Balls to your balls

Before I start, I found a bit of home video of meself on the internet.  I thought I'd share it with you:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VxDRUNtud4I&feature=related

I have a bit of a split personality.

It's not my fault, it's all to do with me parents.  You see, I'm a labradoodle.  Normally I'm all square with that but just recently I've been confused.

You see, me human has just bought me a ball flinger... personally I'd have preferred a Porsche, but we makes do with what we're given.

This ball flinger is brilliant.  As soon as me human flings that ball, the Labrador in me takes over before I can do anything about it and me legs have taken me off in pursuit of the missile.  It takes me a while to get them back in control... usually the Poodle takes over just as I arrive at said ball and says to meself:

'She flung the ball, she must want it, she can come and get it!'  And I drops it and wander off.

The issue, though, is that I sometimes forget where the ball is and me human's nose is useless... and she refuses to get on her hands and knees in the long grass to help.

As a result, I'm not really accumulating a stock of balls.  I tend to lose one and find one, so I'm always even, which ain't much good when you're trying to get more.

Funnily enough Renee says that's a bit like customers.  It's no use using up a whole lot of time, effort and cash attracting new customers if you lose sight of ones you've already got in the long grass.  But how do you keep the ones you've got when there's just you.

Well, don't be a Labradoodle with a split personality for a start...

Assuming that you're not (a doodle, that is) you need to keep looking for new customers but keep in contact with the old ones and the only way to make sure you don't drop the ball is to have PROCESSES for looking after them once you've got them.

It's like an actor and actress who look as though they are really natrural and sparking off each other... it takes a lot of rehearsal to look that spontaneous and your service processes have to be the same.

It may take some time to get them right, but as an investment, it's well worth it.