What do you say when someone says, “Thank you?”

I’ll place a safe bet you would mindlessly utter, “You’re welcome.”

Am I right?

Isn’t that what you expect to hear when you say thank you to someone else?

Well, I’ve taken the words, “you’re welcome” out of my vocabulary, thanks to Scott Ginsberg, the Name Tag Guy.

First, allow me to tell you a little story about Scott.

I read about him years ago and thought, “What a cool idea!” For those of you that don’t know who he is, he’s the unique individual that’s been wearing a name tag for the last 2,691 days (as of this writing) to make people friendlier.

I met Scott last year at Jeffrey Gitomer’s sales seminar in St. Louis. I bought a couple of his books and he was super nice and has one of the best blogs around.

Back to my story… (a girl’s gotta set it up, yanno…)

I downloaded a free ebook from Scott’s site with some “phrases that payses” (his terminology) and one that stuck out in my mind was changing from “You’re welcome” to -

drumroll please…

“It’s my pleasure.”

It was difficult at first because it seemed unnatural; however after a few times, it was smooth “like butter.”

At work, I speak with dentist’s offices all day long, and I was ABSOLUTELY FLOORED by how the people were taken aback and much more friendly (which is great in a sales and customer service situation!)

I’ll hear comments like, “You’re so friendly,” “You’re so helpful,” “You have a great day, darlin’,” and so forth that I hadn’t received before.

How’s that for a suuuuhweet little tip?

Psst… It works at home, too.

I also used it in a store and received an extra discount. (The cashier said, “Honey, I think I have a coupon for that around here somewhere” and took 10% off my order!) I’ll admit, that may have been coupled with the Law of Attraction…hehehe

If you’re interested in learning other phrases that have helped me out, leave me a comment and I will either compose another blog post or maybe even compile them in a list.

Try it out and see how people react… It’s a blast!