This article is coming to you from beautiful Bali. What better topic to write about than the Bali ‘vibe’. Motorbikes beeping, crowded streets, tanned tourists, Indonesians balancing heavy loads on their heads, street shops selling colourful sarongs, flavours of the Indonesian cuisine, music busting from tourist bars, the heat, banana pancakes and fresh fruit juice, epic waves… Sounds familiar?

It takes no time to adjust to Bali’s ‘tourist vibe’ with a Bintang in one hand and sun screen all over your face, talking to a Balinese guy trying to sell you DVDs. Everybody loves Bali. Why is that?

It’s all about the Balinese experience. Bali attracts tourist to come back time after time with its beautiful people, their smiles and their ‘customer service’. If you could replicate this for your business, you could have a very successful business.

The experience: It’s all about the experience. How do you make your clients feel? Are they having a great experience rather than just getting a service or product? Ask your current clients about their experience with you and how you can make it even better. For example if you are a natural therapist, could you offer them a complimentary coffee or tea upon arrival, put some beautiful flowers or fresh fruit in the waiting room, let your client choose relaxing music, have beautiful furniture? Whatever it is that adds to your client’s experience.

It’s just easy: In Bali things are just easy for tourists, you can get a motorbike and explore different places or get a driver, when you are hungry, there are a lot of restaurants or street vendors to choose from. When you need a hotel room, there are many hotels or warungs to choose from. It’s just easy. Is it easy to do business with you? Is it easy to book in an appointment with you or to get an answer to an email within a reasonable time frame? Is it easy for your clients to reach you by phone if necessary? Is it easy to pay you for your services, do you have multiple paying options, do you offer payment plans?

Three lollies go a long way: Yesterday we bought some snacks and drinks in a little local shop and as we paid for the goods, the Balinese woman gave us three lollies with the return money. Do you think we will go back to her shop instead of to the million other shops in her street? You bet, and not because of the lollies, but because of her appreciation of our ‘business’. What do you do to show your clients that you appreciate them? Get this and you’ll have return clients.

Up-selling: Balinese people could teach us something when it comes to up-selling. They provide you with accommodation, food and drinks and up sell you massages, sarongs, home made craft every day, it’s hard to resist.

How do you up-sell in your business? Do you have an additional service or product your clients could benefit from? If so, do you let them know that it is available to them? Often clients are all too happy to buy more from you if you give them an excellent service.

Smile: Most Balinese people always have a smile for you, even their children have the biggest and cutest smiles. And then you go out in the surf and there are some Western ladies learning to surf, you give them an encouraging smile and all you get is a blank face, lots to learn from the Balinese guys. Do you have a smile for your clients? Do you mean it? If not, maybe you are in the wrong profession. A ‘real’ smile has more impact than you would ever think.

Keep smiling,

Franziska