In business, and in life, I believe the willingness to do “the hard” is what truly separates the successful from the unsuccessful.  Most people are only willing to do the easy, or, in most cases, what’s known as the minimum. 

In business, most companies would rather cut their price than deliver extraordinary quality, service, convenience and value.  Most companies would rather tell you “There’s nothing we can do about it,” or, “I’m sorry, that’s company policy,” than actually go out of their way to solve a client’s problems. 

Even more incredible are the companies that judge the effectiveness of their customer service departments by how many calls they handle and not by how many customer complaints they turn around.

But the amazing thing about “doing the hard,” is that most of the time it’s not that hard.  Differentiating yourself from the competition very often is quite easy, simply because there’s not a lot of competition.  For example:

Showing up might seem like the easiest thing to do, but the reason that “Eighty percent of success is showing up,” is that most people don’t. The average salesperson’s lack of production can easily be traced back to the fact that they don’t see enough people.

Returning phone calls promptly takes no special talent, but have you ever wondered why so many clients seem overly appreciative when you call them back?  Maybe it’s because hardly anyone does. I recently left a message for a salesperson saying I wanted to purchase a piece of equipment I had spoken to him about.  He never called me back.  Unfortunately, his was the only company that carries that equipment, so I couldn’t go elsewhere, but I did the next best thing: I called, spoke to a different salesperson, and gave him the business.

Follow up: getting back to people when you’re supposed to or when you promised.  Whenever I arrive in a city to deliver a speech the first thing I do when arriving at the hotel is to call my client and let her know “I’m here, I’m fine and what room I’m in, in case anyone needs to speak to me.”  This gives the client one less thing to worry about.  What amazes me is the reaction of many of my clients when they receive my call: They are so overly grateful it gives me the impression that what I’ve done, while not being the least bit difficult, is obviously not done very often.

Admit it, you’re not the least bit surprised anymore when you receive bad service or someone fails to call you back, but I’ll bet very often you’re shocked beyond belief when just the opposite happens. 

Doing the hard is what separates you from your competition and makes you great. But fortunately, for those of you willing to do it, thanks to a lack of competition, doing the hard is not as hard as it’s cracked up to be.