Turning Sh** Into Sugar
By Christine OKelly | January 18, 2009
I’ve been kind of obsessed with 50 Cent’s new reality show ‘The Money and the Power.’ If you haven’t been following, it’s like a g-style version of The Apprentice where the contestants live in a crappy warehouse while they are tested and judged by Mr. Fitty and his G-Unit crew. Every week the challenges revolve around one of 50’s words of street wisdom – such as “Choose Your Crew Wisely,” “Respect the Hustle,” and one of my favorite new sayings “Turn Sh** To Sugar.”
Just last week, I mixed a little sh** with Fitty’s wisdom and a healthy scoop of a Mindshift technique learned from the always awesome Steve Chandler to overcome an obstacle. And the results were delicious. In fact, I’m looking forward to stepping in more sh** just to use these techniques.
The Situation
You may know that Tara and I just launched Online PR News – and were so very excited about it. If you’ve ever launched anything, you know that it requires a lot of time, money, and emotional investment to create the best product or service available. You want every single person to love it and have the best possible experience…
Then this happened:
Sure enough, the site was throwing an error whenever anyone tried to add the SEO upgrade to their press release.
Three options for responding quickly ran through my mind:
Response Option #1 – The fear-based response: Don’t reply to the person, just fix the problem and chalk it up to a loss.
Response Option #2 – The lack of responsibility response: Send a ‘computer generated’ sounding response like “we’re sorry to hear about your issue and will attend to the problem right away, signed, the company.
Response Option #3 – The ownership response: Reply as a real person, admit the mistake, genuinely thanking them for alerting us to the problem (as you know, most people will get an error and just move on) and offer a free upgrade in exchange for their troubles, signed, Christine O’Kelly.
A Mindshift in Action
Then I remembered the wise words of Steve Chandler from his Mindshift course… He said (and I’m paraphrasing) that we need to shift our thinking – literally change the words we hear in our mind when we face a problem. Instead of thinking “I have a problem that I have to deal with,” think “I’ve been presented with an opportunity to make my businesses better.”
As a result, I chose response option #3. The customer was not only happy to receive the free upgrade, but even promoted us on a social networking site that she belonged to. She has since become a repeat customer and posted an “I Love Online PR News” to her network on Twitter. Thanks!!
Why Learning To Turn Sh** Into Sugar Is So Incredibly Powerful
The majority of the reason any of us don’t live up to our potential the way we know we should is based on FEAR. If you put yourself out there, you absolutely will be faced with rejection, roadblocks, and problems – there’s just no doubt about that.
But if you learn to shift your mind and consider problems to be opportunities for growth, you will then willingly go boldly into situations that may lead to rejection, roadblocks, and problems, because they will only make you better.
What have you been afraid to do? Why? Get out there and do it, learn to turn crappy situations that everyone else is avoiding into sweet opportunities for yourself!
Random Awesome Things I Discovered Through Twitter
This cool tool called Twitter Grader from a post by Jack Bastide (@JackBastide) where he interviews Yvonne Perry of Writers in the Sky.
How Make Deals With Bigshots in Less Than 10 Minutes - by Laura Roeder (@lkr) on ProBlogger (BTW - I wholehearted recommend that everyone subscribe to Laura’s newsletter The Dash where she serves up weekly managably sized action items that you can do to improve your business - these are GREAT ideas that make you say DUH! Why didn’t I think of that!). Nice job on the guest post Laura!!
How To Build a Social Media Cheat Sheet For Any Topic: Information overload! (The good kind)
Topics: Business Development |
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I guess this is the new “turning lemons into lemonade!” In a world where many people will just let sh** slide, or even turn sugar into sh**, someone who does what it takes to turn sh** into sugar is bound to stand out.
Lol - Hunter - I guess so! I like this saying a lot better - if you think about it… manure is a fantastic fertilizer if you just put it to use the right way!
That’s why you girls are so awesome!
I don’t know how many times I’ve seen or dealt with angry customers because the company was too afraid to step up a little. That’s exactly what sets the two of you apart from everyone else.
Mistakes are bound to happen, it’s what we do with them that makes all the difference.
Wtg you two!
Angie Haggstrom
Thanks so much Angie! I think something we can all take away from this social media revolution, is that its good business to step up and be yourself
Oh man just reading “Mr. Fitty” in print made me laugh out loud! Definitely not someone who I expected to great advice from but I love it!
Also thank you so much for the kind words about The Dash. I was telling a friend that I often give people ideas and they say “why did not think of that before?” We were joking that my tagline could be “Another Obvious Idea From Laura Roeder”, ha!
Lol - ‘Mr. Fitty’ is chock full of good advice! I finished my second ‘Dash’ project last night - I just loved that idea!!
Ack! I don’t want to admit that I can learn something from 50 Cent.
This is… good advice though. And it just lends a bit of provocativeness to the situation coming from a rapper, instead of some self improvement guru.
Whenever a challenge pops up that I was unable to foresee, I always ask myself:
“You didn’t expect to have an obstacle free ride, did you?”
Lol Trey - I didn’t really realize it before watching the show - but 50 is a damn smart businessman! Plus, I love the fact that he came from nothing and got where he is today through a lot of hard work.
I love your question to yourself - I’m definitely going to remember that one!
Wow, 50 cent teaching us a great lesson! It’s such a catchy phrase too. I’ll have to go with this from this point on. Thanks for sharing!
I hear ya Rowell - I don’t think I’ll ever be able to hear the phrase ‘turning lemons into lemonade’ without hearing this in my mind instead!
Wonderful site. Great post.
Make me feel not so guilty for indulging in them ‘in da club’ beats.
lol barker! Those ‘In da club’ beats are a guilty pleasure aren’t they?!? Except when I’m listening to it, I kinda feel like the Michael Bolton character in the opening scene of Office Space…
Excellent post and way to go on making the right business decision! So many businesses take the easy way out by just ignoring a problem or sending a formula response. Too bad more businesses don’t do what you did — admit the mistake and turn it in the customer’s favor.
Thank you Happiness
I love your your post on the ‘half empty half full’ philosophy - wow! What a great way to look at things…
http://www.yourhappinesspower.com/2009/01/19/half-empty-or-half-full/
What a great perceptive on life!
In case you didn’t know, 50’s show was canceled after 6 episodes. Just sayin.
Good post nonetheless.
I’m so bummed about that! I think its a great show! Maybe the MTV crowd just wasn’t business-minded enough to appreciate it… such a disappointment when shows like “Paris Hilton is My New BFF” and “Date My Mom” are going strong - ahh!
Hey Christine,
I’m glad that I’m not the only one who liked that show. It’s the sort of thing I wouldnt admit unless I absoltuely had to
But I’ve always admired 50 Cent…..anyone who makes several hundred million dollars within a few years is someone we can all learn from. Besides, I love his ‘fired’ phrase…..”GET the F**K outta here!”
Lol! It’s a great show! I just watched the finale yesterday - Ryan, the internet entrepreneur won! He is NOT messing around when he fires someone - damn!
TIPs - January 25, 2009…
TIPs — Tim’s Interesting Picks
Each Sunday, I’ll list some interesting things I found on the Web during the previous week.
Turning Sh** Into Sugar
The Power of Less: Changing Behavior with Leo Babauta
Happiness comes to those who soc…
On the grounds that everything from the US eventually comes to Europe, I fear what rapper we’ll be faced with when we see this show here. As long as it’s not Vanilla Ice (remember him?)
Seriously, I think a lot can be learned from the street hustlers - and they’re subsequent branding, which they retain what works and reject the rest.
Lol - I certainly remember Vanilla Ice! Remember rockin out to Ice Ice Baby on the way to school in 9th grade… It’s something I didn’t every want to admit publicly… aggh!
An excellent post. I love the idea of turning your thoughts on their head and into a positive outcome - I love the line “I’ve been presented with an opportunity to make my businesses better.” It reminds me of a book I recently began reading (but didn’t get chance to finish) called The law of Attraction.
Great post! The mindshift mention reminded me of something I did recently. I entered a contest to try to win a Wii for my kids. The company was giving one Wii away per day for the most creative entry. I made a video (my first attempt ever) that was really good, and I just knew I’d win. Well, to my shock I didn’t win. The video that won was incredibly lame, but it did show more of the story of what the company was about. I was mad and upset and felt “gypped”. I slept on it and for some reason the next morning, my hurt over the loss turned into something different. I started thinking, “What can I do to really win this thing? What can I improve?” I got out my video camera and started adding scenes to the former video. It was amazing how it flowed together. The end result was incredible, and I won! I was shocked that I won because at this point I wasn’t doing it to win the Wii, but more to show myself that I could persevere. I’m so glad I didn’t give up because now that Wii is so much sweeter. I love happy endings!
Chris!! So good to hear from you! You and your story are still such an inspiration to me. Congrats on winning that Wii — I’m not surprised that you got exactly what you set your mind to though!
As a customer, I would love to read your option # 3. It’s much convincing that you’re doing your part in order to satisfy your customer. Plus the fact that it sounds more friendly compared to the other options. You know what, you deserve the free promotion made by your customer because you guys are great service provider.
Great advice. Trying to remove the desire to do anything but face the problem head on and grow from it will end up biting you later. It’s good to have someone else posting the support it sometimes requires to take full ownership of ones failures.
The typical response of companies is the number 2 option. Maybe, to minimize their time, they simply made a computer generated response for their customers. However, I still prefer the third option. It’s because if you are really sincere about your mistake and want to settle everything to avoid any future problem, then you must talk to them directly.