Make Me Feel Important

Mary Kay Ash, an American businesswoman and founder of Mary Kay Cosmetics, Inc. once said, “Everyone has an invisible sign hanging from their neck saying, 'Make me feel important.' Never forget this message when working with people.”

The dictionary describes the word important as:
Of great significance or value; likely to have a profound effect on success, survival, or well-being.

It is understandable why Mary Kay Ash felt that it is crucial that we make people feel important. A person’s very success, survival and well-being depend on it. With that type of impact it is critical that each of us remember how significant it is that our customers feel important.

Have you ever walked away from a business because no one offered to serve you or stopped doing business with a company because they were rude?  Has an over bearing salesperson ever lost your business because they acted like you didn’t understand what they were talking about? In each of these cases the core reason for losing your business boils down to the fact that a representative of each entity made you feel irrelevant or unimportant.

We have all been treated poorly by a business at one time or another. If we have a long standing relationship with the business and we are certain the incident was isolated we may continue purchasing their product or service. Even in these circumstances it is likely that the relationship has been damaged irreparably.

It is noteworthy that I did not mention the first part of the definition of the word important. The part that states, “Of great significance or value” may very well be the essential point for each of us to remember. After all, our customers are the reason we are in business. I think it is fair to say that our customers are of great significance and value. If we don’t treat them as if they have great value, someone else will.

It should be easy for us to make our customers feel important because they are important to us. Without them there would be no reason for any of us to open our doors. Taken a step further we can easily make the case that each customer is of great significance and value and that each one has a profound effect on our success, survival and well-being.

How do we let our customers know how important they are to us? Focusing on a customer with the intent of making them feel important may come across as a little creepy. We can however show our customers how much we appreciate them by being attentive, helpful, fair, supportive, responsive and thankful.

I would say that Mary Kay Ash was absolutely correct and her understanding of human nature played a vital role in her overwhelming success.