I love running into a Mr. or Ms. Shmooze out of nowhere! It always validates my feelings about our theme.
I went to lunch with my father recently. A tavern/grille in a country setting. We settled in and started talking, waiting for the waiter or waitress to come to our table. And there she was!
“Welcome! Can I help you?”
We both looked up and straight into one of the biggest smiles I have ever seen. I mean ear-to-ear, and totally in the moment and sincere. She was a pretty girl, very natural, early twenties at most. Her face was absolutely alive . . . smiling, happy and absolutely focused on us. I don’t know how she did it, but she held her smile throughout the entire lunch service, coming and going. She was delightful.
This reminded me of some research we did years ago about smiling:
- It is the universal sign of goodwill in every language.
- It is absolutely contagious . . . that when you smile at someone he/she almost always smiles back.
- It lifts spirits and physically sends endorphins through our nervous systems.
In other words, smiling is wonderful, and powerful, but it is so easy to forget to smile in the stress of our day-to-day lives.
Anyway, this girl obviously knew the secret and I could see she was lifting the spirits of everyone around her.
I always like to ask bright, young waiters and waitresses what their longer term plans are since they are almost inevitably working a couple of jobs to pay their way through school or other training. Our waitress did not disappoint . . . she was on her last semester of training to be a registered nurse and said with her usual flair, “And I cannot wait to get started!”
Now there is a nurse that is going to help a LOT of people over the next thirty years! What a positive force and how lucky we are that she is entering the health care system.
Of course the question we ask ourselves each week as salespeople is . . . are we lifting spirits too?
Smiling is a great start.
