Revenue Journal®

The longer you head up a company, the more it becomes like a private club. You go to work, and are immediately swarmed by messages, issues, meetings, random hallway and instant messaging conversations - all from members of your own club.

Everyone in the club knows everyone else, everyone knows who the facilitators are - and who are the obstructionists. They know the helpful ones and the spoiled brats. You spend your entire day interacting with everyone in the club, people who make you feel good about yourself, your company, how well your people are doing - and how happy your customers are.

Here's the danger: After a while, it gets harder and harder for anyone outside the club to get what they need from anyone inside the club. Your days are consumed by your interactions with each other.

Imagine that your clubhouse is in a neighborhood of other clubhouses. Your customer is flying around in a helicopter, above the neighborhood, looking for your type of product. The types of products you sell are clearly painted on the roof of your clubhouse. The customer, who has been looking for what you sell, lands his helicopter in your parking lot and goes up to the door.

He knocks.

Nothing happens. He can hear people in the house, making noise, talking with each other, laughing, talking, arguing, and working.

He knocks again.

Nothing. He knocks hard and long, and finally, someone comes to the door.

"Oh, a customer. Can't you see we're busy?" The person turns to the others in the house. "It's only a customer." Then, sighing, turns back to the customer. "What do you want?"

This captures the reality of the customer's experience with many companies - too many companies. The real-life example is voicemail hell, which is where customers get shoved when they call a company. The basic message is, "We don't care, we don't want to do what you're asking us to do, and we're happy with things the way they are. Please leave us alone as soon as possible, so we can go back to what we want to do."

What happens when a club member won't come along?

It's so easy to get comfortable in your own private club, and to remain loyal to your good friends - your employees - people who have been in the club with you for years. But over time, companies change. Markets change. Technology changes.

Lately even the smallest companies have had to embrace new digital-speed, interactive ways of doing things, and some of their most loyal employees have not been in an embracing mood. Instead, they shake their heads. They dig in their heels. They pout. They tell everyone, "We can't make those kinds of changes. No can do." They make up obstructionary rules. In other words, they become a roadblock to progress.

Meanwhile, the other employees get frustrated. They have learned new things, why can't this person? The company's dealers, distributors, vendors and other partners also get frustrated. The customers get frustrated. All because one person in one key position has decided not to move forward, not to learn.

To use another analogy (OK, this is the last one): If your company were a car, now you have a car that should be going down the road, but can't - because the fuel pump has decided it doesn't want to go. The fuel pump is having a little pity party, and is refusing to do its job. The car isn't going anywhere without that fuel pump. Everybody is stuck.

When the CEO or company owner spends too much time in the club, he doesn't see how much of a problem is being caused by that one "hell no, I won't go" employee. He comes to work, and talks to people, and does his emails and makes his phone calls. People inside the clubhouse tell him the car is still running.

Every so often, someone comes in and says, "Boss, this is really getting difficult," and they talk, and the boss says he'll talk to the person causing the problem. And he does. But nothing really changes. The employee promises to do a better job, and makes a half-hearted attempt at it. But it's not enough.

Meanwhile, the customers are becoming more and more frustrated. Competitors are coming along and saying, "Why are you wasting your time knocking on their door? You know they don't want to deal with you. On the other hand, we want your business, and we'll do whatever you need. Come with us."

Customers - and vendors and partners - shrug their shoulders and walk away from the private club.

Inside the club, they're all still talking and arguing and laughing and working, and the CEO is very busy interacting with them all. Nobody tells him that all those customers came knocking and didn't get what they needed. And nobody is worrying about the connection between customers - who pay for the clubhouse - and the fact that those same customers are being driven away.

You can find out where you stand on the clubhouse problem by making some phone calls to customers and asking them some open-ended questions about their experiences with your company. If you're not comfortable making the calls yourself, hire someone to do it. Give that person a list of customers, dealers, and other stakeholders to call - mostly people you assume are satisfied, with a few of the "complainers" thrown in.

If you are running an insider's club, you'll be surprised to learn how dissatisfied your "happy" customers are. Fortunately, they will tell you exactly why they are unhappy and suggest what you can do to make things better. All you have to do then is follow their advice, which is much more difficult than it sounds when you're working in your private club. You'll have to stick to your guns and insist on appropriate changes, even though it runs contrary to the wishes of your club friends.

The alternative, however, can turn into a very sad story, one that you don't want to be part of.