“And as you wish that others would do to you, do so to them.”

Luke 6:31

As I write this I am sitting in the backyard of the vacation house we rented for the week just outside of Dallas Texas. We are down here for work for a few days to help a company get over 230 titles transferred because they were just acquired by another company.

Today is day one. And that day is always what I call my introduction day. It is the day that I take to get introduced to the key players that my team is going to need to know to make the job run as such.

It’s something that I learned a LONG time ago.  If you take time to get to know the people that can help you, and show them that you are on the same team. Then your life will be infinitely easier.

This morning we got up and made it to the office of the business a good 10 minutes before we were supposed to be there.

I LOVE making a good impression by always being early.

Then just after we got through the door we went straight to work. Because we had already met the key players in the company.

Another trick up my sleeve is to not dilly-dally when it comes to working. Let them know that you are there to get it done and QUICK!  It shows that you care about their time and that you don’t have time to mess around.

After we got a few of the titles (like 25ish) ready to go.  We bolted to the vehicle registration office to get started.

Of course, we went to the wrong office 2 times.  Lol

When we finally made it to the right one. We waited patiently in line to chat with someone about what we needed to do. All the time we were having casual conversations with the clerks that weren’t busy.  Smiling the whole time.

After a few minutes, we got to see the lady that we needed to. The one who did batch titles.

And to our surprise, they said, Oh we know these titles. We have seen them before!

Awesome this is going to go smoothly was the first thought that came into my mind.  

Then Mrs. Stacy continued, Yeah this guy came in here a few months ago and tried to get them transferred and we couldn’t help him because there were too many problems with paperwork.  And you are going to have to pay taxes on all these vehicles.

She was still nice, but I could tell that she was a little aggravated, because she thought we were trying to pull a fast one over on her.

I smiled my best smile and simply told her that we had just taken over this task and wanted to make their life as easy as possible. We just need to know what needs to be done, so that we can make it happen!

She walked to the back room and grabbed the main lady of the office. They both came out and the lady from the back grabbed a RED highlighter and started going to town on our applications highlighting all the stuff that we needed to fix.

Then she stood up and said rather aggressively, here this is what you need to fix!

I asked a few more questions and smiled the whole time, reassuring her that we were here to make their life as easy as possible and that all that we want is to make sure that they didn’t struggle with what we were doing.

She lightened up a little bit and said in a much softer tone, well here’s what you really need.  If you can do this for all these applications, then we can get them processed. You just need to fix a few things then we can get them started.

Sweet, can I swing back by this afternoon with a few so that you can look them over and let me know what needs to be done and then I can go make more corrections?

Of course, we’d love to help you get this right. Thanks for being so easy to work with!

We smiled one more time and waved goodbye letting them know that we would be back later for another round of super bros smash party.  Lol.

The next time I came I sat down patiently and waved at the lady behind the counter. She literally stopped what she was doing and waived back, right in front of her customer.  And it wasn’t this little pansy wave that said, Oh great he’s back.  It was a giant ecstatic wave that said, Hi Friend, glad you’re back! 

I waited for her to get done with her client and made small talk with the ladies that were leaving for lunch that worked there.

As soon as she finished up I went back up to the window and we started chatting.  She was super nice and asked me a couple of personal questions. I answered them with a HUGE genuine smile.

Then she took my titles and looked them over saying, I need this one more sheet of paper.  Is there any chance that you can get that for me?

Let me see what I can do, can I step away and make a call really quick?

Of Course, you can. Just let me know when you’re done, and I’ll get you taken care of.

I stepped away and made the phone call to get the signed form that I needed and asked her if I could email it to her. She gave me her office email and I forwarded it ASAP.

She said, just come on back later this afternoon and we’ll get these processed for you!

So, we went back to the office, and we busted our butts to get the rest of the 200 titles ready to be processed.

At this point you might think, Dan this is a great story and all but what does it have to do with being nice to others so you can get what you need?

Well,

If you are asking that question, then you need to go back and read between the lines.

We walked into a situation that was bad all the way around. Ok maybe not life-threatening, but there were definitely hard feelings from everyone.

And just by being nice to everyone that we ran into on the first day. We had pretty much everyone jumping on board to help us get our job done.

The key to really making this work for you is that you have to be genuine.  If you are fake, or giving out false compliments then it will never work!

IT HAS TO BE REAL!!

It is not hard to be nice, but you have to be honest when you do it.