even greater impact.

A purple cow and talk trigger put you in a category of one. Even if there’s tons of what seems like competition.

Of course there still has to be substance behind the purpleness. No one would care about a purple cow after the first 30 seconds if doesn’t give good milk. Remarkable looks must be backed by remarkable action

Purple cow and talk triggers are great, and explain what helps word-of-mouth to spread. But built with love goes even deeper than that. Love a powerful word. And building what you make with love can be even more profound than purple cow.

How can that love manifest itself? –In the WHY. Why this matters to you and anyone using what you make. The WHY shoes the love. It’s actually the WHY you love most. It’s what you’re willing to go to the mat for.

Andy Andrews often says that he can’t stand the term “best practices”. He says they’re built by consensus with people who are merely above average. Those should be the baseline. People who want to build with love should think WAY past best practices to get to extraordinary. Seth Godin says this too.

Think of what you’d like to build with love. Ask yourself – what would look like if it was 10 times better than it is now?

Now Kevin didn’t have to make my whistle holder so beautiful. You don’t have to do any of this either. It’s your choice.

But it’s magical when love is added to mix. So what’s it going to be? Are you in? Leave a comment.

It takes a greater commitment. Especially when you feel like you can’t go against the tide. You can. Find a way. Keep love alive. Build what you make with love.

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You know how it feels to buy something built with love? Give that feeling to someone else.
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Built With Love Series

115 – Built With Love
116 – What is Love?
117 – Your Team
118 – Your Culture

The post Episode #119: Built With Love – Your Product first appeared on Kathleen Ann Thompson.