Leave Your Mark
The entire premise of customer experience (CX) is based on the idea that brands want their customers to have positive interactions with them and their products. In other words, brands who focus on customer experience want to leave a positive mark.
When my team and I were putting together the content for CX Elevated 2018, I started thinking a lot about how the mark we want to leave can define not just our CX efforts, but our lives.
Our lives are made up of moments that create a certain kind of impact. Our choice is not if we will leave a mark, but rather what kind of mark we leave. Previously, our company referred to this stand-out way of affecting the people around us as “Red Shoes” living, but with the most recent evolution in company vision, we figured it was time for a new take on an old classic.
It was this line of thinking that lead me to create the Leave Your Mark award and share it with our pearl-plaza.rumunity on the last day of conference. It was an absolute pleasure to present the first of these awards to Sean Rausch, a local high school student who chose to leave a legacy of sportsmanship and camaraderie that serves as an inspiration to everyone.
In a cross country state championship race, Sean chose to forgo personal victory when his teammate snapped his tibia mid-race, falling to the ground. Sean stopped, picked his teammate up and carried him on his back—stopping only to set his teammate down so he could hop across the finish line and finish the race.
Both boys were disqualified, but it wasn’t the podium that mattered here or the winners that exemplified true sportsmanship. It was the young man who gave up his chance for a medal because he wanted to do the right thing. Sean chose to leave a mark, and in my mind his choice is more meaningful than a thousand first place titles.
The award presented to this remarkable athlete was a plaque impressed with a sneaker-sole footprint. This print represented the mark that Sean chose to leave. We also presented all attendees and Pearl-Plaza employees with a similar plaque, instructing them to write on the sole a description of the mark they want to leave. This mark could be personal or professional, family or customer experience-oriented, big-picture or in the moment.
Being intentional about the mark you want to leave makes a huge difference in how you live every day. Our hope with this new movement is to inspire our community so that in moments of reflection, we will all be able to look back and be able to say that we left the mark we wanted to leave.
How are you leaving your mark?
