Marion's Blog

One of my very best friends is doing something touching and amazing today – she is donating stem cells to her brother who has been fighting cancer for a few years. It has been a hard time for both of them of course but this requires a special kind of courage. Whilst you love your siblings dearly mostly – doing a transplant of this kind has an impact on not only the recipient, but the donor and familiy as well. But yet, it didn’t occur to her to not go ahead.

In terms of paying it forward – this is one very stark example. You do something for someone else, because you feel that you need to help them, support them in whatever it is they need. Here it literally is a matter of life and death. Mostly, thank goodness, our choice to help another person is not as black and white. I am a firm believer in the theory of Paying it Forward. I believe it is our duty – not merely a right - to help others in areas we can. I don’t mean that you should completely faze yourself out and put yourself in the service of others – but we all need to see if in some little way we can help another person, lighten their load or simply give them a little push. I read a great article in a newspaper the other day. A lady visited the Waterboard in her local county, because she simply did not have the money to pay the bill anymore. A customer behind her who overheard her story – stepped up and paid it for her.
The crux of Paying Forward is simply that you put aside your feelings of mistrust and misgiving, and believe in the other person. Don’t let yourself be skeptical but accept that out of the 100 people you may help, one of them may deceive you. Well, so what, the other 99 are worth that one poor soul that feels this is the only way they can get by.

Paying Forward in business is equally important – whether you apply it to your customers or your fellow entrepreneurs. Excellent Customer Service can only be given if you belief that your clients are not out to take you for a ride. If you can let go of that feeling – you will discover a much more loyal customer then you thought you had. A great example came to me this week – Thornton’s, the best toffee maker in the world. I had bought a packet (yes, I am giving myself away here…toffee is one of my weaknesses)  of Brazilnut toffee. Only I couldn’t find a single Brazil Nut in the entire packet. So whilst the toffee was great, it wasn’t what I had bought. Intrigued by this, I wrote to Thorntons and yes, they did investigate and found it was due to a production fault. So by believing me, rather then treating me as someone simply out to get a free pack of toffee, they corrected a mistake in their production. And I am even more loyal to them then I was before!

E.Factor is built on the belief that we can all help someone else grow and expand. We feel so strongly that you all have something to contribute, that we built an entire company around it. If you each contribute one piece of knowledge, you will be sure to get a lot more back from it. That is the Power we can harness to get through these difficult times. Please do jump in with both feet, no time to stand on the sideline and hope someone else will do something first. Just believe in the group, the spirit of entrepreneurs the world over and see if you can help another Entrepreneur in his or her quest for a better business. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go back to crossing my fingers for my friend and her brother. I am wishing them both all the best health in the world.




Check out our upcoming MasterClass on Excellence in Customer Service with expert Ajit Utagikar, 18th March. You can still register - click here for more info.