By Kristin Zhivago on May 2, 2005
"What?!!? He said that? You're kidding. You're not kidding? He actually said we have to do that? Starting tomorrow? Does he realize what he's asking? Oh, of course not. What an idiot! That means I'm going to have to drop everything I've been working on for three weeks and start running full speed in the other direction! I can't believe it."
This conversation, which takes place in millions of hallways across the world each business day, ends with everyone going back to their desks, carrying their cups of coffee, heads down, grumbling all the way.
Because of something a manager or manager's manager said, employees are going to be working on something that doesn't make sense, something that will mess up everything else they're working on, something that will probably inconvenience customers - or, worse, make customers shake their heads in disgust and go find a company who has a clue about what they need and how they want to buy.
Working on things that don't make sense - things that will hurt the company because they won't help the customer - is, by far, one of the biggest problem in business today. It's an epidemic, and nobody talks about it. Scott Adams, the creator of Dilbert, owes a lot of his popularity to the sad fact that the stupidity of Dilbert's boss rings true for a lot of workers.
Every minute an employee spends working on something that doesn't make sense is a wasted minute. You could even call it a "negative" minute, because 1) the job that should be getting done isn't getting done and 2) the employee's respect for the boss, and his belief in the company's future, has slipped down another notch.
Working on things that don't make sense is the single biggest source of job dissatisfaction. Who wants to work on something that is obviously going to fail? Who wants to fight traffic, spend 8 to 15 hours in a windowless office, answer another 200 emails, and sit through at least 5 boring meetings every day, just to do something stupid?
Employees are the happiest when they're working on something that is going to succeed. Something that they think customers will like, something that competitors can't do or won't do, something that "fits" with the company's set of promises (which is, as I explain in my book, a company's true brand). Something that makes them proud to be associated with a company that is doing the right thing.
Are these top managers really stupid?
Nope. The thousands of people I've worked with in top management were not stupid. They were intelligent and dedicated. But these same intelligent, well-meaning people make stupid decisions.
Why? Because:
1) They aren't personally talking to customers.
2) Their employees don't tell them the whole truth.
3) They have to answer to their own "bosses" who are also illogical. Let's take these one at a time.
1) They aren't personally talking to customers.
Lou Gerstner is one of the best examples of a customer-centric CEO. If you're in management, and you haven't read his book, Who Says Elephants Can't Dance? you're missing a great read - and insight into what made him so successful.
Before Gerstner came to IBM, he was an IBM customer, and a consultant to large companies. He knew the traps that CEOs can fall into. As a customer, he was fully aware of the stupid mistakes that managers make. When he first started his job as the CEO of IBM, instead of calling a bunch of meetings with employees and analysts to discuss His Grand Strategy, he horrified college professors and reporters by saying that the last thing IBM needed at that point was another "vision." Worse, he spent the bulk of his first three months visiting customers.
He continued to spend about 40% of his time talking to customers during his tenure at IBM. How many CEOs can say they do that?
And I'm not talking about spending time with big-ticket prospects, closing the deal. When the CEO is acting as the company's Top Salesperson, the customers he's talking to will be just as cagey and close-mouthed as they are with their regular salesperson. The CEO won't learn anything useful in that situation.
What I am saying is that the CEO has to randomly call customers on a regular basis - not to sell them, but to interview them. He needs to find out what drives them crazy. He needs to know, personally, what they really want. He needs to understand how they want to buy - the questions they need answered, how they need those questions answered, and in what order.
He needs to hear them tell him, in their own words, what they wish his company would do for them that it isn't doing now. What would they pay good money for? What makes sense to them?
If you're the CEO, all you have to do is pick up the phone and call. Start asking open-ended questions. "How's business? What's driving you crazy right now? How do you feel about our product? Our service? What could we be doing better? Who else did you look at before you bought--and what did you think of them? How did they sell to you? Was there anything about our sales process we could improve? What promise do you wish companies like ours would keep?"
These simple questions elicit the kinds of answers that can drive logical, market-conquering strategies. If you don't interview customers personally on a regular basis, you will fall victim to Agenda-itis. Everyone has an agenda. Maybe they really do want to help the customer (there are more of these people, by the way, than most managers assume). Maybe they're trying to please or impress someone else - a manager, a spouse, or even their mother-in-law. Maybe they're trying to do what only one customer wants (the main failing of sales-driven companies). And some, sadly, are just greedy and selfish, doing whatever pleases them.
When the CEO doesn't talk to at least several customers a month, she's going to do what makes sense to her based on what she hears from non-customers. Her main source of information will be her employees. That's a big mistake. Because...
2) Employees don't tell the whole truth.
Here's a simple example. Let's look at a guy named Bill. Bill is in charge of a project. He's done the best he can with something he was asked to do, but it's not as good as he wanted it to be.
When Bill's boss asks how it's going, Bill says, "Good. We'll be able to meet the deadline."
What Bill doesn't say is that he isn't happy with how things are going, that some of the people who are supposed to be cooperating aren't cooperating.
Why isn't Bill telling his boss the whole truth? Here are just some of the possible reasons:
1. He doesn't want someone else to get into trouble.
2. He doesn't want to look like a whiner.
3. He is fighting a political battle with someone and he believes he is going to win. He doesn't want to say anything about it until it's obvious that he has to escalate.
4. He's afraid of being labeled a snitch, so he doesn't say anything about the people who are resisting.
5. He figures if he can't get the right people on board, he'll find another way.
6. It is taking longer than he thought to get certain information.
7. It is taking longer than expected to do some aspect of the project, but he thinks he'll be able to finish it if he can just get some uninterrupted time. Riiiiight. In fact, his day is filled with meetings and interruptions, so he never gets around to focusing on the big stuff.
8. He believes that someone is doing their part, when in fact their part either isn't being done or it is being done incorrectly. He will probably discover this when it's too late.
9. As the job is nearing completion, something changed--something that will have a major effect on the job. Bill doesn't know about the change. Or, he knows about it but figures he can work around it. Or, worse, he knows about it and decides to ignore it because he can't figure out how to incorporate the change into what he is doing.
10. Bill screwed up somehow and is desperately trying to figure out how to make it right (or cover it up). Meanwhile, he isn't about to say anything about it to his boss.
11. The technology, employee, outside vendor, system, or process that Bill wanted to use for his project didn't work out. He is scrambling behind the scenes to find an alternative.
12. He's an eternal optimist, and in spite of all the obvious signs to the contrary, he believes the project will "turn out OK."
We're up to reason #12 already and the list certainly isn't complete. Obviously, employees have many, many reasons to avoid telling their bosses the whole truth.
Bill doesn't tell his boss the whole truth, Bill's boss doesn't tell his boss the whole truth, and so on up the line until the story makes it to the CEO. The larger the company, the less truth is left in the story by the time it reaches the top. Plus, as everyone in the chain leaves out some of the truth, they add a little more fiction.
By the time the CEO hears the story, it bears little resemblance to reality. The CEO then makes a carefully considered decision, based on this filtered and embellished information, and delivers a decree. Bill gets the memo and thinks, "What an idiot!"
CEOs who depend entirely on their employees (or their kiss-up vendors) for the truth will always make stupid decisions. Smart CEOs make a point of looking elsewhere for the truth. They talk to customers on a regular basis, as we've already mentioned. This is the single most important thing a CEO can do.
A customer will say, "Well, I called customer service to solve my problem, but I was put on hold for 25 minutes, and then the rep couldn't solve the problem. So last week, when it was time to upgrade, I bought your competitor's product. And frankly, I've told others how terrible your service is." What did the customer service manager tell the CEO? "We're working on improving the phone system."
Many CEOs think they get the truth when they challenge these vague statements. "What do you mean, you're working on it? What's wrong? What are you doing?"
This leads to some answers, but the CEO will never hear this: "Well, the average hold time is 24.6 minutes, the system seems to cut off every 4th caller after they press '4,' and we don't have answers to 37% of the questions we're asked."
Instead, he'll hear: "We need to hire more reps to decrease the hold time, which is a little higher than I'd like. And we are testing the system because every so often it drops a call."
It's obvious that the CEO who gets this information is going to make stupid decisions, no matter how smart he might be. And he won't realize how much business he's losing because he's not getting the whole truth. Only his customers can paint that picture for him.
Meanwhile, his competitors will be having a field day exploiting his vulnerabilities.If he does interview customers and get the truth, he has to decide what to do.
Another barrier that will keep him from making the right decision are the stupid "bosses" he has to answer to. Which brings us to Reason #3.
3) They have to answer to their own bosses, who are also illogical.
Every CEO has a boss. In fact, every CEO has several bosses. At the very least, CEOs have to answer to the government. Regulations must be followed. Anyone who has tried to do his or her own taxes, or change something simple in their own town, knows that government regulations are neither simple nor logical. What makes sense to customers and to the companies that serve them may not have anything to do with what a CEO has to do to comply with government regulations, even if those regulations were created to protect consumers.
CEOs also answer to investors. In private companies, investors include family and friends, business associates, and venture capitalists. Each person has an agenda, which usually has little to do with what the customers want. Maybe the venture capitalists want to get to an IPO as fast as possible. Maybe they want to "flip" the company - grow it and sell it - in the shortest amount of time. Maybe a relative or friend, who is advising the CEO, has been successful working in another company or industry, and wants to apply the lessons she learned in that previous situation to the current situation - even if those lessons are inapplicable.
In public companies, the stockholders, analysts, and press put pressure on the CEO. The CEO makes promises that he is expected to keep. When the numbers come out, if they're different than what the analysts expect, the stock price will suffer. This has a direct effect on the CEO's own net worth, which puts more pressure on the CEO. All of these brush fires can consume a CEO's working day, and still have nothing to do with what customers really want.
CEOs who have to answer to illogical demands placed on them by their "bosses" often fail to communicate that they are being forced into it by a poor policy. They don't want their bosses to find out they said negative things about the policy to their employees. They also don't like to admit that someone else is pulling their chain. But by protecting themselves, they are creating havoc and dissension in the ranks.
Better to say, "Look, I don't like this either, but I honestly haven't come up with a better alternative. We have to work through this right now, as efficiently as we can." This approach makes the employee feel he or she is part of the solution, rather than a victim of the problem. Employees who feel they are "in the know" are far more effective and motivated than those who feel they are treated like mushrooms (kept in the dark and fed BS all day). They also tend to sympathize with the CEO and even defend her because they understand what the real problem is.
This is far different than the employee who says to a customer, "Yeah, I know that's stupid. But what can I do? This is a direct order right from the top."
CEOs don't have to be stupid. They can know what is really going on, just by making a few phone calls to customers every week. They can make decisions that make sense to customers. They can tell employees - and their investors - why they're making those decisions, and how those decisions will help customers. They can know when something has gone wrong, as soon as it starts going wrong, and take action before the situation gets out of hand.
Want to separate yourself from stupid CEOs? Call your customers.
By Kristin Zhivago on Jun 23, 2006
One of the things that drives me crazy about revenue generation is how complicated the "academic" types make it. It's complicated enough to run a business without mucking up the subject with a bunch of fancy language that people in ivory towers think up to amuse themselves and impress others.
In plain language, if you want to succeed in business, there are four things you absolutely need to do:
1) Know what people really want and offer it.
2) Promote it properly, making promises you can keep.
3) Deliver it, as promised.
4) Use what you earn and learn to do it all over again.If you don't offer something that people need or want, no amount of promotion will save you. If you don't promote your product or service properly, you'll have to close your business someday because you simply didn't make enough to sustain it. If you fail to deliver, the word will get out, and the negative backlash will overwhelm your promotional activities. If you don't learn from your experience, and make adjustments as you learn from customers, your customers will start to go elsewhere. You will find yourself staring at a dried up river of revenue.
How do you know what people need or want? Most people guess.
Entrepreneurs are often better at guessing than corporate managers. Entrepreneurs tend to be more exposed to customers, whereas corporate managers spend 99% of every day surrounded by people who work for them (and make them feel smart and important).
But, even entrepreneurs who talk to customers all day are at a disadvantage. Customers won't tell you what they're really thinking while you're selling them and/or delivering your services. You have to ask them what they think when you're NOT selling them, and you have to ask them in a way that makes it easy for them to tell you what you need to know (the appendix of my book tells you exactly how to do this).
You can keep yourself busy all day and still go out of business, if you're not doing these four essential things. I'd recommend a note next to your computer that says: "What do they want? How do they want to find out about it? Are we delivering on our promises? What did we learn from customers today?"
By Kristin Zhivago on Nov 24, 2006
It doesn't matter what size your company is. I guarantee, at this moment, that your "comfort zone" is keeping your company from getting bigger.
What is your comfort zone? It's what you do best, and what you typically turn to first, when it's time to "do the next thing."
Here are some one-person-shop comfort-zone examples:
You know what you like to do and what you tend to avoid. If you want your company to grow, start paying more attention to the things you would rather avoid.
By Kristin Zhivago on Jan 5, 2007
Your brand is the promise that you keep, not the one you make. This is my take on branding, which I first wrote in 1994 to help CEOs and entrepreneurs understand that they have direct control over their brand, using the five promise-keeping tools at their disposal: people, products, policies, projects, and processes.
When I work with CEOs and entrepreneurs, I find that their products are usually competitive. Their people are usually intelligent, hard-working, and well-intentioned. Their policies are usually OK - assuming the head of the company is not a jerk.
Given that most companies have decent products, people and policies, that leaves the other two resources: projects and processes. Many companies choose the wrong projects or manage them poorly. Even more companies have weak, dysfunctional, or even abysmal processes.
This week we'll look at projects, next week we'll cover processes.
Project Management: Critical success element
If you spend a lot of time in meetings arguing, you have a project management problem. When a project is being managed properly, discussion is focused and fairly limited. Things get done.
Here is what successful project management looks like. A lot of this is common sense, but you'd be surprised (or maybe you wouldn't) how often one or more of these ingredients are missing.
1) There is always a leader. Someone is in charge, and everyone knows it, including those below and those abovethe person, as well as those in other areas of the company (or outside the company) who will be involved in the project. If there is any doubt about who is in charge, the project will either fail or limp along - and a project that limps along is still failing, only slowly.
The main responsibilities of the leader are: organizing the project, running the meetings associated with the project, tracking the project's progress, communicating to everyone about the project, motivating and disciplining participants, providing resources, and removing barriers that crop up as the project is underway. The project should begin with an email or other simple document that outlines the essential facts about the project: Who, what, why, when, and how.
2) There is a clearly stated goal, and a timeline for achieving that goal. Everyone has to know what the goal is. The goal has to be clear - and measurable. Something has to be done, something has to change, something has to be substantially different than it was before. And, everyone must know how long it should take for the goal to be reached. This is a key metric. If the timeline starts to slip, the project leader needs to kick into high gear and relentlessly drill down with the participants until the bottleneck is found and eliminated.
3) There must be milestones. If it's a really simple project, the only milestone will be the end goal. If it is a complex project, there will be a number of milestones along the way. Everyone must know what they are and everyone must be held to them.
4) Email subject lines must be consistent. The main communication vehicle for projects is email. Subject lines are critical. Don't say, "A concern" in the subject line or, "Files you requested." Say, "Intranet redesign project: Current status." Always use the same beginning ("Intranet redesign project") so everyone can sort incoming emails by subject line and all the files associated with that project will be grouped together.
5) State the obvious, clearly and succinctly, so everyone understands what is happening, when, how, and why. Imagine that the project is "Write a review about the movie we just saw."
An ineffective project manager will send out an email with the subject line, "Meeting on Tuesday." The email will say something vague, such as "Need to have a discussion about a review. Meeting should only last a half hour." This "project manager" will start out the first meeting with a long rant about how much she enjoyed the movie, how she felt about the actors in the movie, why she went to the movie, what her husband thought about the movie, how this movie compared to other movies she's seen. Sometime in the middle of this meaningless diatribe, she will mention that the assignment is for everyone to write a review about the movie. She will have provided no context for her ramblings, will not have told the participants what was expected of them, and her conversation would be all about herself. This unhelpful and insulting "method" is used by far too many "managers."
An effective project manager will send an email to all movie-goers prior to the movie. "Review about movie: Meeting on Tuesday, your review due by Friday." The email will contain the pertinent facts: Who will be writing the reviews (and reading them), why the reviews are being done, when the reviews are due, and suggestions on how participants should go about writing the review. Note how the subject line not only mentioned the subject but what was expected of the participants, and when.
6) Keep on track. No one has time for discussions that get seriously off track. It is the responsibility of the project manager to make sure that all discussions stay on subject. If they start to wander, she must interrupt. "I'm sorry, we need to save that particular discussion for another meeting. Let's get back to [whatever they should be talking about].
7) Remove all barriers, aggressively. When a barrier to progress is found, it must be understood and then removed. This is the leader's responsibility. She must do whatever is necessary to remove the barrier.
8) Publicize success. The leader must also publicize the project's success, as it moves along and/or as it is completed. Others in the company must understand why the project was undertaken, the goal of the project, how it was completed and who worked on it. The results of the project, including lessons learned and any subsequent positive results, should be documented and presented.
Every business is just a series of projects undertaken and completed, whether you run a one-person company or a company with 300,000 people. If your projects are successful, your company will be successful - assuming you also have some process management in place. We'll cover that next week.
By Kristin Zhivago on Jan 12, 2007
Looking for higher revenues this year? Pay attention to your projects and processes - Part 2
As I mentioned last week, successful companies are characterized by a series of successful projects.
There are other activities, however, that happen every day, which are not as "visible" as projects are. These activities are "processes" that take place as people work on projects, produce products or information, or carry on day-to-day administration such as accounting, IT, marketing, sales and order fulfillment.
If I were to do a "revenue growth audit" of your company, chances are you would get low marks for your processes. Inefficient processes would be inhibiting your ability to service customers and run an efficient operation.
How can I be so sure about that? Because process-centric companies are very, very rare.
Amazon.com has always been the poster child of the process-centric companies. Bezo's mantra for years has been that their goal is to become the "world's most customer-centric company." He understands that the best way to do that is to have processes that make it easier for everyone to interact with Amazon - including customers, employees, and partners.
FedEx was at the top of my "process-driven" list for years, but Google's outrageous revenue per employee and reputed rigorous adherence to certain processes and procedures have displaced it.
Most CEOs and entrepreneurs treat processes as an afterthought. Too bad, because strong processes can:
Revenue per employee is a great indicator of a whether your company's processes are helping it or hurting it. Examples of revenue-per-employee numbers, based on the most recent 2006 revenue/employee data:
From an article in CNNMoney.com, which originally appeared in Fortune, we can see one of the reasons that Google has such a high revenue-per-employee number.
Winning MySpace kept the Web's gem of the moment out of the hands of Microsoft and Yahoo, which both privately claim that Google overpaid by several hundred million dollars. Whether that's true won't be known for years. Tim Armstrong, Google's New York-based head of North American sales and the company's point man in the MySpace negotiations, pooh-poohs the notion that Google got taken."What people aren't seeing is our ability to model deals," he says. "I would guess that Google was not offering to write the biggest check for this partnership."
Google, in spite of its reputed permissive environment, has certain processes that it follows. Its hiring process, for example, has always been rigorous - numerous interviews with multiple Googlers - to the point where some candidates give up. Lately, it's scaled back a little on the rigor of its hiring process, in order to make sure it can hire enough candidates (article is in The Wall Street Journal Online - may require registration).
Companies that excel in the process area always have a big advantage over those who don't.
If you want to turn your organization into an efficient machine that wrings every possible dollar of profit out of every dollar of revenue, turns you into a fast-mover, and makes you very hard to beat, you need to pay attention to processes.
Models for best practices, maps for current processes
The two main tools you need to find and fix process problems are models and mapping.
What's the difference between a model and a map?
I tend to think of a model as a picture of a "best practice." The model shows how a process should work. A map shows how a process works now. You need both - a picture of what a process should look like, and a picture of what the process looks like now.
Compare the model to the map to find, fix, and remove barriers to efficiency. Your goal should be to get the map as close to the best practices model as possible.
Models like this can be used by anyone in the company to understand how a process should work. Your models should be stored on your company's intranet. They are great training tools for new employees, and can be used as checklists. Contrast this with the usual training method, where the current employee tells the new employee how something is done - including the mistakes the current employee tends to make and the shortcuts the current employee tends to take.
Here's an example of a process model (click to enlarge):
I created this model using MindManagerPro from MindJet, a tool that works well for mapping processes (and websites). If you want to improve a process, or create a new process, you need to start with a model like this. This software is powerful because a you can create a chart like this in about 10 minutes.
Mapping processes
You can use the same kind of software tool to map out current processes, with the help of the people who do the work and the people who supervise them. You should include every step of each process in its map.
After your processes are mapped and verified, you will want to have a group meeting to identify the most damaging problems. In my experience there are usually three to five serious problems, that if fixed, would make a large difference in the efficiency of the operation.
In one client's case recently, we decided that scanning each inventory item in real-time, as it comes into the operation, and as it leaves the operation, would have the greatest effect on efficiency. Dozens of daily work interruptions and workarounds would disappear with this one change.
"Work interruptions" are those times when something isn't happening the way it should, and an employee has to go get something, look something up, or ask someone a question and wait for the answer. "Workarounds" are what happens when the employee - who hasn't gotten the answer or hasn't found a good way to solve the problem - decides to fake something, modify something, or substitute something. Workarounds always cause more work interruptions and more workarounds further down the line, and ultimately result in a negative experience for the customer. The more you eliminate work interruptions and workarounds, the more efficient you will be.
You'll also want to find ways to eliminate manual tasks. A little expenditure can result in a big gain. For example, $200 printer at a workstation could save you $5000 a year in unnecessary trips to a distant printer.
Be ruthless about redundant work. No one should ever have to enter the same data a second time. That one improvement can make a big difference in the efficiency of your operations.
Once you have fixed or eliminated inefficient processes, revisit the map and find the next three areas you want to improve.
It is possible to get to the point where your processes are completely optimized; when that happens, your revenue per employee will be at new, impressive levels.
By Kristin Zhivago on Mar 30, 2007
We are surrounded by an endless din and clatter of information, in the form of warnings, predictions, stories, statistics, news, and advice.
The longer I'm in business, the more I'm convinced that nothing "out there" matters as much as what is going on in your customers' heads, your own head, and the processes that you create to help your customers do business with you. Everything else - politics, natural disasters, man-made disasters, new inventions, stock markets, and the daily news - is hardly worth your time.
I heard someone say recently that you should spend 80% of your time on the top three most important things in your life. The sad fact is, it's incredibly easy to get sucked into spending 80% of our time on the least important things in our lives, which is why Stephen Covey's 7 Habits book continues to be a best-seller.
As a CEO or entrepreneur, customers should be on your "top three things" list, because if you have no customers, you have no revenue. If you have no revenue, you really don't have a sustainable business. So the first order of any business is to understand what customers are thinking and doing.
In reality, how much time do you actually spend, every day, focused intently on your customers? Asking it another way, how much time do you spend interacting with customers, versus the amount of time you spend with everyone else - employees and other managers, your investors, your finance people (because of regulations and taxes), and your business partners? If you were to actually keep track of the amount of time you spend with these types of people in a given day or week or month, I think you'd find that 80% of your time - if not 100% - is spent with people who are not your customers.
Employees and vendors are important, and of course you must remain in compliance with an ever-increasing, complex set of regulations. But as the leader of your company, if you are out of touch with what customers really want, you can't direct your employees and vendors properly. You can't determine which business structure is best. And you can't design and implement the processes that will lead to more revenue. All of the correct, revenue-producing decisions and actions come from customer knowledge.
Mark Hurd: Forget Davos, I'm going to Best Buy.
Mark Hurd, the current CEO of HP, is doing a great job of turning HP around. In the recent Forbes story about him, the reporter noted that Hurd declined to fly to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland in January, giving up a chance to rub elbows with other powerful people in politics and business. Instead, the reporter notes, "a few weeks earlier he spent a day working the floor at a Best Buy near HP's base in Palo Alto, Calif., to hear how customers viewed his products."
Have you ever heard of a CEO of a prominent electronics company actually spending time in a local store, talking to customers? It's not amazing to me that he did this; it's perfectly logical. If you want to know what your customers are thinking, you go where they are, and ask them. What's amazing is how rare it is for any CEO to do this.
Hurd is also a stickler for process, asking detailed questions and insisting on straight answers, as evidenced by this excerpt from the Forbes story:
Three months into his new job Hurd visited the main [HP] site, in San Diego, the printer division, whose $27 billion in revenue accounts for 29% of the total. He huddled in a conference room with a dozen managers who briefed him on their separate businesses, from consumer scanners to car-size commercial monsters able to print a bound book in three minutes."The whole staff is there, the lights are on and it's just you and Mark," says Steven Nigro, a senior vice president. "Everyone else is sitting around you, grateful they aren't in the spotlight." Hurd looked at Nigro's forecast for 2006 revenues, operating expenses and marketing and began his slow, steady questioning - if we added a bit more sales growth, how would that show up in margins? Where does the sales staff need more bodies?
"If you can't explain this better than I can," he told Nigro at one point, "come back in two months and tell me then what's going on." When they met again as planned, Hurd recalled every number Nigro had told him, without resorting to notes. News of such meetings flooded management, and the message was clear: You must understand how the revenue moves through your business and how your business fits into HP.
Hurd has had to battle through a nasty corporate scandal, where an HP subcontractor used impersonation to obtain phone records of employees, directors, and journalists to try to figure out who had been leaking to the press. In spite of this highly publicized scandal, HP has just become the largest tech company - beating out IBM, which had held that spot for 40 years.
Regular readers of this column know how I feel about CEOs who rub elbows with customers. They have an incredible edge over those who don't. They can't be fooled by internal, agenda-driven or delusional thinking. Combine that personal customer knowledge with a process orientation, and you've got the makings of a successful company, no matter what happens "out there."
New revenues come from two sources: identifying and meeting new customer needs, and efficient processes. Don't let the din distract you from your real mission.
By Kristin Zhivago on Mar 28, 2008
Email has become the message medium of our age. Just as we learned how to address and stamp an envelope, just as we learned how to fill out a FedEx form, we are now - still - learning how to use email effectively to run our businesses, and to buy and sell products and services.
I'm not going to spend a lot of time this week talking about how frustrating it is when someone doesn't do what I'm about to recommend. Suffice it to say that stream-of-consciousness, flaky subject lines don't help you manage your business or increase your revenues.
What is really happening - and we all know this, because we are experiencing it every day - is all activities, and all communication about activities, happen via email. It's become the central communication tool for all projects.
That being the case, the subject line has become the "tab" on our electronic filing folders, which we are using to organize our business and our work. When you want to find something, alphabetized subject lines are the best way to find it. I can't tell you how many times I've appreciated the vendor, manager, employee, or client who understands this and uses a subject line effectively. In less than a second you can find exactly what you're looking for.
Contrast that experience with the one where people have continued to re-use a tired, old, subject line for a string of replies. It says, "Should we talk on Wednesday?" Long after that "Wednesday" conversation occurred, the "talk on Wednesday" subject line survives. The lengthening chain of emails with that subject line contain conversations and decisions about dozens of unrelated topics.
If you're just having an email discussion with a friend, it's fine to reuse a subject line. If you're using email to do business, it's ridiculous and rude to reuse a subject line.
The first word in a subject line is the most important. "Should we talk on Wednesday?" uses a meaningless word as the first word. The subject line in this case should have been "Website changes - meeting - Wednesday?"
When you're managing a large project, subject lines are so important that you should even go to the trouble of having someone make up a list of acceptable subject lines, or a set of guidelines for subject lines that allow for some flexibility, or simply a system that you follow. Sounds crazy, but you'll love it when you're trying to find an email on a particular aspect of the project, and the correct subject line leads you right to everything on it.
For example, let's say that you're instructing someone to create something complex. You're having a lot of discussions - and making a lot of decisions - about how they should make it and what they should put into it. Your subject line system could be set up so you always list the "Item" first, then the subsystem in the finished product where the item will be located, then the attribute of the item being discussed.
Using an example we can all relate to, if you were having someone build a house, your email to the builder about the bathroom sink would be entitled:
Bathroom - sink - countertop possibilities
or
Bathroom - sink - countertop decision
When it was time for the builder to focus on the bathroom sink, he'd be able to sort his emails by subject line, find the bathroom sink emails, and even know what's inside the email without having to open it up. He'd know if a decision was made or if the issue had not yet been resolved.
When creating your subject line guidelines, the nature of your business - or the task you are working on - will make it clear which words should begin the subject line. Categorization of information has become one of the most important skills you can develop as you build and grow your business using electronic communication and information systems.
Of course, getting this right will mean you will have to pay attention to the subject line when you begin to compose an email - or a response to an email. That's tough sometimes, given how rushed we all are, but it pays off in spades if you discipline yourself to do it. And whoever gets the email from you will appreciate that you took an extra minute to construct a useful subject line.
All of us open emails that we just can't respond to immediately. We're in the middle of something else, or the email that was sent requires more concentration or more information than we are able to apply at that moment. So, we put it aside. Sometimes it gets closed inadvertently, so it is no longer "open" and "waiting," but filed away in one of your email folders. When you are reminded to go looking for that email, you have to be able to find it quickly. You can waste scarce working day time searching for it (even using the "search" function doesn't always get you right to it), or you can just use a proper subject line and go to it immediately.
When I look at what PR people do with their subject lines, it reminds me of someone who hasn't yet learned how to address and put a stamp on an envelope. I get dozens of these releases a day. Why don't they put the name of the company as the first word in the subject line? That way, when I went to find that release, I could simply look for the company name. Why don't they then show the subject of the release? As in:
3M - PostIts - Electronic - New Product
As I type this, I can hear marketers groaning. How uncreative! How boring! Well, how about, "How USEFUL." I mean, what's the point of sending out a release if someone can't find it later, doesn't know who it's from, or what it's really about? No one is going to be dazzled by your creativity. They've seen it all anyway - a thousand times. Email is a tool for them, not a place for you to prove how clever you are.
Emails are working documents that are used to provide instructions, describe things, clarify things, answer questions, help someone understand how to do something and when you expect it to be done, and more. It's the main tool we all use to keep the ball rolling as we manage projects, sell our products or services, or buy products and services from others. It's a system, and all systems work best when best practices are created, followed, and enforced.
Those of you who have signed up to receive Revenue Journal articles via email know that every single issue has "Revenue Journal" in the subject line. Yes, that takes up precious subject line space. But if you want to find an article later, you know exactly what to do. The email is also set up so that if you want to comment or reply, you simply have to hit the reply button, and the email will come right to me. How is your company's email newsletter set up?
It's time all of us in business learned how to "address and stamp our envelopes." Nothing matters as much as the subject line - including your carefully crafted messages. If they can't figure out what the message is about, because you've used a "creative," vague subject line, they'll never open the message. And, if they have opened the message, and they want to find it again later, the subject line is the sign they need pointing the way.
If you're asking people to do things for you, your logical, well-designed subject lines will help them to have everything they need at their fingertips, when they do that work for you. Think of the efficiencies we could all introduce to our businesses if we never again sent very important messages hidden beneath very meaningless subject lines.
By Kristin Zhivago on Sep 1, 2006
Most business activities can be managed in a fairly straightforward fashion. You decide what you're going to do, you create a project plan - complete with cost and timing - you get the right people to execute the plan, you build in checkpoints, and then you set the wheels in motion.
The chances of these activities being successful are fairly high. The barriers to success are internal politics, unrealistic expectations, and mismanagement or ineptitude as the project progresses. These problems can be overcome with effective management. Politics can be squashed by managers who are forthright and goal-driven. Unrealistic expectations can be avoided by seasoned managers who have "been there, done that," and they know what can go wrong. Mismanagement isn't a problem when the managers gather accurate data and make sound decisions. Ineptitude shouldn't get in the way - even when it is well-disguised - because good managers can spot ineptitude a mile away.
These same good managers, however, can really screw up marketing and sales. It happens all the time. These otherwise great managers spend far too much and end up with far too little to show for their efforts and expenditures. They make terrible decisions. They get the wrong people involved and ask them to do the wrong things.
Why is this? What makes marketing and selling so different from other business activities?
It all boils down to one fundamental fact.
Managers who have recognized this fundamental fact, and respect it, make decisions that lead to success.
Managers who are not aware of this fundamental fact - or, more commonly, decide it is not that important - don't make enough to cover their expenses. They go out of business, or prolong the agony by securing more financing, then go out of business later on.
What is the one fundamental fact?
It doesn't matter how you think your product should be sold. What matters is how the customer wants to buy it.
You can set up a robust, well-funded selling and marketing infrastructure. It won't do you much good if it doesn't support your customer's buying process.
In the buying/selling situation, customers aren't just coming along for the ride, dutifully nodding at the right times, then saying, "Sounds good to me, dude, Where do I sign?" Customers are in full control of their buying process. And if they don't succeed in getting what they need from you, well, the corollary is obvious: you won't succeed in selling to them.
What keeps perfectly logical managers from recognizing and acting on this fundamental fact? Their own belief that they are in control. Why not? They're in control of every other aspect of their business (well, relatively speaking). They hire people, then ask them to do things. Because they're the boss, the people (more or less) do what they are told.
Customers are not so acquiescent. They don't do what some salesman wants them to do. They have their own goals, plans, and processes.
How can you make sure you're supporting the customer's buying process instead of trying to foist an inappropriate and unwelcome selling process on them? Here's the list:
1) Leave your ego behind. Accept the fact that your customers know more about their preferences, requirements, and buying process than you do - no matter how long you've been selling to them.
2) Stop depending on your salespeople for customer insights. Sure, they can give you all sorts of information (which is often self-serving) about what happened during a sales call. But they can't tell you what the customer is really thinking, because only a fool tells a salesperson what he is really thinking.
3) Don't go to marketing and selling experts until you've gone to your customers and found out what they're really thinking. Fortunately, your current customers are a great source of this data, because once they've made a purchase, they won't mind telling you what they were thinking while they were going through their buying process. The battle is over, and they have a vested interest in your success (because they are depending upon your product). They'll be happy to talk to you. If a high-ranking executive from any company called you to ask you what you think, wouldn't you spend a little time on the phone? Wouldn't you want to give him some advice? Of course you would.
4) Listen, listen, listen. Don't interrupt, don't disagree, don't roll your eyes. Just listen. Look for the common theme. Look for the really positive aspects of your product or service - in your customer's mind - and the areas where you are weak. Look for the promise you can honestly make to future customers, because you're already keeping that promise with your current customers.
5) Prepare to be surprised. Expect to eat some crow. What might have seemed important to you may not amount to a hill of beans to your customers. They may even assume that everyone selling your type of product already fulfills these "baseline promises" - certain functions or services that should "come with" a product or service. It's that special something, beyond the baseline, that made them come to you. And it is often not what you thought.
6) Analyze, communicate, and act. Once you've gathered enough data, you will know exactly what you need to do. Prepare your plans, and communicate them to your people. Assume that you will need to communicate them to your people over and over, because otherwise the voice of the customer will be drowned out by the normal racket of daily work and internal politics. Make it clear to your salespeople that their job is not to "push" the customer into buying, but to make it easy for the customer to make a positive buying decision.
7) Now you can start marketing and selling successfully. Now you can get the word out. Now you can spend money wisely, because your own customers told you where and how they'd expect to find your messages, and the promises you should put in those messages.
This one fundamental fact - that the customer is in control of the buying process - will lead you to approach marketing and selling the right way, and make good marketing and selling decisions. It will cause prospective customers to take notice, and think, "Hmmmm. These guys understand what I want, and they are making easy for me to buy."
People want to buy things. The most successful managers understand this, figure out what customers want to buy and how they want to buy. Then they make it easy for customers to find what they want, and buy it.
By Kristin Zhivago on May 11, 2007
Here are some of the most common barriers to revenue that we encounter as we help our clients. Are you making one of these mistakes?
Your company name doesn't tell them what you sell. We call our company Zhivago Marketing Partners for this very reason. It would have been just as easy to call it Zhivago & Company or something similar - but that would not have answered the first, most basic question: "What does this company sell?"
If you're just starting out, make sure your name clearly indicates the type of product you sell.
If you've already invested too much in your non-specific name to change it now, then add a tagline to your logo that says what you sell. Keep it short - no more than five words. Tell them what you sell, using the words people would use to find you.
It's too difficult to find you. Do you know the most common search term people use to find you? Is every page of your site optimized for that term? Are you constantly creating new content that supports that term and topic? Do you have a blog or customer discussion forum that comes up when people type in your most popular search terms? For example, type "how to make money in a recession" into Google, and our recent blog article by that title - a search term that has been used more lately - comes up fourth in Google search results.
Do you continually appear in the pages of your most appropriate print publications - in advertising and editorial?
Your website doesn't immediately spell out what you can do for them. The first thing on our home page says, "I can help you increase your revenue." That's my promise, my brand. The rest of the site explains how I do that. It answers the questions people have when they are thinking of hiring someone like me.
What is your promise? What do you do for your customers? Have you asked them what they appreciate about what you do? Are you making that promise, right up front, clearly and concisely, when they come to your site? Do you go on to describe how you are going to keep that promise - and demonstrate it by giving them information they can use?
Even if someone doesn't buy from you today, if they just "get" your promise the minute they come to your site, and you give them some useful information, they will mentally file it away for later reference. I've had people call me for help who remember, in detail, an article from years ago. They noted that I could solve a particular kind of problem, and thought of me when they were confronted with that type of problem.
If they do want to buy today, your promise should convince them that they've come to the right place.
You may think you know the promise you should make, but a simple example will show far off most companies are. Let's say you sell picture frames online. Your online selling copy stresses the high-quality finishes you apply to the wooden frames, and the fact that you can custom-cut frames to order. But no where on your site can a potential customer find answers to her most pressing questions:
These are the issues that matter most to customers, and yet they are not addressed on the common picture frame websites, including those that come up first in Google paid listings: eFrame.net, ArtToFrames.com, and PictureFrames.com.
This last site, which comes up first in the non-paid results when you type in "custom picture frames," does the best job of answering these questions, although mostly in a non-direct way. Corners are shown in the numerous "up close" frame selection pictures, and a "hanging kit" section sort of addresses the picture inserting and picture hanging questions. But even this site, which is highly sophisticated, doesn't answer these important questions in an obvious and straightforward way.
You are not communicating that you have a solution to your customer's problem. Let's say you're smart or lucky, and your product or service addresses your customers' most pressing concerns. Are you communicating this fact to them effectively?
This is one of the most common problems I find when I look for ways companies can increase their revenues. They actually have solutions to customer problems, but they don't make it clear that they provide those solutions. Their descriptions of the solutions are so generic and unspecific that customers never get the message. You could invent and sell the most important product of the decade, but if your copy doesn't help the customer see how the product will help them, your brilliant product will never realize its full revenue potential.
Things are constantly changing. Are you providing value in the current environment? Every day, your industry is changing a little bit. A year from now it will have changed a lot. Are you keeping pace, or just rushing around meeting your deadlines and missing the bigger picture?
For example, there are big changes occurring right now in the web industry. Freelance website designers have been providing crummy customer service to their entrepreneurial clients for years. Those clients had no other choice. Now new tools are making it easier for those clients to take more control over their web content, make changes to their web content, and use fairly decent templates for their websites. Arrogant website designers are going to look around one day and realize that their river of revenue has dried up.
A lot of companies are also blind to how the increase in choices has affected their customers' buying decisions. If you don't make it easy to find you and buy from you, someone else will - and that person is just a click away.
I see so many CEOs who still think that they can continue operating in the "old" way. They think their salespeople can take 3 days to respond to an email someone sends in via their website, or that they can take more than 24 hours to return a call. Not true. The pace of business has changed. Emails should be responded to within hours and phone calls in less than an hour.
Just looking at your current "response rhythm" - and making improvements to that - could make a big difference in your revenues. When someone is trying to make a purchase on the web, they don't want to wait three days for you to respond to a web form request. They want to solve their problem NOW.
If you don't solve their problem now, they will simply jump over to a competitor who will. The company that makes it easy for buyers to complete their transaction in the shortest amount of time is the company that is going to end up with the most revenue - in any market.
By Kristin Zhivago on Jul 24, 2007
As you probably already know, the most important aspect of time management is deciding where you will spend your attention.
It's difficult to practice good attention allocation because anyone with a need can interrupt you at any time, using a variety of methods to access you and hijack your attention.
One of the most famous, and still-relevant self-management tools is Stephen Covey's four-quadrant matrix for importance and urgency ("important/not important, urgent/not urgent").
We all know we spend far too much time on the urgent/not important tasks; and, if we are totally honest with ourselves, we also spend too much time in the "not important/not urgent" category.
Why? Because we know that if we start that a task requiring uninterrupted concentration, we will be interrupted in five minutes - either by someone trying to access us, or by our own multi-tasking mind trying to take us in another direction. So we tend to keep putting off the large, important projects and focus our attention on those activities that can be easily interrupted.
A great article, "Tangled up in tasks," in the July issue of CFO magazine, cites the statistic that "work interruptions cost the U.S. economy at least $650 billion a year" (which is about 5% of the gross domestic product).
The same researchers say that "28 percent of the typical knowledge worker's day, or 2.1 hours, is consumed by unnecessary interruptions and recovery time." I'm sure you can relate. Anyone with a Blackberry or any sort of instant messaging on their computer would even say that these statistics understate reality.
What was most interesting to me was that the researchers claimed that once a person was diverted, "it took them 25 minutes to return to the original task." It's easy to see how you can make it through an entire day and never touch one of those important, deep-thinking projects.
I think every working person needs from two to five hours of uninterrupted time in each work day, in order to actually make progress on projects.
There is no easy way to do this. You must find a way to carve non-interruption time out of your day. You must either get up early in the morning or stay up after everyone else has gone to bed; you must refuse to answer the phone; you must turn off instant messaging and stop checking your email.
Your own bad habits may be your biggest source of interruptions. In an article a few weeks ago, I mentioned how easy it is for work-at-home entrepreneurs to pop over to YouTube to see the latest viral video - when they know they should be working. I got a lot of response to that comment from entrepreneurs who admitted they often succumbed to those distractions. Of course, it doesn't help that the same screen containing your work is also one click away from the world's largest shopping mall.
One thing you can do is keep a timer at your desk, and simply start it when you start working on an important project, and stop it whenever you get interrupted from that work. Keep track of how many hours you are actually working on important projects every day. You might be surprised. Just because you're at your keyboard, or on the phone, doesn't mean you're doing things that generate revenue. And every time you allow yourself to get interrupted, you're going to lose more precious minutes getting your brain back into the subject again.
Of course, if you really want to motivate yourself, realize that there are only about 4000 weeks in a given lifetime, if you survive into your 80's. You'll spend about 40 to 50 years working, which is about 2,000 to 2,500 weeks (assuming 2-week vacations each year). Do some math - depending on how old you are, you may realize that you've already burned through 2/3 of your working weeks, and if you really want to make a significant contribution to the world, or make enough to retire comfortably, you'd better get crackin'.
Day by day, minute by minute, ask yourself: "What should I be doing now?" And, for your employees, "What should they be doing now?"
99% of the time, we know the answer to this question. That's not the challenge.
The challenge is doing what we know we should be doing, despite all the forces working to keep us from doing as we should.
By Kristin Zhivago on Oct 5, 2007
When you run a business - no matter how large or small it is - you have a certain amount of energy available to apply to the long list of things you must get done. How you apply that energy will determine how successful you are.
I have been watching companies invest that energy for years. One conclusion I came to early on was that management fads were very distracting and expensive. They seldom, if ever, result in tangible, positive results.
Back in the 80's, it was TQM (Total Quality Management). In the 90's and beyond, it was Six Sigma. In this decade, there's a lot of talk about strategic planning, change management, customer focus, and more. Bain has a lot of information about the latest management fads, having conducted a survey of executives about management tools - and their effectiveness - since 1993.
The problem with the fads is that they dominate activity, usually at the expense of serving basic customer needs. The big companies can afford to bring in consultants, who repackage the same old nostrums in catchy new ways to create new projects for themselves, for which they receive big-time consulting fees. The consultants grow their businesses with this activity. They also publicize their random successes, which gives the business press something new and different to fill their pages. Which, in turn, excites the owners of smaller companies, who try to put the same practices into place at their own firms.
Management fads tend to focus on a company's internal needs and perceptions, rather than on the customer's needs. While everyone is focusing on the fad, the phones still aren't being answered on the second ring, inquiry emails sent by customers visiting the website are never replied to, and the basic questions asked by customers are not answered - by salespeople or on the web.
The real problem with these fads is they are all portrayed as magic bullets: "Do this, and the sales will come flowing in." But there are no magic bullets. Real growth - and profits - come from hard work in these five areas:
1) Ongoing and in-depth awareness of customer perceptions, needs, and expectations. If you know what they want, you can figure out how to give it to them. It's not difficult to do this; picking up the phone and asking open-ended questions is the best method, and it doesn't cost you anything but your time and a bit of ego.2) Meeting customer needs. Once you know what they want, you need to give it to them. You have five resources at your disposal to meet customer needs: people, products, processes, principled policies, and passion. Your main job, as the leader of your business, is to constantly be asking yourself how you could improve on each of these areas. It would be wise to pay special attention to your processes, as we have found processes to be the weakest aspect of almost all businesses. It's easier to focus on all the other "P's" - but good processes make all those other "P's" more effective.
3) Hard-fisted cash management. If you're starting a business, or running a business, make this vow to yourself: Every time a check comes in, take a certain percentage of it (the same percentage every time) and put it in a separate savings or investment account. This is the most reliable way to make sure that you have enough money when something goes wrong (and something always does). It will give you a treasure chest to use for big, important investments, and will give you peace of mind - which should not be underrated. Nothing is worse than worrying about being able to make payroll; it's the most painful type of stress you can suffer as a business owner. Don't think you can live on the amount left over? Think again. Just be a little less grandiose about your spending.
As that set-aside cash starts to build up, you'll develop a new kind of confidence, that will help you make more sales. You won't feel the need to push; you'll be relaxed. One of the ironies of business is the way that customers are much more likely to buy from someone who doesn't seem to need the business than they are from someone appears desperate to make the next sale.
In addition to setting money aside, think twice before you buy something new. Every new purchase costs you time and effort. If the benefits are obvious, go ahead. Just make sure you give yourself some time to reflect on it, before making the decision, and ask yourself why you're doing it. If it's because "everyone has one," you are probably wasting your money.
4) Personal discipline. I don't care if you work alone at home in your pajamas, or run a multi-national, multi-billion-dollar company. As the leader of your company, you have to be disciplined about the behavior you display to your customers, employees, vendors, and the press. Once you decide to run a company, you must be a leader people can trust. There are many times, in the course of a day, when discipline must control your behavior.
5) Compelling content. You can fuss with your search engine program all day long, but if your site doesn't provide in-depth, credible information, you are not encouraging people to contact you and buy from you. Relevant, valuable content is now the name of the game if you want to keep business flowing in. Content also enables salespeople to answer customer questions. Any way you look at it, relevant content brings customers to you and makes sales. What should that content consist of? Anything that will help the customer solve problems related to your product, use your products more effectively, or understand how your products are made and why you make them the way you do. The more you educate your customers, the more they will value you as a vendor, and the more they will believe the other things you say.
Management fads divert managers from constantly improving the basics. After managers have finished their fad meetings and created their fad presentations and distributed their fad documents to the employees, the employees also have to stop what they are doing and learn the new fad way of doing things. Meanwhile some customer is visiting the website and clicking on the "chat" button, only to get an "I'm sorry, there is no chat, go back to the main site and look for a phone number" message.
By Kristin Zhivago on Nov 16, 2007
You are the head honcho at your company. You stay awake at night struggling with unsolved problems. You go into work every day and focus on solving them. Your life consists of finding and solving those problems.
You think you know more than anyone in the world about your company. You're right - no single individual knows more than you. But there is critical information that you don't know, information that is sucking the life blood out of your company's potential for growth. Information that, if you knew it, faced it, and dealt with it, you could remove those stubborn barriers to the sale and start your revenues flowing in new ways and at new rates.
What is that critical information? Actually, the real question is, where is that critical information? You have to know where to look before you can find it. It's hiding in three main areas: employees, customers, and metrics.
Let's look at each one of these, starting with employees.
Hidden Secrets, Source #1: Employees know more than they're telling you. You only get part of the picture from employees. Why? Because a) they don't want you to know because it will get them in trouble b) they don't want you to know because it will get someone else in trouble c) they aren't telling you, because they've tried to tell you before and you didn't want to listen.
The first two situations are straightforward. No one wants to go to the boss with information that could make them look bad, and no one wants to be tagged as the company snitch. Mistakes and poor decisions are covered up; attempts are made to fix problems before they are detected; employees can agree to keep the whole thing under wraps, hoping they can repair the damage without detection. The problem is, mistakes and bad decisions often have unexpected ramifications - which are often not obvious to the person making the mistake. After they have "covered it up," they may think, "Whew - that was close!" Meanwhile, a customer or business partner now distrusts you because they have received or heard something as a result of the mistake.
To prevent cover-ups, the most effective CEOs ask an incredible number of questions; they routinely, randomly check all aspects of the business; and they ask one group of employees how the other employees are doing. They go into IT and ask, "Are you getting everything you need from finance?" They go into finance and ask, "Are you getting everything you need from IT?" They personally call customers and business partners, and ask them how things are going. "What has your experience been? Anything we could do to improve?"
Next, let's look at the situation where an employee decides not to tell you something because they assume you will dismiss it. If you're thinking, "This doesn't happen to me - I am very open," think again. There isn't a company in the world where the employees haven't decided, either on their own or (usually) because of the boss' behavior, that they will simply not mention certain things to the boss.
However, if you're aware of this, and work hard on it, you will make progress. Change your behavior, and you will start to hear things you've never heard before.
Let's say that John has tried to tell you that Mary "kisses up and pisses down." (Sorry for the language, but there really isn't a more dignified substitute for this expression.) You dismissed John's comment, since you haven't seen that kind of behavior from Mary. Obviously, since you're the boss, you only experience the kissing, and you are convinced that Mary is doing a good job. And, you don't want to encourage employees to gripe about each other in your office.
However, it's important for you to face the truth about Mary. Anyone who does what Mary is doing will not treat customers well, will not make decisions that help customers, and will not encourage her staff to make decisions that help customers.
To find out what Mary is really doing, without turning your office into a gossip confessional, ask John to talk about how Mary's behavior affects other employees, your business partners, and your customers. This is the real issue, and it will direct the conversation away from the more personal track ("I hate Mary because of the way she treats me").
Of course, if John really is just personally upset at Mary, and Mary's behavior isn't hurting other employees, business partners, or customers, you will find that out as you question him.
Approaching the problem this way also sends a good message to John: Your main concern is the overall well-being of employees, partners, and customers.
Hidden secrets, source #2: Customers never tell salespeople the truth. But, they will tell you the truth if you ask them the right questions, in the right way, at the right time. It's easy to see how this works when you look at it from the customer's point of view. Customer meets with salesperson. Doesn't like the way the salesperson behaves, but decides to buy from your company anyway. Salesperson thinks, "I've just made a sale! I'm good!" Salesperson tells you he's good. Since the sale has been made, you believe him. Customer hasn't said a word to the salesperson about how he bought in spite of the salesperson's behavior, not because of it. What's the point? It won't accomplish anything, from his point of view. So now you've made a sale, you think you have a good salesperson, and you are glad he's calling on more of your prospects.
If you (or someone knowledgeable and empathetic) called that same customer after the sale was made and asked about their impressions and experiences with the salesperson, that same "mute" customer would now relate, in great detail, what the problem was. "I almost didn't buy, because I was so put off by the salesperson's approach, but I really needed the XYZ function in your product, and I have heard that you have great service, so I decided to buy it anyway."
Customers who deal with your people know who is treating them right - or rudely. They know which aspects of your company are weak and inefficient. They know how difficult it is to get an answer to some of the questions that must be answered before they will make a purchase.
Customers who use your product know what you've done right and where you need to focus more energy.
When it comes to the reliability of information, what matters is the AGENDA. The employee agenda is to avoid embarrassment and to look good to the boss. The customer agenda prior to the purchase is to have the purchase go smoothly - to have it be a pleasant experience. The customer agenda after the purchase is for the product to be so easy to use that the customer is delighted - and happy to recommend that product (or service) to friends and family.
The customer's agenda is the same as your agenda. The employee's agenda is not the same as your agenda or your customer's agenda. This is why it is so important to find out what your customers are really thinking.
Hidden secrets, source #3: Metrics. I just interviewed someone in a well-known company who is in charge of his company's website metrics. He has managed to figure out the key performance indicators he wants to measure for the website, and has figured out how to do it. He has taken that data to his managers. Their reaction? "That's nice. But we're still going to do what we've been doing." In this case, the website is organized the way the company is organized, rather than the way the customer approaches the products and the buying process. The website guy figured out how to gather and present the data that shows the website should be organized the way the customer thinks, but the mangers are not buying his recommendations.
This is a sad, but all-too-common story. First you have to figure out what you want to measure, then you have to figure out how to measure it, then you have to measure it and analyze it, and, when you're all done, you have to actually take action on what the analysis has told you.
Basically, these managers are putting their personal comfort ahead of the customer's comfort. This is the root of the problem. It's actually at the root of almost every revenue-generation problem. "Sure, they want that. Customers have been saying that for years. But doing that is hard! Doing that is uncomfortable! Doing that is a lot of work! Doing that is too expensive!"
So much of this vital information is not a secret at all. It's not a secret to your customer. It's not a secret to the employee who cares about your customers but who doesn't think you'll believe him when he tells you about Mary. It's not a secret to your competitors, and others in the industry, who are fully aware of your weaknesses and your reluctance to correct them. Your competitors are happy you're not fixing those problems; your weaknesses are their opportunity. It's not a secret to the people in your company who have gone to the trouble to gather and analyze qualitative and quantitative data, and who are shocked when that data is dismissed as meaningless, because it threatens someone's comfort zone.
If you want to increase your revenues, the first place to start is to aggressively uncover and start attacking these problems. Your goal will be to eliminate your company's secret life, to know everything there is to know and to be working on improving whatever is weak. This is where new money comes from. Fortunately, your customer-centric employees and your current customers will be more than happy to help you, once you make it clear that you care.
By Kristin Zhivago on Nov 23, 2007
Every company has a tempo. What do I mean by tempo? It's the amount of time you think you have - to get something done or resolved. It's the heartbeat of your business. It's the tick-tick-tick of your corporate clock.
Your tempo is tied directly to two aspects of your business: How quickly your technology is changing, and how competitive your market is.
Tempo and revenue are joined at the hip. Here are the situations where the tempo/revenue connection becomes critical:
1) Customer expectations. If your customers expect one kind of tempo from you, and you deliver something else (obviously, we're talking about you being less responsive than they're hoping), your revenue is going to suffer.Let's say you sell a service. A customer calls with a question. After grudgingly navigating through your "press one for this" voicemail system, the customer ends up leaving a message for a person he thinks can answer his question.
But the customer doesn't just wait passively for your salesperson to call back. He also calls a competitor. The competitor doesn't have a voicemail navigation system. An actual human being answers the incoming call. This competitor's receptionist listens to the question and puts the customer on hold and calls the expert's cell phone, gets the answer to the question, and tells the customer.
Or, let's say the customer calls a different "fast response" competitor, who has no receptionist. But, this competitor has an easier-to-navigate voicemail system, and the moment the message is left, the expert is paged. The expert picks up the voicemail, and calls the customer back - before the customer has a chance to call someone else.
How fast you respond to customer expectations has a direct effect on revenue lost or gained.
2) Changes in your market. If you have been used to a slowish tempo, and new changes in your market cause your customers to expect a faster tempo, your revenue is going to suffer. Usually this situation arises when a new competitor comes into your market, and sets a higher standard for project completion, ease of purchase, speed of customer service response, and problem resolution. The companies left behind by the new competitor are always too slow to react. First they deny it, then they get depressed about it, then they finally decide they have to do something about it. By then, the faster competitor has eaten at least half of their lunch.
Changes in the speed of your market can also come about because of new technology. Shopping by Web is an obvious example. Overnight delivery was another. Email is a perfect example of a very disruptive technology, tempo-wise. Before email, customers were happy to get an answer to a question in days or hours; now they expect an answer in seconds or minutes.
When the changes happen, the successful companies face reality and change their tempo. The companies destined to fail do not.
3) Acquisition of a "faster" company or product line. Big Company acquires Little Company, and starts to sell the Little Company's product. Big Company has a certain tempo (we can safely assume it is "slow"). Little Company has another tempo (we all know it is faster, right?). Big Company starts imposing its habitual, slow tempo to selling and servicing the Little Company's product. Customers feel slapped in the face by the difference and start to warn their friends to stay away from the Little Company product. Sales for the Little Company products start to slide.
Now, not all big companies are slow, and not all small companies are fast. The tempo of a company is dependent on three things:
1) Management's sense of urgency. One of the most common sources of frustration among those "doing the work" (workers) for those "making the decisions" (managers) is the fact that managers are insulated from the customer's urgency. The worker is dealing directly with the anxious, give-it-to-me-now customer, and the manager only hears about it, second-hand. For too many managers, the customer's urgency is some far-off, vague concept that isn't invited into the conference room.In a very few companies, the CEO spends enough time with customers to have picked up on their sense of urgency, and every decision he makes is driven by that urgency. Workers in those companies feel like the CEO "gets it."
2) The company's ability to resolve issues. I just did a project for Johnson and Johnson. This is a company whose Credo is three paragraphs long, and talks at length about how the company will serve its customers, employees, community, and shareholders. The people who work at J&J believe that Credo, and put it to work every day. It is one of the least political companies I have ever worked for, and also one of the most productive.
For a large company, they have a refreshing ability to get things done. In the usual larger companies, the biggest impediment to progress is the tendency to get embroiled in subjective bickering. At its worst, it involves territorial spats that can reach an impasse and stop progress altogether. Most companies endure some level of self-indulgence, but the less you have, the better off you are. A no-nonsense yet considerate approach always wins over an emotional, ego-driven approach.
3) The emphasis on risk-aversion versus meeting customer needs. Speaking of emotions and egos...the CEO who yells at employees will create a risk-aversion environment, where no one wants to be associated with a decision that might turn out to be a mistake. Risk-aversion is also created by legal teams that are so paranoid that very little meets with their approval. Both of these situations create companies that won't make a sound decision, won't stand up for anything, and certainly won't move fast enough to meet urgent customer needs.
Time to change your tempo?
What is your customer's tempo? Are they making a typical, low-scrutiny consumer purchase, where they just want it yesterday, with the minimum of fuss? Or, are you selling a high-scrutiny product or service, where they take forever to make a decision, then want everything NOW?
What about service? How urgent is it? Do they need help immediately, or can they wait a few hours or days?
What is the tempo set by your competition? Is a new competitor speeding things up? Are they doing the jitterbug, while you're still waltzing? Are you facing up to reality, or choosing to trivialize it?
Has your market changed recently? New technologies, new systems, new ways of doing things?
As you do some soul-searching, make a list of all the areas where your company is a little "slow." Figure out what you can do to improve in that area - usually it's a combination of process, systems, and people, with an emphasis on the processes. The systems and the people can only work effectively when the processes are right.
Focusing on this subject can keep you from being blindsided. You wouldn't want to lose what you have worked so hard to build, just because your tempo was behind the beat.
By Kristin Zhivago on Dec 7, 2007
Lately I've encountered more entrepreneurs who have bought into the idea that they can just set up their search engine marketing and websites, and the orders will pour in. Oh, how nice it would be if it were true!
There are consultants who will say that it is possible, and say that they have made bundles of money doing it. But they sell one type of product (usually a guide of some sort), using one type of marketing method (usually a combination of search engine marketing, and a dedicated website that makes outrageous promises as it offers the guide for sale on the website). The website contains a single long-winded, direct-mail-like page that sells you on all the things that the guide will do for you, filled with convincing testimonials and "scientific" proof. And they let you pay and download the guide right there. This is a perfect product for the Web, and the method works well for that type of product.
These vendors often sell guides saying you can sell anything on the Web this way. Newbies have bought these guides and have become convinced that this method will work for any type of product - that all they have to do is set up this type of campaign and website, and then sit back and watch the orders flow in. It simply isn't true.
What really happens is these entrepreneurs pay good money to have the campaign created, and then they sit back - but nothing happens. Well, maybe a little something happens. But not enough to pay for the campaign and keep the company doors open.
Now they're really in trouble, and that's often the stage when they come to me. And, I'm the one who has to break the bad news to them. I have to tell them that marketing requires more work than ever:
- You have to figure out the promise you can keep, using your people, processes, and products. Then work on stating that promise simply - and making sure your organization keeps the promise in every customer interaction.
- You have to dig to find qualified prospects. You have to be very clever about it, targeting people by what they do or what they're interested in. There's no getting around the fact that this takes a lot of work.
- You have to develop relationships with the influencers - bloggers, reporters, and discussion group gurus. That takes time and energy. You have to follow up when you say you will. You can't let anything fall through the cracks. Never disappoint.
- You have to understand the problems your buyers have and the solutions they're looking for, then address those problems and solutions in all of your marketing copy.
- You have to understand their buying process and be ready with the next thing they need, when they need it, at every step.
- You have to go beyond simple product descriptions, in order to develop their trust. Create relevant, interesting copy that is refreshed frequently so it's picked up by search engines.
- Your website has to be state-of-the-art when it comes to navigation and your shopping cart. Expectations are set by the leaders in the industry, and customers want to buy from people who meet those expectations. Look unprofessional or make it too difficult, and they'll just click away.
- You have to find new ways to rise above the noise level, constantly looking for ways to make your message viral. You have to investigate and master new marketing vehicles, such as YouTube, before they become so saturated that you've lost the pioneer's advantage. New vehicles get saturated faster than ever, and are emerging faster than ever.
- You have to find vendors you can trust, even in the new areas. This has become increasingly difficult. So many small business owners are dissatisfied with their ISP, their website designer and content providers. But they have no idea how to find someone better. Even directories aren't much help; there's often some hidden agenda or the data is organized in a way that makes it impossible to use the directory to make an intelligent decision. The only tried-and-true method is to aggressively ask around. Sooner or later a friend or business associate will refer you to someone who can really help you.
- All marketing methods and vehicles have their own rules - and consultants tend to withhold their knowledge about those rules so they will be hired to do a project rather than assist someone "do it himself."
- You have to find a way to stand out from the crowd, more by what you do than what you say. You have to actually behave differently than the competition. You have to build business processes and policies that support customer-pleasing behavior on the part of your employees and partners.
- As much as you want your campaigns to be strictly online, print and other "traditional" media/methods still play a role in lead generation. One magazine article can bring in a worthwhile number of leads, if the article is in the right publication and readers find it useful. Most companies, especially those selling B2B products and services, must still attend tradeshows and speak at conferences. Direct mail can work well for consumer products, especially if you can include a sample in the mailing.
- You can't avoid the need to interview your prospects, customers, and partners, and you must test your ideas before you spend your whole budget on something you are "sure will work."
- You have to swallow your pride and actually respond to what customers are saying. If they can't find something or can't do something on your website, the usual knee-jerk reaction is, "Well, they must not be very smart." Obviously the wrong response, but it's the one we all have first - before we suck it up and fix it.
- Distributors and retailers are only interested in selling the "easy" products. If your product is a little funky, or requires too much explaining, they won't pick it up.
- Customers expect world-class logistics and service from even the smallest businesses. If an eBay seller can send something out from her garage in one day, why can't you?
- Customers have come to expect you to have all the information about their order at your fingertips - and be able to track the order online.
If you know someone who has come up with "the world's greatest" Whatever, and they think now that they have finished creating the product they can set up some kind of "automatic" marketing effort, send them this article.
Their real work has only just begun.
By Kristin Zhivago on Feb 1, 2008
I have a psychic can opener in my briefcase. I use it every day to figure out what's motivating people - customers, partners, managers, business owners, and employees. I figure out what they need and want; what drives them; what drives them crazy; what they love to do and what they avoid doing whenever they can; what freaks them out and what makes them tick. It's the "people" part of the work I do on systems, processes, and people to increase revenue for my clients.
Every now and then, I run across someone who has an emotional problem that is seriously affecting their work performance. My first step is to make absolutely sure that the emotional problem really exists - because it may not. Someone else may be misjudging the situation, slandering the person, or provoking the person.
If the individual does have a legitimate problem, the second step is to sit the person down and kindly explain how their behavior is counterproductive, then see what happens. If the person takes it well, and is actually willing to work on the problem, progress can be made. If the person goes into denial or gets upset, I'll still do what I can, but the writing will be on the wall. Sooner or later the person and the company will part.
Usually the emotional problems occur because someone is unhappy. They really don't want to be there, but they feel trapped - so they shift into passive/aggressive mode. They pretend everything is fine, when in fact they are miserable. They hate coming to work every day, they hate themselves for not doing anything to change it, and they project that hate onto their managers. They accuse their managers of forcing them to do things they don't want to do or can't do well.
I consider insanity to be a denial of reality. The schizophrenic who walks down the street yelling at imaginary enemies is not operating in the real world. He has created his own universe. In that universe, he is the victim being preyed upon by all sorts of jerks. Ironically, in reality, he is exactly the person he imagines his enemies to be. He makes life miserable for others and is incapable of helping others. He obsesses about his own safety and well-being, to the point where he has blocked out everything else. Even when someone tries to help him, he lashes out. He is suspicious of everyone.
The screaming schizophrenic typifies the insane end of the sanity spectrum. Who is at the other end - the sane end? Someone who sees people and situations for what they really are. This is the first requirement of sanity. But there is something more, an intangible spirit of hope and good will, that is common to people who are well-adjusted. Instead of a "me against the world" perspective, this person has a "me in the world, seeing it for what it is, and doing whatever I can to contribute."
Note that this person doesn't consider himself a "savior" - as in, "the only person smart enough to know what the world needs; me saving the world." People who think this way are in the same camp as the schizophrenics. Both the perpetual victim and the perpetual savior are operating in a universe of their own making, and they are the center of that universe. Of course, this is not reality. No one person is the center of the universe.
While one person can make a difference - we have evidence of this all around us - a savior mentality causes people to make bad decisions and to ultimately hurt others. And while all of us are victims of some sort at some point in our lives, none of us needs to be a perpetual victim. Only the greatly disturbed person sees himself as a perpetual victim.
Everyone lives somewhere on the spectrum between maladjusted and well-adjusted, between insane and sane.
In my experience, the most damaging situations occur in business when someone on the insane end of the spectrum manages to climb the ranks into management. I have come to think of this person as a psycho manager. Yes, it's a negative term, and justifiably so. These folks do incredible damage to everyone in the organization and everyone associated with the organization.
Before we talk about the psycho manager, I need to point out that there are very few truly crazy business owners. Yes, many business owners are "characters," and anyone who starts and succeeds as a business owner is going to be a very strong individual who has strong opinions about all sorts of things. But, for the most part, people who start businesses are realistic. They must be. No one wants to do business with a crazy, unrealistic person, and no one wants to work for a crazy, unrealistic person. And crazy unrealistic people can't manage their resources, so they quickly run out of operating funds. If a business has survived for a while, the owner can't be too far off his rocker. It's only in the movies that business owners are completely insane.
"But - I've known crazy CEOs!" you might be thinking. Yes, but my question back to you would be, "How did they get there?" Did they actually start the company, or did they get hired or promoted into that position?
There's something about the corporate environment that allows a psycho manager to rise to the top.
Proper corporate behavior has its own language, its own social mores. People use carefully crafted language to communicate. Professional managers don't say, "You're fired because you lied and cheated! Get the hell out!" They say, "It has come to our attention that you engaged in deceptive behavior, on numerous occasions, many of which are documented in this dismissal letter. You are now officially terminated from your position."
This "soft," legally acceptable language provides wiggle room for the slick psycho manager. He can say all the right things at the right time, to his bosses, and even to his subordinates. Everyone, above and below him, will feel that he is "listening" and that he "cares," when in fact he may be doing things that are completely contrary to the beliefs he has persuaded them to have about him.
Some managers are so good at presenting themselves favorably to their superiors that their superiors cannot believe anything is wrong - even though employees who work for that manager are doing everything they dare to inform those superiors that there is a problem. These managers, who "kiss up an piss down" (sorry - still can't think of a straight-laced replacement for that phrase!), are "outed" more quickly than the type I'll describe in a minute. Employees get so frustrated, and have so many verifiable examples of mistreatment, that the message finally gets through to the managers above the psycho manager, and the psycho manager is canned. This can still take an incredibly long time, however, because the psycho manager always has an excuse when confronted with the disgruntled employee's complaints. "Oh, they always say that. You know those salespeople. They complain no matter what. I had to be a little tough on them, and they're sulking about it."
The most damaging psycho manager is the one who kisses up and kisses down - but never serves the interests of either group. In other words, it's all about him. He listens to the employees as they make requests, lodge complaints, and make suggestions. He leads them to believe that he is taking those requests, complaints and suggestions to top management. But when he meets with top managers, he never says a word about those requests, complaints, and suggestions. He may even refer to his employees as "complainers," as if they are just perpetually disgruntled and nothing can be done about it. Upper management gets the impression that the psycho manager is taking care of business, when in fact the manager is doing nothing of the sort.
The psycho manager then goes back to the employees and either infers or states that he took their requests, complaints, and suggestions to top management, but top management wouldn't let him do the right thing. In fact, he leads them to believe that top management refused to consider their input.
This can go on for months or years. The employees get more and more frustrated, because nothing ever gets better. But they never blame the psycho manager, because they think he's "doing his best," and it's just that the top managers are "clueless" or "jerks" or downright crazy.
Hmmm. Sounds like that crazy guy walking down the street, accusing everyone else of being a jerk, when he was the one being the jerk. But, the psycho manager is so much smoother. After the truth finally comes out - one situation is all it takes - you can look back and realize that there were signs. A facial tic. Sweaty palms. Averting your gaze. Periods of absolute silence in meetings, punctuated every so often by an angry, emotional outburst. Continued frustration in the employee ranks.
Employee frustration is the biggest clue. Any top manager whose employees are always unhappy, no matter what he does, has not been hiring good middle managers. Good, sane managers are a delight to work for. Things run smoothly. If there's a problem, everyone knows about it. There's no hiding or secrets, no conspiratorial blame. The good manager just states the problem, and sets to work fixing it. Employees working for a good, sane manager get calmer over time, not more frustrated. They appreciate the good manager. Again, employee frustration is the biggest clue.
That's why David Packard's "management by walking around" method was so effective. If the boss just happens to stop by and ask you how it's going, you may be careful about how you say it, but it gives you an opportunity to state a concern. The top boss who follows up on that telling piece of data will find confirming or denying evidence, and will be able to determine if he has hired a sane manager or a psycho manager. And, the misbehaving psycho manager will find less room to maneuver when the boss just shows up, unannounced, and starts asking employees questions.
What does all this have to do with revenue? A lot. Frustrated employees are no where near as productive as they could be. They have trouble being courteous to customers because they're miserable. They feel trapped. Companies whose employees feel angry will never be as productive as companies whose employees are working for sane managers.
If there is an area of your company where the employees seem frustrated, start poking around. Ask questions until you get to the bottom of it. And then do whatever you have to do to replace the insanity with a happy, smooth-working organization. Not only will you increase your revenue, everyone - including you - will start having more fun.
By Kristin Zhivago on Feb 8, 2008
"Fast, right, cheap. Pick two."
Print shop owners used to like to post this little truism near the front desk of their shops. There's a lot of wisdom on those five words. If you do it too fast, it's likely to be wrong. If you take too much time obsessing over details, it isn't going to be fast. And if you get it cheap, you might also get it fast, but it probably won't be right.
The problem is, today's customers assume that they can get "all three" if they just look hard enough. Google has given them a virtual, endless, global shopping mall. If one vendor can't give them all three, they'll just keep looking. Click. Click. Click.
This leads us to another truism associated with today's buyer: no one vendor is able to hold any customer "hostage." Before the Web, the only way someone could visit a store was to get into the car and go there. Once there, after going to the trouble of driving there, they were more likely to "settle" for less than what they wanted. Or, rather than coming away empty-handed, making it a completely futile trip, they would buy something anyway.
That shopping momentum is no longer a factor in the buying process. Yes, it's true that if you sell a complex product or service, and the customer has spent some time working on the estimate with you or talking at length about their problem, and you will have a little bit of momentum working in your favor. But don't count on it. The Google mentality has given every buyer an easy out, a mental escape hatch. No matter what happens, they assume that if they need to, they can always go back to that unlimited shopping mall on their computer screen and find someone else who can provide exactly what they want.
Plus, if you're selling a complex purchase-process product, that same customer is certainly working with other vendors at the same time, getting their estimates and talking to them at length about their problem. You're not the only guy knocking at the door with flowers and candy.
Even when a shopper isn't satisfied by a Google search, they assume it's just because they didn't search properly. They think, "Surely SOMEONE has exactly what I'm looking for." That's why, when you interview customers about how they buy your type of product (of course you're doing that, right?), one interesting question is, "If you hadn't found us with your first search term, what would you type in next?"
Learn from those who have pulled it off
The truth is, there are some companies that have mastered "all three" - fast, right, cheap. Amazon comes to mind, as usual, but there are others - such as HomeReserve, the sofa-delivered-to-you-via-UPS company. And, Staples has managed to move nicely in that direction over the last couple of years, with its focus on "EASY."
The companies that have mastered fast/right/cheap made a conscious effort - starting with that goal in mind. Amazon was a web-based company from the start, with its main competitive advantage being its infrastructure and processes, rather than its product or service. Which is why the company has been able to shift from selling books to selling, well, almost everything.
The companies that were "web" from the start have an advantage in today's web-based world. But there is hope for those who are struggling to change their businesses to the newer model. HomeReserve started out as a traditional furniture manufacturer, making sofas for hospital waiting rooms. You can read their story, which is educational and nicely told.
They started with an end goal in mind, and designed everything to meet that goal. The challenge was to fit a couch into one or two UPS boxes. There were a couple of other end goals, such as "easy to assemble" with "removable covers" and "storage space under the seat cushions." These customer-pleasing goals drove their product development efforts - and the way they designed their business, to make it easy for customers to buy from them and put the couch together once they received it.
If you want to compete in the fast/right/cheap world, you have to start with some very specific customer-friendly goals. Not those mushy corporate vision goals, like "making sure our customers are satisfied," but implementable specific goals, such as, "Every email will be responded to properly and within a half hour." Then you have to set up your business so you can actually pull this off.
You have to look at your business with this new end goal in mind, then figure out what you have to change to make it happen. You need to tell your staff what the end goal is, and ask for their help in reaching that goal. Not only will they be more likely to support the solution if they are part of it, but what you are asking them to do will make sense to them. Too many company leaders leave out this step, so that even their most laudable goals turn into the butt of office humor.
Where to start?
The most straightforward way to approach this is to open a spreadsheet. Label the columns:
In the Current Situation/Process column, describe how that interaction happens now. When you get an email from someone via a form on your website, what happens to it? How long does it take you to respond? I bet it could be faster. Put "no" in the Fast column, because this is something you need to do faster. Do your salespeople send out emails they write themselves, or have you provided them with templates that ensure the response is easier to compose quickly and more professionally - better copy, all the right things included, etc.? If not, put a "no" in the "Fast" and "Right" columns - because they could be doing this faster and better.
I'm sure you're starting to get the idea. Make sure the "current situation/process" is accurate; show it to those directly involved in these activities and make sure they agree with your evaluation. Incorporate any changes if they have any.
Now it's time to fill out the Customer Expectation column. Do customers expect you to respond to emails in a half hour? At this point, I'd show this spreadsheet to some of your more friendly customers. They will give you great input on the things that you left out - things that are more important to them than you realize. Things that will give you a critical competitive edge - good thing to have during a slower economy.
Finally, it's time to start filling in the 'New situation/process" column. What changes are you going to have to make in your business so that you can answer those emails on time? Which processes can be improved with a small amount of effort? Which ones are the most important - the ones that are currently creating barriers to the sale or causing you to lose business to competitors? Prioritize them all, and get to work. Make sure everyone in the company knows that these new goals have been established and ask for their help meeting them. When you manage to start doing these things fast enough and well enough to meet (or exceed) customer expectations, you can change the "no" entries to "yes."
CEOs and business owners, in all industries, are struggling to meet the new fast/right/cheap standard. If you put this system to work for you, you will be way ahead of your competition. Your customers will take notice, and reward you with their business and their referrals.
By Kristin Zhivago on Feb 15, 2008
As I was coaching a salesperson recently, we talked about the differences between leaders and followers. It's an important distinction, especially during turbulent, recessionary times, which require all company leaders - and their employees - to meet new, higher standards. In many cases, the survival of their business depends on it. Leaders must become better leaders and their followers must engage in more leadership-like behavior.
I pointed out that if you were to walk into any conference room, and start observing - even if you didn't know anyone in the room before you arrived - you would be able to pick out the leader and the followers in about three minutes. It wouldn't matter where that leader was sitting at the table; it wouldn't matter what the leader was wearing or how old or young the leader was; it wouldn't matter what they looked like.
Employees often believe - and behave as if - managers were "born" into management. Sure, someone can inherit a position, but that's rare. On the whole, leaders are self-made, not born. Leadership is a learned skill. I am not talking about the people who rise in the ranks due to political shenanigans. I am talking about people who have rightfully earned the right to be perceived as a true leader, someone worthy of being followed.
In other words, anyone can learn to be a leader. Anyone can behave like a leader.
I asked the salesperson what the difference was between a manager and an employee. We ultimately agreed that it boiled down to behavior. And all behavior is a choice.
How does a leader behave?
1) A leader never loses his cool. The big difference between leaders and followers is the way a leader behaves when he first learns that something has gone wrong.He doesn't scream and yell, although there are certainly times when he will display anger, when it's appropriate for the audience or the situation. He doesn't blame or badger. He doesn't start picking on the people who are trying to help him solve the problem, even if they had helped create the problem. He doesn't even sigh or roll his eyes. He simply accepts the fact that there is a problem, and sets to work.
2) A leader does not feel victimized. In one of my previous articles, I talked about the fact that you can't be a victor and a victim at the same time. You have to decide which it's going to be, and then start behaving that way. Victims are not, by the very nature of victimhood, victors.
We live in a culture that is obsessed with victimhood. The news is almost completely filled with stories of the perpetrators and their victims. Politicians - the other people who fill the news - spend most of their time telling citizens that they can stop being victims of [whatever], and become winners, if they would just vote that politician into office.
Given this culture, it is no surprise that employees often put on the victim's cloak and wear it - almost proudly - while they are at work. They think of their managers as "them" and they think of themselves as "us." They say negative things about their leaders, behind the leader's back, in an attempt to feel better about themselves and raise their status among their peers. Which brings us to #3.
3) A leader does whatever he can to avoid saying bad things about others. Imagine a Western movie featuring a strong, stoic sheriff, who is the obvious leader of the town. Imagine also, a town gossip. The gossip feels important when gossiping, but no one would ever mistake the gossip for the leader. Far from it.
What defines a gossip? Someone who takes pleasure talking about other people's misfortunes, mistakes, and shortcomings. The more someone gossips, the further they are from being a leader.
4) A leader gives people the benefit of the doubt, while keeping her eyes wide open. When it comes to behavior, "What you see is what you get." Have you ever seen someone say the word "yes," while shaking their head "no"? Pay more attention to the head shaking than the words.
Body language, when it conflicts directly with the words being spoken, is the better indicator of the person's feelings and intentions. Words are easy. People say all sorts of things and make promises all the time. People learn to lie at an early age, and only get bet
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