Last month I went into my bank a TD Canada Trust. I had a problem, I was getting charged 30 bucks a month in usage fees. I have a student account and that gives me 20 free transactions but apparently I need more and 30 bucks a month was killing me. I didn’t expect the bank to care but I decided to try and I was right initially  no one did care. I was blown away and I was pissed off but I’m not a yeller. I don’t believe in making a huge stink to get my point across. I’m somewhat naive in the sense that I’m a nice person and I’m willing to listen and communicate to solve a problem and I expect the same treatment back.

I decided to take another crack because not all banks could be so cynical right? I went to a different TD and they cared. (see below for some exerts from my eamil)

Great. I thought that was it. I sent a nice email about an employee that I had an amazing experience with to the manager because Lois was  someone that renewed my faith in customer service. That wasn’t it I got an amazing email back from the manager detailing her thanks and what was going to happen to the amazing lady that helped me.  Wow! Someone else cared, and turns out it was a company that cared.  That fact that I got an email back mattered.

Lois was incredible and I told someone. It’s important to notice incredible because I’m sure Lois has been doing amazing things like this for years and I hope she’s been noticed but maybe not. Sometimes it’s not enough to just leave a comment in the comment box but it’s necessary to take the time to tell an actual person so that the Lois’s of the world get noticed because if they don’t they might think no one cares and if they stop brightening days that result could be brutal.

The Email

“To my expectation no one cared. I was talked to like a kid with a bank card. My problem was brushed off as another everyday problem that the individual behind the counter cared nothing about and it was a Monday so maybe that justified the lack of connection to them. Needless to say I was rattled…….. All I wanted was for her to discuss it with me and find a solution. Unfortunately the solution that the branch on Saanich came up with was to close my account. She apparently was able to do that immediately but unable to ask me what I needed and have the empathy or responsibility to find a solution. I didn’t want free stuff, or my money back just a solution. I didn’t need my account closed. ”

“Then I walked into your branch. Your fantastic branch with everyone smiling regardless that it was 10 am on a Monday. I then met Lois Young and she cared. She cared about my problem and listened to me like it mattered to her. I was a bit peeved and she wanted to hear why and she wanted to help. She didn’t just tell me where to go or who to call but we discussed what I needed, what worked and if moving away from my student account to the more advanced account with a small fee but unlimited transactions was better. She took on the responsibility of my problem, and I loved it. This is what I wanted Carolyn, for someone to make what I thought was a big deal a big deal to them as well. I was elated. She completely abolished my view that TD was just a bank with customers instead it’s a bank that still cares about my name, how my day is and what my minuscule problems are.

What if you were so outrageous and so unconventional that it allowed you to advertise like a telemarketer but it was viewed as hilarious and not intrusive. You had permission to speak to a large audience that was willing to listen to you talk about something they don’t care about but you did it in such an amazing way that it made them care.

I recently found an airplane company called Kulula. They’re cheeky it’s what they do. Their planes are decked out in all kinds of funk heck they have a plane that’s labeled: here. It’s so awesome loo (or mile-high club initiation chamber)

But why? Why does Kulula care about something as obscene as how it’s planes are painted. Why does that matter to anyone. All I want is a cheap seat and not to be charged for 2 bags. Kind of wrong. Well maybe right but lets look at it from another angle. Kulula cares about you. They’re on Twitter responding to people in the plane wondering why the plane is taking so long to leave. They made ads that use a skeezy pool guy saying “You’ll get more than you bargain for”, ads that shamelessly promote their credit card and ads that poke fun at foreigners coming to Africa. They shamelessly plug sponsors on their flights by telling you where to get a car from, where to eat and where to stay over the PA system. Intrusive? O most definitely. Is it unconventional and completely in line with the rest of their brand? Of course

Kulua Ad takes on Foreigners

To go along with all of this because they are so outrageous they attract amazing customers. Customers that are so F ing nice people write about them.That’s another blog post all together. What happens when it’s your amazing customers that customers rave about. (mental note)

Now to the point. Are you allowed to spam if you sell a product cheap enough? Sure ya are. What if you painted your plane so the customer knew you were ridiculous to start off with. What if you made cheeky ads so the customer felt included in the joke. Then you had the audacity to make the ads on the plane not just lame flashy ads but challenged the designers to make something remarkable. Something that people laughed at, took pictures of (mental note) and shared. What if spamming people went beyond annoying them but realizing what you were doing and making a joke out of it. What if spamming was an experience rather than a method to make my head explode.

Photo’s from here, here and here

I recently read Seth Godin’s blog post on “Be what a loser calls a loser” peep it here.

I didn’t realize it until after I read it but I’ll be dammed that’s what it means to be remarkable. Not just a one shot wonder remarkable but the every day kind of amazing. To take what seems normal and turn it on it’s head and to say and do things that the people around you cringe with embarrassment and shoot out comments like “That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard” and “Dude, seriously you’re being a homo”. When I hear my buddy’s say that I know what I’m doing is bang on.

There is a  misconception here and that’s that they’re making fun of me. Maybe they are but regardless they’re embarrassed because I’m doing something that warrants a response and it’s usually from someone I don’t know and what makes it even more brutal is that response is usually an icky feelings based response.

Here is an example.

I was in a sushi shop today and the woman ahead of me left her purse in the car so she couldn’t pay for her wasabi beans or whatever it was. As she dashed out I payed for the beans and casually left. As I pulled out to drive away I saw her sprint out of the store with a shocked bewildered look on her face and mouth thank you at me. Wow.

Turn it upside down. The goal was never to have her thank me. I got my 10 bucks worth in the goosebumps and the feeling of  holly crap that was great. What mattered was that the look she had was beaming with the realization that people really can be amazing in day to day life and I hope that look means that now she gets to experience the same sense of wow when she does something remarkable for someone else. My friends called me a “homo” for doing it. Perfect.

Be remarkable and get called an idiot by someone who isn’t being remarkable. It’s the only way to know that you’ve gone past the line of what everyone expected of you.

Photo from here.

I go to a school where you have to buy tickets to pay for parking. It’s not super expensive two bucks gets you 4 hours and four bucks gets you the entire day.

To make this make sense we have to take this back to the beginning of the year. What tends to happen is that at the start of the year a small group of people will put these parking passes back at the spot where you have to purchase them. So say you’re only staying for an hour and their ticket still has some time left on it they’ll leave it for you to come and pick it up or if you need more time you leave it for the next person.  This process in September is practiced few and far between but enough people are starting to get caught off guard by this random act of kindness, it’s becoming contagious.

By mid November when you come into the parking lot people are approaching you with the ticket. When February rolls around it’s full force. People are yelling at you when you’re buying a ticket and telling you not to because they have one. They’re literally sprinting to their car to get their unused ticket for you and the only exchange that take place is a earnest smile, a “thank you for being awesome” and in the rare cases you realize that it’s possible that you’re involved in something greater than yourself.

It’s the middle of march now and the machines are overflowing with not full used tickets. I’ve also grown suspicious that people are purchasing full day passes when they only need a few hours just for the opportunity to hand the ticket to an unsuspecting individual with the hope that the person has yet to experience this kindness phenomenon and are about to have their day made.

This is the “It“. This is what makes me smile as an entrepreneur who values connection and loves people as business model not just as rhetoric.  Start caring, start engaging and you’ll see remarkable things start to happen, you could be the “domino” that effects someone enough to selflessly make another persons day and that poutine readers is what matters.

Is the world changing in a college parking lot in Victoria, BC? I’m not sure, but something is happening here. People are caring about people and it’s the most refreshing thing in the whole wide world. (Pardon my 5 year old exclamation)

“Do you want to dress up and look ridiculous because we’re trapped in the middle of no place and there is a grad going on?”  “Yes, yes I do.”  Before we get into this story lets take it back a bit.

Recently I heard Julien Smith speak at a local social media event. He was the author of a New York Times best seller the book trust agents he also has a blog here.

His most important point in this Pecha-Kucha style presentation was to be or not to be that first domino. Now what’s a domino? It’s the key to well the ‘Domino effect’. That first domino has to take a triumphant leap good or bad it has to do it or rather someone has to do it.

The domino is usually a NO person. John says NO to your fondue party almost immediately and now no one wants to come. Dammit John. The reason no one comes is because John made it OK to say no. Your friends may have wanted to come but no is just so much easier. No attachment, no responsibility and if you decide you want to go later you’ll just go right. No, no you won’t.

But the Yes domino well it works the exact same way. You say yes, now I say yes because you made it weird to say no. No one wants to be the single No but if someone else is a No then you’re an ugly no couple together. It’s all about getting that awkward ball rolling. Starting the bandwagon rather than being the jumper. That’s the key to the above picture. If one of us says no, it doesn’t happen. So please, if you always say no choose yes instead; it only has to be once but you’ll be the domino that makes things go up hill rather than down. I promise.