day 1184: Bye Bye Anonymity, Part 1

"May God give you more and more grace and peace as you grow in your knowledge of God and Jesus our Lord."

It wasn't that long ago that we didn't have a clue who bought and used our products and services.  Think about it for a second; in walks a person to a convenience store.  She buys a single serve diet Pepsi and a bag of Lay's Baked potato chips.  And then she is gone. PepsiCo has no idea who she is and neither did the 7-11, where she bought both of them.  She had come and gone and both PepsiCo and 7-11 counted her as a positive sale.  All good, right?  Well, maybe not so good because while driving away from the store she opened the diet Pepsi only to find that it was flat and date expired.  She had already opened the chips and started to eat them, which were fine, but she was so upset with the Pepsi being flat that recognizing that Frito-Lay and Pepsi are the same company, she started finding problems with the chips to support her anger.  They were too salty, broken and the bag was not filled, or so she had made up in her mind. A few minutes later when she gets to her house, she takes a picture of both the bottle and the bag (in an unflattering pose) and posts the pictures with some not so kind of words about both of them and about 7-11 as the retailer.  This young woman happens to be a good and creative writer so her Facebook, Twitter and Instagram posts blow up and within the next 12 hours over a hundred thousand people are piling on with their complaints with the two companies. And to think, Pepsi, Frito-Lay, 7-11 never even knew her.  This is not a farfetched scenario. It happens every day, all day long. If the first time we are going to get to know a customer is through a complaint, the shoe is already on the wrong foot.  Consider that we can get ahead of this type of introduction by finding ways to engage and lose the anonymity by inviting our customers into a relationship earlier and then keeping it alive with positive dialogue.  More tomorrow on this...

Are we not blessed that our God is not one of anonymity or secrets of who He is?  Sure, there are a lot of unexplainable aspects to the Holy Trinity and how Jesus is God and Son at the same time, but those are different mysteries than being able to know and have a personal relationship with Jesus, which we can do. God sent Jesus to the earth to be like us, so we could know Him as both God and man. Man like us.  He gave us His Word so that we can gain more and more knowledge about who He is. And, as we know, He knows us beyond intimately.  He knows each thought, intention and action. There is no anonymity with God.  So, why do we try to act like there is?  We somehow think that He and others don't see our failings and that we can "get away with it."  As we do our best to bring glory to God in our purposed worKING, we must consider that nothing we do allows us to be anonymous in the eyes of God.  Let's today consider and be sure that we are aligning all aspects of who we are so to always be ready to be known for our Lord.

Reference: 2 Peter 1:2 (New Living Translation)

day 457: Timing

My friend likes to tell the joke that comedy is all about....timing. For the joke to be funny you have to hear him use the pause and the stressing of the word "timing" at the wrong time. Beyond the joke, so much of what we do to be successful at work has to do with timing and more importantly, recognizing when is the right and the wrong time to either do something or not do something. Some of the best ideas never came to fruition because they were introduced at the wrong time. Companies who are smart and learn from their mistakes know that those ideas should be brought back at another time to succeed. Back in the day when I worked at Frito-Lay, Sun Chips were introduced to a great success. Sun Chips caught the multi-grain wave and were a big hit and have continued to be. Even today the brand has been repositioned to catch the jet stream of being green and healthy at the same time. They have done a great job with that brand. What most people don't know is that Sun Chips were created and originally launched in the late 70's and failed miserably. Back then, no one cared about multi-grain snacks and certainly it would have been weird for a food company to position a snack that has a fully bio-degradable bag and is made in a manufacturing plant fueled by solar power. For Sun Chips it was all about timing. As is so much of what we do. It may also be that the timing of our rewards, achievements and fulfillment in our work is just out of our hands. We want every day to be the day when we reap the harvest, but again, its all about timing. We read in Galatians how this timing works; "So let's not get tired of doing what is good. At just the right time we will reap a harvest of blessing if we don't give up." God says to us, we will reap the blessing, when? He says, "at just the right time". Today, you may be expecting the blessing but it just hasn't been coming. See if you can take the disappointment and discouragement and reposition it to a place of anticipation. For if you believe the promise, it is all about God's timing. That timing is definitely worth the waiting.

Reference: Galatians 6:9 (New Living Testament)