No Need to be Afraid

My oldest daughter has a pet turtle.  The turtle stated as her accounting class's pet before to came to live with the Chapins.  They named the turtle Petty Cash.  We call him PC (To be honest it could be a her, it's a turtle so we aren't sure of the gender).

Inside PC's tank he has a few trinkets and things to climb on top of.  If he makes it all the way to the top of the tank there is a platform that is out of the water and close to the heating lamp.  He like to "sun" himself there.  If you walk up the stairs at our house and look into Anne's room you can catch the sight of him sunning himself but once you move closer to PC he scurries away by diving in the water and swimming to the furthest corner of the tank. 

PC isn't very approachable.  Like I said PC is a turtle.  They tend at pull away or get into their shell at the slightest sign that they might be attacked or in danger. 

I don't live or work in a tank.  (I'll be honest and tell you that I am frighten by things that are 200 times my size.)

Instead I work at Willmar Electric.

What do Turtles have to do with Willlmar Electric?

Approachability. 

As far as I know all tturtles are like PC.  They all lack approachability. 

At Willmar Electric one of our brand promises is to be approachable.  We want our customers to see us as approachable and open to getting input from others.  We seek to be a place that when a conflict arises on a project others feel safe approaching us with the issue so that we can be part of the solution. 

We want our customers to include us in the process of coming up with solutions on how to accomplish what is best for them and their project.  If the plumber or HVAC contractor has conflict with where a pipe or duct is potentially going to go on a project we want them to feel that Willmar Electric is approachable and hopefully we can reach a resolution before a problem develops.  Approachability is an important part of those things.

It means we can't be defensive (hide in our shells) or hard to contact (run away at the first sign of trouble).  Being approachable isn't hard work and doesn't really take a lot of effort.  Even in the case of the turtle all they would have to do stay right where they already are.  In our case as humans it means we have to trust others and be willing to be vulnerable.

It is hard to arrogant and approachable. 

I hope others see Willmar Electric as approachable.  I am going to try to continue to get the message out that we seek to be approachable and hopefully anybody that doesn't see us as approachable takes what they might consider as a risk and approaches us and let us know what they are thinking.  At that point it is up to us to respond to them in a way that shows we are approachable.

I don't think PC will ever be approachable but Willmar Electric will continue to seek ways to become more and more approachable.