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MARKETING TALK

Steward serves up a lesson in optimism

Have you felt the difference between someone who can make you feel anything is possible and someone who always makes difficulties seem greater than they are?



I prefer to see the first person more and more every day, and I think this fundamental difference comes from working with passion and not just to survive.

When I was travelling by sleeper train at the end of May from Madrid to Santiago de Compostela in the northwest of Spain, what impressed me a great deal was not the design of the train or the view outside. What impressed me above all was the steward who looked after us, serving our dinner and breakfast, with his great charm, wonderful good humour, patience and attention to detail. He just loves what he's doing, even after 20 years of doing the same balancing act with plates, glasses, cutlery, on the same swaying train.

Never indicating it is a routine in any way, he makes every person in the carriage feel special, and even when he's tired it never shows. And because you feel he's working with passion, it just felt very good travelling along with our steward with his optimism, bonhomie and stylishness as if a walking parable on the best way to travel through life.

This lead me to an individual's role in an organisation, and thinking about the crucial difference between looking at what you can contribute to it rather than what the organisation can give to you. If you give wholeheartedly, you will win people's hearts and this will come back to reward your organisation and yourself.

In my work, the aim is always to put the client as number one and deliver on this promise with passion. I hope that, just like the steward and his train, we are travelling purposefully and happily together.

Then I believe that if you want people to love your brand, you need to first give your brand love, and invest the maximum into it so that there is a participation and engagement with the consumer. They will feel it if the experience comes at the right time, at the right place and meets the right need. When we achieve that, it's impressive and stands your brand above the others, taking it way beyond competing in a price war.

One technique I like to use when we're working on a campaign is to ask, "What is the world missing without this brand?" and a lot usually comes out of this. The tougher the economic situation, the more outstanding the brand has to be to survive.


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