Talent is an attitude

Estimated reading time: 4 minutes

Let me set you a very simple exercise: go to any store or customer service and see how they attend you, the employees’ willingness to address your needs, the attitude with which they receive you… Do they smile and greet you pleasantly? Are they proactive and do they offer you alternatives if they don’t have exactly what you are looking for? Are they patient and polite? With respectable—and blessed—exceptions, it is quite usual to find apathetic people, who answer you “by obligation”, without any empathy and ooze the message “don’t bother me too much and go away as soon as possible. It’s a vicious circle in which the company doesn’t look after its employees nor set clear guidelines regarding how customers should be received and dealt with. At the same time, employees, who are not recognized for their efforts, lack the slightest feeling of belonging and the only thing they are interested in is getting paid at the end of the month: looking after the client is not their obligation, as they are mere workers and they care little about whether their company’s image is affected by it.

Talent is not something that is inherited, nor does it depend on one’s resume. Talent is an attitude, both for individuals and companies.

Those who know how to cultivate and encourage it will make an effort to satisfy the needs of those around them — in-house employees or customers. They will do it with a smile and a pleasant attitude; they will concentrate their energy on everything they do and they will do it as best possible, for their own and other’s satisfaction. We’ve become used to marking—or wanting to mark—the difference using objects, for example, the latest innovation on the market, but we’ve forgotten that what will really make the difference over the long term and in a continuous way, if we look after it, are the issues: personal service, the sensations we transmit from the moment of the purchase or on the day-to-day in work.

To set you a very simple but illustrative example, if there are ten coffeehouses in my neighborhood and all have a similiar price and quality, which one will I choose? The one that knows what my name is, that knows how I like my coffee, where they greet me when I walk in and look after me with a smile, where they are sincere about the quality of product they offer me… There not only will I buy my latte on my way to work, but go there for breakfast on Sundays, and to pick up some coffee cake when my in-laws decide to drop in unannounced, because they go beyond the mere sale of products; they offer me a pleasant experience and cultivate loyalty. In short, cultivating talent maintains a brand and a business over time, even in adverse situations.

Sandra Bravo is founding partner of BraveSpinDoctors, a strategic communication and political marketing consultancy.