Make 2009 Your Best Year Ever Part 1
Make 2009 Your Best Year Ever Part 1
At the beginning of each year, many business people commit to worthy sounding resolutions. Others have given up on this practice since they tend to disappoint themselves by January 31. New Year's Resolutions have fallen into disfavor based on many examples of broken promises such as the crowded health club parking lots in January that quickly thin out as fitness resolutions die a quiet death.
Here are several suggestions to increase the probability that 2009's business resolutions will stick.
Turn your resolutions into declarations. Resolving to do something is an intent from which you are easily distracted. A declaration is a commitment, a promise. It is also a creation. What are you bringing into existence? By what date? On behalf of what bigger goal in 2009? Make 2009 a year of firm commitments and bold promises.
Make 2009 the year of the customer
If you don't do this, your customers will! We're fascinated listening to business people say they are customer focused or customer driven, while their business models are focused on internal issues or self-oriented profit needs.
Years ago, focusing on customers didn't really seem to matter. I know this sounds bizarre, but customer demand was higher than capacity and the seller was in the driver's seat. Organizations set their business goals based on their targeted profit margins. Today, our capacity to produce goods and services is greater than demand, and unless you have a distinctly innovative product or service that customers "have to" buy, there is a confusing amount of choice. In a market filled with customer-hungry competitors, protecting margins takes more than increasing or lowering prices and tinkering with administrative costs.
Whether we recognize it or not, the customer is clearly entrenched at the centre of our business universe. Incidentally, organizations that ignore or deny this reality are in deep, fundamental trouble. (We're sure you can name names.)
Dale Carnegie said: "Try honestly to see things from the other person's point of view."
Why is thinking from the customer's point of view so often missing in today's business conversations? It seems we've been deluded into thinking that simply improving products or services is the answer.
Typically, we design products (services) that we think serve customer's needs, then aggressively take them to market using traditional, mass-market or direct sales techniques. Invariably, the market responds with apathy, strong resistance, or resounding silence other than a giant sucking sound as they take their money elsewhere.
We audited one group's one-day planning meeting, and only once was a customer mentioned and the comment was derogatory. As an organization grows, the natural, organic flow is away from customers. A recent survey indicates that 80% of executives thought that their service quality was ten times greater than their customer's viewed it. [OOPS!]
Action steps: Seek out forward-thinking customers. Listen carefully and visualize the picture they see of the future. These rare visionaries see what others do not see until it's too late. Once a topic becomes trendy, websites and bookstores are flooded with a wave of rehash publications that are of little value in uncovering potential future profits. Read the books, web sites, and periodicals these forward-thinking customers read and respect.
Recently we visited with the director of marketing of a network of home inspectors mostly located in the United States. You'd expect him to cry the blues and whine about the economy and his shrinking market. He surprised us by admitting that the next 18 months will be a challenge, but he chooses to strengthen the core customer competencies of his network. As small competitors go out of business, he plans to be left standing stronger and more credible than ever. He is investing in training and development and refuses to hire "industry experts" whose orientation is from the past. He knows past performance is no predictor of future success, and industry expert advice is not what he needs. Instead, he is focused on enhancing his member's skills and making a stronger connection to core real estate agents whose clients still order home inspections every day. He sees today's challenges as opportunities to build his organization's current and future value.
Aggressively uncover your client's business model and what they truly value.
Determine what you can do to assist them in capturing, satisfying, and retaining their customers. Remind yourself that what you provide has no value until a customer values it.
Make 2009 Your Best Year Ever Part 1 - To learn more about this author, visit Dave Mather's Website.
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Make 2009 Your Best Year Ever
At the beginning of each year, many business people commit to worthy sounding resolutions. Others have given up on this practice since they tend to disappoint themselves by January 31. New Year's Resolutions have fallen into disfavor based on many examples of broken promises such as the crowded health club parking lots in January that quickly thin out as fitness resolutions die a quiet death.
Here are several suggestions to increase the probability that 2009's business resolutions will stick.
Turn your resolutions into declarations. Resolving to do something is an intent from which you are easily distracted. A declaration is a commitment, a promise. It is also a creation. What are you bringing into existence? By what date? On behalf of what bigger goal in 2009? Make 2009 a year of firm commitments and bold promises.
Make 2009 the year of the customer
If you don't do this, your customers will! We're fascinated listening to business people say they are customer focused or customer driven, while their business models are focused on internal issues or self-oriented profit needs.
Years ago, focusing on customers didn't really seem to matter. I know this sounds bizarre, but customer demand was higher than capacity and the seller was in the driver's seat. Organizations set their business goals based on their targeted profit margins. Today, our capacity to produce goods and services is greater than demand, and unless you have a distinctly innovative product or service that customers "have to" buy, there is a confusing amount of choice. In a market filled with customer-hungry competitors, protecting margins takes more than increasing or lowering prices and tinkering with administrative costs.
Whether we recognize it or not, the customer is clearly entrenched at the centre of our business universe. Incidentally, organizations that ignore or deny this reality are in deep, fundamental trouble. (We're sure you can name names.)
Dale Carnegie said: "Try honestly to see things from the other person's point of view."
Why is thinking from the customer's point of view so often missing in today's business conversations? It seems we've been deluded into thinking that simply improving products or services is the answer.
Typically, we design products (services) that we think serve customer's needs, then aggressively take them to market using traditional, mass-market or direct sales techniques. Invariably, the market responds with apathy, strong resistance, or resounding silence other than a giant sucking sound as they take their money elsewhere.
We audited one group's one-day planning meeting, and only once was a customer mentioned and the comment was derogatory. As an organization grows, the natural, organic flow is away from customers. A recent survey indicates that 80% of executives thought that their service quality was ten times greater than their customer's viewed it. [OOPS!]
Action steps: Seek out forward-thinking customers. Listen carefully and visualize the picture they see of the future. These rare visionaries see what others do not see until it's too late. Once a topic becomes trendy, websites and bookstores are flooded with a wave of rehash publications that are of little value in uncovering potential future profits. Read the books, web sites, and periodicals these forward-thinking customers read and respect.
Recently we visited with the director of marketing of a network of home inspectors mostly located in the United States. You'd expect him to cry the blues and whine about the economy and his shrinking market. He surprised us by admitting that the next 18 months will be a challenge, but he chooses to strengthen the core customer competencies of his network. As small competitors go out of business, he plans to be left standing stronger and more credible than ever. He is investing in training and development and refuses to hire "industry experts" whose orientation is from the past. He knows past performance is no predictor of future success, and industry expert advice is not what he needs. Instead, he is focused on enhancing his member's skills and making a stronger connection to core real estate agents whose clients still order home inspections every day. He sees today's challenges as opportunities to build his organization's current and future value.
Aggressively uncover your client's business model and what they truly value.
Determine what you can do to assist them in capturing, satisfying, and retaining their customers. Remind yourself that what you provide has no value until a customer values it.
Make 2009 Your Best Year Ever Part 1 - To learn more about this author, visit Dave Mather's Website.
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Dianne CramptonDianne Crampton is an executive leadership coach, team culture consultant, author and president of TIGERS Success Series, Inc. Dianne has been helping CEO's and Executives connect their employees to their core values and goals for over 20 years using the trademarked TIGERS team culture process, which stands for trust, interdependence, genuineness, empathy, risk and success. To download a free white paper on behaviors that build strong teams and behaviors that will predictably tear them down go here. Dianne's contribution to the 2010 Pfeiffer Consulting Journal (an imprint of John Wiley and Sons Publishers) entitled TIGERS Hearted Teams is available in November 2009. Her new book TIGERS Among Us: 5 Winning Business Team Cultures And Why, Three Creeks Publishing will release in March 2010. To receive publishing discounts, subscribe to the free TigerTracks Newsletter here. - Visit Dianne Crampton's Website |
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Cheryl MatthynssensCheryl is a life skills coach, licensed Chemical Dependency Counselor and a 20 year entrepreneur. Cheryl's dedication to achieving a life of balance led to her expanding her teaching from the simple managing of life's daily challenges to adding financial well being as well. A direct marketer with DrinkACT, she is gaining ground in the online community with her concepts of making sure business owners, entreprenuers and employees have well rounded life styles. She opened up a small affiliate site - The Balance Guide- to help others find resources for mental and emotional well being. Visit Cheryl's blog to see more of the diversity beyond business she has began offering online at www.thebalanceguide.blogspot.com - Visit Cheryl Matthynssens's Website |
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Kim CastleWith nearly two decades in the advertising and design business, with clients like Domino's Pizza, General Motors, Direct TV, Pedigree, Wolfgang Puck, Higher Octave Music, Hollywood Celebrity Products, Disney, and Paramount, as well as thousands of entrepreneurs around the world define, structure, communicate, and position their business for greater profits, BrandU(R) co-creators Kim Castle and W. Vito Montone discovered that entrepreneurs could experience the same power that big brands command for a fraction of the cost with the world's only process-based results-drive Integral approach to business creation. BrandU(R) is helping entrepreneurs grow with the power of extreme clarity from idea...to brand...to market(TM) and helping one million entrepreneurs become successful and whole so that they can make a difference in the world. Are you one of them? If you want to experience clarity all the way to the bank(TM), get started now at http://www.brandu.com. - Visit Kim Castle's Website |
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George LudwigGeorge Ludwig is a recognized authority on sales strategy and peak performance psychology. An international speaker, trainer, and corporate consultant, he helps clients like Johnson & Johnson, Abbott Laboratories, Northwestern Mutual, CIGNA, and numerous others improve sales force effectiveness and performance. Though it's George's strategies and processes that help corporations increase productivity and performance, it's his tremendous energy and dynamism that spark the transformation. Again and again, clients remark on his amazing ability to unleash human capacity and inspire men and women to break out of their comfort zones. The result is a whole new type of salesperson. His customized presentations teach achievers to make stunning advances in their lives. From helping salespeople realize cherished dreams to helping corporations exponentially accelerate revenue streams, George Ludwig leaves audiences and individuals empowered, emboldened, and clamoring for more. George is the best-selling author of Power Selling: Seven Strategies for Cracking the Sales Code and Wise Moves: 60 Quick Tips to Improve Your Position in Life & Business. - Visit George Ludwig's Website |
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