Example: In the 50s, you’d drive into a gas station, and four uniformed attendants would rush over, each handling a different chore, from checking your oil, to pumping your gas, to cleaning your windows, and other basic automobile tasks. It was simply what was done. Can you imagine that? Four guys, waiting for you to drive in, and actually running to service you? I was driving to Atlantic City last week to give a speech, and stopped in to get gas. Because New Jersey is one of the few states where it’s illegal for a driver to pump his own gas (anyone know the actual reason why? I don’t…) an attendant came over. While the gas was pumping, she actually squeegeed my front window clean, on her own, proactively! I was so shocked that I gave her a tip! I can’t remember that ever happening to me before. But in the 50s, it was standard. For countless reasons that are irrelevant to this story, standards have lowered. They’ve lowered by a lot. And with them, so have our expectations. Whether it be for a multimillion dollar corporate buy on which we sign off, or for a salad where all we ask is for the dressing to be on the side, our expectations have dropped along with the standards for customer service. The worst part, without question, is that they’ve dropped to levels well below “ok” or “fair” or “average.” Our typical expectation for a customer service transaction starts at “poor,” and if we’re lucky, ends at “fair.”

It’s simply what we’ve become as a society. And yet, wonderfully, that’s actually good news for all of us reading this post!

See, since we have such low expectations of customer service, (and I know I’ve said this before, but it’s worth repeating…) It’s so incredibly easy to blow each and every one of your customers’ minds, and shock them into 100% loyalty, every single time you’re given the chance! All you have to do is simply treat each customer one level above “crap.” Amazingly, you don’t even have to be anywhere near “great, “awesome,” or “outstanding” to be different than the norm.  To be thought of as “good,” we just need to treat our customers one level above the normal expectation of crap. That’s it. Anything we do that goes above and beyond “one level above crap,” is so rare, and so unexpected, that if you do that, you can rule the world.

With that said, imagine my surprise tonight when I got an email from John Korff, the President of Korff Enterprises, otherwise know as the guy who runs the company that puts on the wildly popular New York City Triathlon every summer. John’s been producing this race since the very beginning, well over ten years ago, when it was ever so small – Now, it’s one of the yearly crown jewels of the NYC sports world, right up there with the NYC Marathon, and as of this coming August, the NYC Ironman Triathlon.

At first, I assumed it was a form letter, since I’d been accepted into my 8th NYC Triathlon, coming up this July. (Why so many? Because I’m an idiot who never learns, but that’s not the point.)

I double-clicked to find an actual email, from John himself, congratulating me for getting in again this year, and thanking me for doing my eighth one!

I was still pretty sure it was a form letter – CRM software can easily know those things – But I still thought it was a nice touch. Either way, I happened to be sitting in front of my computer when it came in, so I dropped a reply back almost immediately to John, thanking him for the note, and letting him know that I was also doing the NYC Ironman the next month. Didn’t expect a reply, since I still kinda thought it was an auto-email.

Two minutes later – “Wow, Peter – Both! You know, we call those who do the NYC Triathlon then the Ironman the next month “Hudson Doublers!”

So it actually was him. At 6:55pm on a Tuesday night.

What made him email me? Was he looking for repeat “customers,” as it were? Those who’ve done his race more than once? If so, smart – Remember – it’s not cheap to race these races – Perhaps he realized that and wanted to let us know that our continued support of what he built hasn’t gone unnoticed. Perhaps he’s just that nice of a guy – Perhaps it was all planned out on a spreadsheet, and it was just my time to get that email?

It doesn’t matter. I’ve run a TON of races, all over the place, and this is the first time that any race director reached out to thank me, unprovoked, on his own. You can damn well bet I’m going to race his race every year, as long as my body will let me.

It’s those little things – What’s an email? It’s not a steak at an airport (not that there’s anything wrong with that, either) – But ironically, I think that’s the problem – That’s where the disconnect lies for the majority of businesses:

We’re tricked into believing that the best customer service can ONLY be achieved by these massive, over-the-top acts of grandeur – The airport steak – the “we’ll replace your car” – The types of customer service events that make the evening news and get blogged about.

THAT IS WRONG!

I offer you this: (shrunk, for your Tweeting ease:) The best acts of customer service are the tiny things that reinforce the customer’s loyalty. They can be done daily, usually without any cost, and can foster customer retention, increase customer satisfaction, and yes, even grow your customer base by increasing word of mouth, through social media and other platforms. In other words: If you focus on the little things, your company will benefit, customers and clients will increase, and most importantly, REVENUE WILL RISE.

Don’t stop trying to create that one “massive” customer service story that goes viral and winds up on CNN. Never stop trying to do that, because you never know when it might happen. BUT – Spend more time focusing on the little things – The “thank you” when the customer walks in. The unexpected “we’re glad you’re still with us” email. The phone call to your favorite customer, letting them know that you were reading some article, and it told you to think of your favorite customer then call them to thank them for being just that. (I LOVE this one, I’ve recommended it countless times.)

An old friend and colleague who used to be a journalist once told me this story. His first editor gave him one piece of advice: “Be brilliant at the basics.” He was right. Let’s focus on the basics first. You’ll be surprised how much of your marketing and PR your customers will do FOR you, once you master the basics, and come out one step above the norm.

As always, I’d love your thoughts below in the comments. Thanks for reading! :)

Everyone is always concerned about digital espionage. “My account was hacked!” “I clicked on a bad link!” “Fifty million credit card numbers were stolen!” The fact is, however, that digital espionage is the least worrisome thing for the majority of companies. The chances of your company getting “hacked” and information being stolen is minimal, compared to getting in trouble due to the stupidity of your employees.

I was flying home this past weekend from Florida. I got into my seat and got settled. My seatmate sat down, an older gentleman in a suit and tie. We exchanged pleasantries, and he put his Bose noise-cancelers on as soon as we took off. (Bose headphones are the universal traveler sign for “leave me alone.”)

I started catching up on Dexter on my Mac. About 20 minutes in, I happened to look over to my left, and this man was reading a huge binder. Had to be at least 100 pages, if not more. He was on the first few pages. I looked over, and in giant letters, it said “KEY INVESTMENT HIGHLIGHTS.” That caught my interest, as it would anyone. Within five words, I realized that he was reading an overview of a very large media company – In another thirty seconds, I’d put it together – This guy worked for a company that was hired to help this very large media company sell themselves. In other words, a company that produces both online and offline properties, that you probably read every week, was up for sale.

My seatmate couldn’t have been more clueless. He had his headphones on, enjoying his silence, while flipping pages in this binder, taking notes, not looking up, not aware of his surroundings in the slightest. I could have been having sex with my glass of Diet Coke two inches away from him, and he never would have noticed.

He spent an hour of the flight on several pages that were titled “Liabilities” – It was all proprietary information about problems the company was having, and how they planned to fix them. Unreal.

My first thought was that I was totally out of the loop – That it was public knowledge that this company was being shopped around, and I’d just missed the news on it. But then I thought long and hard about it and realized that no, I’d have heard about this. In other words, the man sitting next to me was reading proprietary information, information that could be very, very damaging to this company if in the wrong hands, and he couldn’t have cared less about it. When I landed, I confirmed it. This was extremely private information.

I’ve often said that privacy doesn’t exist, that we all need to be smarter, that instead of working on new ways to gain more fans, perhaps we should take a day and work on situational awareness!

I decided to see how out of it he really was, and also prove a point. Check this out.

Heavily Redacted by Me

This is one of a handful of photos I took with both my iPad and my Droid. Just to see if I could, which obviously, I could.

The man next to me caught a break that day. I’m not a dick. I’m not going to name the company, nor the company he works for (which was on the bottom of every page of the report.) But I have a feeling I’m in the minority here.

Guys, we have to be smarter than this. We simply have to. We can’t afford not to. Here are four tips on how to be:

1) Assume you’re always being watched. When I went to high school, there was a giant fountain across the street. Not a week went by when some idiot kid didn’t dump a box of Tide into the fountain. Why? Because in the 80s, surveillance cameras were hella expensive, and very few businesses could afford them. Now? They’re about $20, a good one for $50, and they’re EVERYWHERE. For kicks, I walked around the block this morning from where I live. Only counting the ones I could see in plain sight, I counted over 100 in a one block radius, including stores, banks, red-light cameras, etc. And those were only the ones we could see. 100! In a one block radius! Assume everything you do can be watched, and probably is. You have to assume this for everything, from your work life to your personal life. It means you’ll be seen doing anything stupid that could get you in trouble, from doing drugs with people you assume are friends, to meeting someone for insider information in a parking lot. It’s too easy to get caught nowadays.

2) Assume most people are much less nice than me. I knew immediately what I was looking at, and also that I’d never go public with the information. Why would I? What could I gain from it? How would it help me? But think about all the people it could hurt – Innocent people who just happen to be involved with the company, for starters. It’s really easy to assume people are nice until proven otherwise. Sadly, I’ve learned that assuming all people are nice can get you into trouble. I’m not saying don’t be nice to people you meet – But don’t start sharing information with people until you truly trust them. In other words, enter every interaction with a healthy dose of cynicism. That’s not a bad thing. It’s a smart thing.

3) It’s always little things that will nail you. You have any idea how many times I’ve been in an airport or hotel lounge, when I’ve heard someone spouting off their credit card to the person they’re talking to? Or explaining, step by step, their entire itinerary, while their home address sits on their luggage? Or when they get up to go to the bathroom and leave their laptop, unlocked, along with their passport and jacket at their chair? It’s mind-blowing. I’ve followed people to their gate because they’re talking about something personal – Not because I want to know more, but because I’m curious as to if they’ll ever catch on that I’m listening to every word. I’ve even WRITTEN THINGS DOWN THAT THEY’VE SAID, in plain sight of them, again, just to see if they notice. They don’t. Situational awareness, people. We need to pull our heads out of our collective smart-phone asses and start realizing what the hell is going on around us!

4) As always, alcohol comes into play. Some of the most fun I’ve ever had in my life has come at events where I’ve stayed sober, and then spent hours listening to people drone on about anything and everything, some of it incredibly personal, to anyone who will listen. Why would you do that to yourself? I still say the best way to get drunk is with a trusted friend, in your own home. Anything else just asks for trouble.

I’d suggest that we make 2012 the year we become smarter – But I’ve been suggesting that for years. And it never seems to happen.

We need to be smarter.

Ever been in a situation where you’ve witnessed someone implode from sheer stupidity? Let me hear it.

Postscript: I’m not immune, either. I’ve done it once or twice. Also, don’t bother posting how you think I’m a dick for taking the photo above. Sorry, but I don’t buy that. I’m doing this as a public service. What if I really was a dick, and did it to bring down the company?

1) May 2012 be the year that passive aggressive status updates cease. It’d be so nice to see a status update from someone that simply says “I’m pissed off, I need to blow off some steam,” as opposed to “I wish that I lived in a world where people kept their promises and didn’t lie to get what they wanted while other people were left hoping that happens.” Passive-agressiveness helps no one. Don’t be a part of the problem.

2) May 2012 be the year that all of the self-appointed gurus, experts, and rock-stars fall off cliffs to their mangled, bloody deaths into the oceans of anonymity, thousands of feet below.

3) May 2012 be the year that the TSA either gets its shit together, or gets disbanded in favor of transportation security that’s actually effective, useful, and serves a purpose other than theater.

4) May 2012 be the year of the least amount of public information about any of the Kardashians.

5) May 2012 be the year where we all get smart enough to stop auto-linking every single niche social network to Twitter and Facebook. No one EVER needs to know that you’re ordering a mocha latte at Starbucks, or walking through the locker room at your gym.

6) May 2012 be the year that everyone becomes smart enough to realize that if the incident happens, even if there’s no one with a camera within a hundred miles, it’ll probably wind up online, and that the best way to avoid that happening is to make sure you aren’t part of the incident in the first place. This goes for anything involving alcohol, public nudity, arguments, or stuff that happens in a men’s bathroom.

7) May 2012 be the year that people learn the difference between “there,” “their,” and “they’re.”

8) May 2012 be the year that people stop using “password” as their password.

9) May 2012 be the year that people stop reacting to emails, posts, or tweets that purportedly comes from a friend, yet doesn’t seem to be written in the same language they normally use, and usually has a link that ends in .ru.

10) May 2012 be the year I learn to be a better listener .

11) May 2012 be the year that United Airlines puts flat-bed seats on their EWR-LAX run.

12) May 2012 be the year that I exceed 2011′s number of speaking and consulting gigs.

13) May 2012 be the year that HARO breaks over 1,000,000 users.

14) May 2012 be the year that DailyWorth, SnapGoods, Namely, Trippy, ScotteVest, Right Next Door, Pixability, and all the companies in whom I’ve invested and for whom I advise break out into the mainstream and earn a ton of money.

15) May 2012 be the year NASA the Wondercat gets a new brother or sister

16) May 2012 be the year more of us learn the value and pure joy in volunteering, donating, or helping others.

17) May 2012 be the year I have an incredibly great Ironman NYC, but may it also be the year that I stay HEALTHY, and don’t obsess over my weight, every bite of food I eat, or what morsel contains how many calories.

18) May 2012 be the year I finally take a honeymoon with my new wife.

19) May 2012 be the year that the world becomes a better place because of something each of us has done during it.

20) May 2012 finally be a year of peace, happiness, love, and prosperity for all of us.

Happy New Year, my friends. Thank you for being here.

Back up, clean out. This week is the perfect chance to upgrade your computer without spending a cent. Back up all your important files to multiple places, then go through your applications one by one: If you don’t remember the last time you used one, trash it. Do the same thing on your iPhone or Droid, and all of a sudden, everything is running faster. It also helps to go to your upgrade center (app store, whatever) and make sure you’re up to date on all of the latest everythings. One less thing to worry about for a while next year.

Examine how you schedule. I’m a huge fan of Google Calendar – Perhaps it’s time to figure out a better way to organize your schedule. The better your schedule is, the less likely you are to miss appointments or screw up meeting times. One of the best things about Google Calendar? I can set every meeting to start on the 50s – i.e., 10:50, instead of 11am. This reminds me to get there a few minutes early and be first to the meeting.

Get a better alarm clock. By now, we all use the alarm clock on our phones to wake us up. But I’ve got a backup, as well. It’s a $15 Sony alarm clock, and it sits across the room. When it goes off, I have to get up to shut it. You know what that means? It means I’m up.

Buy a nice one-liter bottle. Each night, fill it with water. Each morning, as soon as the alarm goes off, drink the water. Boom. You’re awake and starting your day.

Open a savings account this week. Yeah, savings account interest rates are for crap right now, but it’s still better than nothing. Set up an auto transfer of $10 each week from your checking account into it. By the time next Christmas rolls around, you’ll have all the money for all your holiday shopping set aside and you won’t have to worry about it.

Defriend. Go through each Facebook friend and ask yourself if you’re really going to communicate with them in 2012. Will they bring any value to your life, or you to theirs? If the answer is “no,” or if you even have to think about it for more than a second, unfriend them. Your network is only as strong as your weakest relationship in it.

Get to the gym and meet the trainers. They’re all going to be slammed on New Year’s Day, dealing with the Resolutioners – The ones who come in for two weeks then you never see again. Go in NOW, and forge a relationship with one. You’re more likely to go back come New Year’s Day if you have someone to go back to now.

Finally, block one day a week on your calendar next year for FUN. It doesn’t have to be the same time each week, but start blocking off now, with things to do that take you out of your comfort zone. This guarantees that 2012 becomes a year of growth for you, and not just another checkbox on the list of life.

Happy New Year!

Cats, goals, dogs, fails, Lindsay Lohan, cats again, Gawker, coffee, coffee makers, naked women, and finally, Wikipedia, where I somehow wound up reading about hobos.

But the interesting thing about hobos was this – Not only did they have their own code, (as made popular in the Mad Men episode of the same name), but they also had their own ethical code.

That’s right – Hobos had a code of ethical conduct, one to which they tried to always adhere.

Pretty amazing, huh? They rode the rails, took work where they could get it, ate when they could, yet they tethered to a strong sense of ethical balance. When you think about it, that’s a lot more than most of our so called “pillars of society” are doing nowadays. (How’s your jail cell, Mr. Madoff? How about yours, Mr. Blagojevich?)

With that said, here’s my recommendation for 2012: Follow the code of ethics set out by the Hobos well over a hundred years ago. If you do, chances are, you’ll do better, won’t get into trouble, and more than likely will have a good year, personally, professionally, and financially.

I’m going to try it in 2012. Will you join me? And are there any additional codes that should be added? Leave them in the comments.

The Hobo Code of Ethics:

Decide your own life, don’t let another person run or rule you.
When in town, always respect the local law and officials, and try to be a gentleman at all times.
Don’t take advantage of someone who is in a vulnerable situation, locals or other hobos.
Always try to find work, even if temporary, and always seek out jobs nobody wants. By doing so you not only help a business along, but ensure employment should you return to that town again.
When no employment is available, make your own work by using your added talents at crafts.
Do not allow yourself to become a stupid drunk and set a bad example for locals’ treatment of other hobos.
When jungling in town, respect handouts, do not wear them out, another hobo will be coming along who will need them as bad, if not worse than you.
Always respect nature, do not leave garbage where you are jungling.
If in a community jungle, always pitch in and help.
Try to stay clean, and boil up wherever possible.
When traveling, ride your train respectfully, take no personal chances, cause no problems with the operating crew or host railroad, act like an extra crew member.
Do not cause problems in a train yard, another hobo will be coming along who will need passage through that yard.
Do not allow other hobos to molest children, expose all molesters to authorities, they are the worst garbage to infest any society.
Help all runaway children, and try to induce them to return home.
Help your fellow hobos whenever and wherever needed, you may need their help someday.
If present at a hobo court and you have testimony, give it. Whether for or against the accused, your voice counts!