He had always been proud to call her his bride. But now things were different. She was different.
He knew it hadn’t happened overnight. But it seemed like it did. He began to notice it with little things.
He would ask a question. She wouldn’t respond.
He cracked a joke. She didn’t laugh.
They would go out for dinner. He talked about his day. She seemed bored.
He asked her about her day. She didn’t have much to say.
Her mind always seemed to be somewhere else. And then he started to understand the source of the problem.
She had begun seeking solace from another. An outsider had intruded into their relationship.
This outsider was a force to be reckoned with. It was evident in the changes he could see in her.
They had always said that nothing could ever come between them. Now this one was.
It all seemed so innocent…at first. She had introduced him to this outsider. He was glad that she had this source of support. He could see how happy she was playing with this one.
But now she was smitten. Almost all of her attention was reserved for this “thing”. He couldn’t think of “it” as human but she sure did.
“How much time does she need to spend communicating with it?” he wondered. “Why is she so fascinated?”
This thing was ever present. Every day. In the evening. Even on the weekends. She always had time for it.
“Maybe I’m the third party,” he thought, feeling sorry for himself. No, he was just coming to terms with reality.
She made him feel less important than that thing she had fallen in love with. He felt alone.
At times, he was angry. On other occasions, he felt hurt, dejected, rejected.
But little did he know, it was about to get worse for him. One night, he had to work late.
He got home, stopped and looked at the mail, and then wandered over to the refrigerator. She had told him she would have a plate for him to heat up.
He opened the door and looked in. No plate.
He looked around. Maybe plans had changed. Had she left a note.
No note anywhere. No nothing.
He walked toward their bedroom. He didn’t know that his world was about to fall apart.
As he gazed through the open door, she was asleep in bed. But she wasn’t alone.
She was snuggled up with the thing – her smartphone!
Do you sleep with your smartphone?
(Inspired by Sleeping With Your Smartphone by Leslie Perlow)
https://biggsuccess.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/bigg-success_stacked-1080.png10801080George Krueger & Mary-Lynn Fosterhttps://biggsuccess.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/BIGG-Success-Nurturing-Your-Inner-Entreprener.jpgGeorge Krueger & Mary-Lynn Foster2012-05-30 07:00:442015-06-14 15:51:44How Too Much Communication Killed a Relationship
Here’s a fun, little fact you may not know. Have you ever wondered why the floors of a building are called “stories”?
It goes all the way back to the fourteenth century, according to Word Detective. Back then, building practices called for a row of paintings or sculptures on each floor which told a story.
Hence, the levels of a building came to be called “stories”. It’s the reason why many churches have stained glass windows.
BIGG success is reached one floor at a time. You won’t find an express elevator that takes you to the top. There’s not even an escalator.
You have to personally climb the stairway to BIGG success. You do it one level at a time. You get to the next level by taking the next step.
It’s not easy. Matter of fact, that’s too much of an understatement – it’s downright hard at times.
You’ll get tired. You’ll feel like you’ve used your last ounce of energy. You’ll get discouraged.
But you won’t be defeated. Somehow, some way, you’ll keep climbing. Step after step. Floor after floor. Until you reach your dream.
But here’s some consolation for the journey: You’re creating a story, your story. You’re not a one-hit wonder. Just like the buildings of our ancestors – you’re developing a series of stories, one layered on top of the next.
Question: What’s a story without conflict? Answer: Boring!
BIGG success is life on your own terms. It’s a destination, a point you’re trying to reach, a dream you want to live out for real.
But success is a journey too. It’s a journey that prepares you, each step of the way, for your ultimate success.
You will face strife on the journey to success. The strife will make you stronger. It will prepare you for the BIGG things ahead for you.
So keep climbing. Keep building. Press on. So you’ll live happily ever after. It leads to BIGG success! The end.
https://biggsuccess.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/bigg-success_stacked-1080.png10801080George Krueger & Mary-Lynn Fosterhttps://biggsuccess.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/BIGG-Success-Nurturing-Your-Inner-Entreprener.jpgGeorge Krueger & Mary-Lynn Foster2012-03-09 07:00:382012-03-05 21:21:45Success is a Journey Full of Stories
Today on The Bigg Success Show, we were thrilled to welcome Amy Ravit Korin, also known as interactiveAmy. She’s a social media consultant to individuals, local businesses and Fortune 500 companies. We met Amy at SOBCon, the business school for bloggers. Amy has so much personality that, once you meet her, you’ll never forget her! So let’s get to the conversation …
Amy, you told us this incredible story that we want you to share with our whole community. You recently ordered some pizza from Domino’s. But it took an hour to get the order to you and, when it arrived, it wasn’t right. What happened next?
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I called the store and they said they would send over another one. I’m also very active on Twitter – as a social media consultant it is one of my preferred methods of communicating. So I tweeted what had happened. I was just venting my frustration.
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And that's when Ramon De Leon, who is the owner of the local Dominos stepped in, right?
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Yes! He twittered me right away and asked which location I ordered the pizza from.
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Get in on the conversation
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This is a good thing for local business owners to understand. Since you are a social media consultant, Amy, how did Ramon know that you had tweeted about him?
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There are great tools out there that allow you to monitor the real time feed of what's being said on Twitter. Ramon probably had an alert set up for the word “Domino’s” or “Domino’s Chicago.” You can use any term that's relevant for you. In addition, you could also set up a Google Alert, which will alert you whenever your name, brand, or company is mentioned on the Internet. So Ramon said that he would remedy the situation and be back in touch when he had more information. I figured I was going to get a credit for free cinnamon sticks the next time I placed an order. Imagine my surprise when I woke up the next morning, logged onto Twitter, and saw a tweet from @DPZRAMON. It said, "Amy, we want to make it up to you, please click on this link." The link took me to a video apology from Ramon, who is the owner of six Domino’s franchises in Chicago. He was standing there with Junior, who is the General Manager of the store where I ordered my pizza. They were offering an apology for what had happened that previous night.
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The buzz begins
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Like a lot of people, we've watched that video. I really liked that the apology was very sincere!
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Yeah, what's so crazy is, just this morning, I actually got a tweet from Ramon. He said that video has been embedded on over 30,000 websites! And this is not just 30,000 watching the video; this is 30,000 people who think it's noteworthy enough to feature on their website.
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Wow!
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And in this video, not only did Ramon apologize to you – and promise to make it up to you – he said that they were going to wow you! Now that's more than cinnamon sticks. So what did they do to wow you?
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First of all, I was totally wowed by this video apology. I had never seen or heard of anything like it. Well as it turns out, I'm also involved in the Social Media Club of Chicago. We hosted an event on Thursday, April 30th – the kick-off to SOBCon. It was a great event where we had all kinds of Chicago social media minds in addition to friends from all over the country. Independently of this video apology, Domino’s was already secured as an event sponsor. So if that wasn’t enough, Domino’s showed up with over 100 pizzas for our club. They also brought a personal pizza for interactiveAmy, with my name all over the box. Ramon delivered it himself.
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So he didn't delegate this!
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No, he didn't! Not only was he there, he was really excited about it. He couldn't wait to meet everybody who had heard about him after the video apology. But he was most excited to come and meet me, which was really cool.
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And who can blame him, Amy? We know you!
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He also brought some members of his team including Junior. And it was his day off! In addition to the personalized interactiveAmy pizza, Junior also brought me a dozen roses in my favorite color, fuchsia. See video of interactiveAmy with DPZRAMON and Junior.
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How on earth did he know your favorite color? He must have visited your website where that color is so strong.
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That's true. I don't know if he did his back end research or if he just took a guess that women like bright pink.
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Well, I am just wowed by all of this. It’s just incredible!
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The conversation begins when a mistake is made
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I thought so too. Ramon and I are still in touch. He has become an example of what great customer service is and can be – how to take steps to forge relationships with your customers which is a huge opportunity. When somebody makes a mistake, it doesn't have to be the end of the conversation. It really should be the beginning.
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That's a great point, Amy. But you could have just said nothing and not gone back to Domino’s. Instead you said something – not even expecting a response – but he responded in such a magnificent way that you've talked about it ever since. Plus 30,000 bloggers have talked about it too!
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Exactly. As the owner of my own social media company, this is definitely something I try to advise business on, from small mom & pops all the way up the Fortune 500 ladder. Take any opportunity to engage in a conversation about your brand, product or service. And listen – especially when someone says something that might not be the most flattering. It’s a great way to get insight and take steps to remedy the problem. So first you have to listen. Then you can engage. You can become part of the conversation and take the necessary steps to forge your relationship going forward.
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Those are great points, Amy. Here’s what I’ve learned – if you need a case study for your social media consulting business, just be your own.
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I think that's a lesson to all of us … go out there and make things happen!
Thanks Ramon for being a shining example of great customer service.
And thanks Amy for sharing your story with us.
And thank you for reading our post today.
Bigg Question
Have you been impressed with the response to a complaint? Share that with us by leaving a comment below, e-mailing us at bigginfo@biggsuccess.com or calling us at 877.988.BIGG(2444).
Please join us next time when we’ll continue on this thread. We’ll discuss bad and ugly apologies. Until then, here’s to your bigg success!
We introduced a refined definition for bigg success last week. Bigg success is life on your own terms. It was our first real tweak to Bigg Success in the time we’ve been online.
We have a story to share with you about that launch. Sometimes bad luck and bad timing seem to conspire against us. We work ahead on our shows. We had five shows in mind to introduce you to life on your own terms. Our plan was to have them all fully done before the beginning of the week.
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Catching a bug
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Now let’s go back about a month. I bragged that I hadn’t been sick for several years. Not even a cold. Well, you can guess what happened … within about a week, I got the flu. That really slowed us down!
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Yeah, we got behind on our recording because George was so sick.
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A cold front
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After about four days of the flu, I finally was feeling more normal. The next day, I noticed a really bad tickle in my throat. I tried to ward it off – Vitamin C, orange juice, Airborne – but I ended up with a full-fledged cold.
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This all happened when we were coming up on our deadline for recording the five shows that we now call our Bigg Success Primer. We planned to have these shows as a feature for new visitors to Bigg Success.
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I knew I sounded very nasally, but I also knew I couldn’t do anything about it. We just had to go ahead and record. So we decided to do it one day at a time, hoping it would get better show after show.
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So here we were. It was Saturday. The first of the five shows needed to be posted before Monday. We wanted to get that first show done.
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I felt and sounded the best about an hour after taking my meds.
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We’re experiencing technical difficulties
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So we’re ready to record, but we had technical problems with our wireless network. Neither of us could get online which meant I wouldn’t be able to post our new show. We tried working on it ourselves. We rebooted. We went through the troubleshooting procedures. We checked forums. Finally, we called for technical support. After a couple of hours, our network was working again.
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But by then, I was really drowsy – one of the effects of the meds I was taking. So we decided to push recording back to Sunday.
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So on Sunday, we were all ready to record. We were able to get online, but the printer wasn’t responding. Déjà vu all over again! Once again, we tried everything we could think of before going online for support. It cost us a good hour, but we finally got up and running.
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At that point, we didn’t have a choice. We had to record if we wanted to stick with the plan of posting our show on Monday. So we did.
What an experience! In the process, we recognized that things just don’t go as planned much of the time.
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I realized in all of this that we need to add a line to wedding vows. We say “in sickness and in health”. Maybe we should add “when technology works and when it doesn’t!”
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I think George might be onto something there. We dealt with sickness and technology that wasn’t working all at the same time. I’m glad to say that we made it through!
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As we discussed this whole situation, we realized something important …
Applying lessons learned can turn what could be a major event into just an annoyance. Knowing what to do is one thing. Putting that knowledge to work is what counts. All of the things that happened to us could have been really stressful since we had the misfortune of having them all happen at once.
It takes two times as long as you expect to do just about anything. We’ve heard this said over and over and it’s the first lesson we applied. We had allowed for extra time. So when all of these things happened, we had time. Good thing … we needed every bit of it!
We have some planned changes in the near future. They’re relatively minor things, but they all take time. Because we listened and, even more importantly, applied our friends’ advice to our situation, we didn’t try to incorporate all of our planned changes all at once. Because of that, our stress levels were much lower in spite of the circumstances.
Have you had a situation recently where things didn’t go as planned? What did you do about it? You can share that with us by leaving a comment below, calling us at 877.988.BIGG or sending us an e-mail at bigginfo@biggsuccess.com.
https://biggsuccess.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/bigg-success_stacked-1080.png10801080George Krueger & Mary-Lynn Fosterhttps://biggsuccess.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/BIGG-Success-Nurturing-Your-Inner-Entreprener.jpgGeorge Krueger & Mary-Lynn Foster2009-04-03 02:00:112009-04-03 02:00:11When Things Don't Go Your Way
We introduced a refined definition for BIGG success last week. BIGG success is life on your own terms. But things didn’t quite go our way leading to sharing this first real tweak in the time we’ve been online.
https://biggsuccess.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/When-things-dont-go-your-way.png430448George Krueger & Mary-Lynn Fosterhttps://biggsuccess.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/BIGG-Success-Nurturing-Your-Inner-Entreprener.jpgGeorge Krueger & Mary-Lynn Foster2009-04-03 02:00:112022-04-04 09:37:28When Things Don’t Go Your Way
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He had always been proud to call her his bride. But now things were different. She was different.
Today on The Bigg Success Show, we were thrilled to welcome Amy Ravit Korin, also known as 
Amy, you told us this incredible story that we want you to share with our whole community. You recently ordered some pizza from Domino’s. But it took an hour to get the order to you and, when it arrived, it wasn’t right. What happened next? 
I called the store and they said they would send over another one. I’m also very active on Twitter – as a social media consultant it is one of my preferred methods of communicating. So I tweeted what had happened. I was just venting my frustration. 
And that's when Ramon De Leon, who is the owner of the local Dominos stepped in, right? 
We introduced a refined definition for bigg success last week. Bigg success is life on your own terms. It was our first real tweak to Bigg Success in the time we’ve been online. 
