We'll look at the word climb and explain what it means to curl your toes up.
This story is about a tourist venture where you don't just look at the Sydney Harbour
Bridge - you climb it.
This is all about sharing something that we have a great privilege to be able to show
off to the world, this bridge and it's quite extraordinary on
the harbour.
Operationally, it's about the standard of the climb leaders we employ, the fact that
our job is to make a hero of our customer.
It's about tailoring a climb specifically for individual customers.
It really needs to be tailored to deal with people's height concerns, their interest in
history, in technology and language and culture.
Hence our climb leaders give a very unscripted climb.
They've got to try and relate to the people in their group and think
"What do these people need and want?" and
"How do I encapsulate this 3 and a half hour experience?"
Notice that he uses the word climb in several ways.
He uses it as a noun - a climb.
Listen:
It's about tailoring a climb specifically for individual customers.
He also uses it as part of the compound noun 'climb leaders':
It's about the standard of the climb leaders that we employ.
Now listen for another noun form of climb: About 2 thirds of our climbers are international,
about 15% from the Asia Pacific area.
Climbers.
A climber is someone who climbs.
Notice that climb is also a verb - you climb the bridge:
Well definitely Sydney being first stop we were really excited about coming to the harbour
and then when we heard about the opportunity to climb the bridge it was, first of all a
bit nerve-wracking but then we thought, Well actually we like doing quite exciting stuff"
so we thought we couldn't come here without climbing the bridge and it's absolutely amazing.
So how do people know about the bridge climb?
I think word of mouth.
Most people were saying they had such a fantastic time doing it that we thought we couldn't
not do it when we came here.
We had to come and do it.
They know by word of mouth.
Word of mouth just means hearing about things from people you talk to.
Listen again:
I think word of mouth most people were saying they had such a fantastic time doing it that
we thought we couldn't not do it when we came here.
We had to come and do it.
You get to have a tour of the whole of Sydney - point out all the great features and landmarks
and no it's been well worth it.
Very good.
This customer enjoyed the experience.
So what does the owner of the business say about his customers?
This is customer focus.
This is really about the experience for every individual.
If I weren't interested in what the people who climbed yesterday thought we'd curl our
toes up.
If he wasn't interested in what his customers think, he'd 'curl his toes up'.
To curl you toes up means to die.
Here he means that if they don't care about their customers the business would fail.
So we've seen that 'word of mouth' is advice from friends,
that climb can be a noun and a verb
and the person climbing is called a climber.
We'll finish with a couple more examples of the verb climb form the man who runs this
unique business.
The business is turning over about 50 million dollars currently and with a couple of hundred
thousand people climbing a year and it's been a very successful business.
The world who come to Sydney, many of them climb the bridge and that's just, what a thrill,
I mean what more could one wish for, so it's enormously satisfying and very gratifying.