Phew! The books are now uploaded and ready to be viewed and purchased. Hope you like them. Take advantage of the free marketing book I wrote a couple of years ago first so you get a taster of what they are about!

Click on the links to the right or just go to the ‘My Books’ section on this page. Happy reading!

I think Seth Godin is absolutely spot on with this short post. I agree there is no point in being with customers who are second best. Find those customers that are listening and love you. Only work with those that you love wholeheartedly. Its a relationship remember over the long term. If you lose customers it should be because you let them go. Not the other way round.

Let your competitors deal with the rest. Thats how the internet has changed things and made things better for small business.

http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2009/06/scalejacking.html

Ideas come from everywhere, developments can happen at any moment and innovation can be stifled if you don’t have perspective. Innovation is not the total responsibility of your company and employees, its also the responsibility of your customers. Your job is to create the environment for that to happen.

Embracing customers ideas is an untapped resource thats just brimming with possibilities to make your life easier and your customers. I don’t just mean feedback surveys and questionnaires. Its a little more sophisticated than ’so how were you treated by our staff today?’ Collaboration, bringing customers wholeheartedly into your development and innovation processes is the start of stimulating a conversation and allowing you to innovate faster.

Why? Well customers are desperate to tell you what they want and how. They know what’s wrong and what is right simply because they interact and engage with your company either over an intensive period of activity or on a regular basis. They see it from the other side of the river bank and that can be a whole different view. Customers give feedback quickly and continously if encouraged positively and if they see their ideas being implemented.

Start by initiating an ideas exchange program (you can use technology to help you do this) and invite customers to have that important conversation with you. Respond, discuss, brainstorm, debate, argue and create together. If you have 20 customers who contribute 2 ideas per year, you don’t me to do the math. If only one is brilliant….well!!!

Business as usual needs to be impossible. Use those conversations to prioritise developments, understand and exploit customers knowledge, its something both of you will benefit from.

‘Skunk works’ were originally brought to the attention of  the mainstream by Tom Peters and Bob Waterman some 30 years ago in their book ‘In Search of Excellence’ after they observed several American companies using them. The concept, a group within an organisation given a high degree of autonomy and unhampered by bureaucracy, tasked with working on advanced or secret projects, (Wikipedia.)

It’s design was based on providing a supportive culture for maverick thought, creativity and ridding the company of any fostering problems. Ensuring that any issues are dealt with at the root cause and helping people focus on positive activity rather than negative, protective thinking rampant in so much of business.

Later developments have seen them evolve into more sophisticated occasions. These very events were aimed at fostering trust as people could tell the truth with fear of reprisals. These were not your ordinary team meetings or the regular operational get together. These were different. Set aside, these very meetings encouraged the businesses capacity to change, innovate, solve problems, achieve goals and not to mention embed an active, honest and open culture.

The results can be staggering. They create a rapid, constant flow of information, broaden colleagues perspective, offer new ideas and embody a climate of little fear and no reprisals. It pushes companies to value input, transparency and promotes critical thinking. If you think your business could do with a dose of that, set up an event once every quarter and make sure they happen. 

Beware, there is a rant coming on! Just been to Enterprise Cars to pick up a car for four days that I had booked online last week. I’ve used them a couple of times recently and they have been okay. First time I had to wait half an hour for the car and the second time I had to wait about 15 – 20 minutes. Bit annoying as its my time but hey ho! I use rental cars a lot and spend between £200 – £300 per month. I was giving them one last chance to see if I could get my car on time this time before moving on to someone else.

I turn up and get asked for additional ID to my driving licence. Fair enough. Only last time I was told it wasn’t needed as I ‘d already shown it the first time I’d booked – hope you are following this? So, of course, this time I don’t take it. Now I can’t take the car as they have changed the policy as another customer has probably not returned a car! Their point not mine. I say “I’ve walked a mile to get the car and I’m not walking back to just walk back again.” Blank look on the guys face. Don’t get me wrong, he has been polite but you can’t help thinking this guy has been sucked into the corporate approach to annoyed customers which is a ‘can’t do anything about it madam but with a smile.’

I refuse to hire the car and cancel. They could have done all sorts of things to sort this out but were not interested, were not creative enough. I’m a regular customer, where is there advocacy program? When delivering customer experience it has to be consistent, the customer cannot be kept guessing at what the new rule is. They have spent an enormous amount of money on getting me attracted to them only to forget that once I have bought a few times. As I was leaving he said ” its a rule thats come from above.” That is not an explanation its an excuse. I pity people who are in jobs where they blame people above and believe truly that that is just the way it works.

The experience is oh so traditional, oh so mundane and oh so dangerous. Not for me, I have plenty of choice but for them, there are only so many consumers around! What’s more intriguing is that on the coffee table in reception is a book on exceeding customer expectations…how ironic!

How often do you monitor return on investment? It’s about counting the right actions and not missing the crucial results. If you have stock, you’ll count it once a week, on a monthly basis or twice a year. If you travel a lot, you will have implemented an expenses policy that tracks expenditure so you avoid cost creep. If you are an architect you’ll know how many jobs you have completed this week, month or year and how much profit you have made. And, if you have a great admin person he or she will have the stationery cupboard sorted!

But what about your investment. That money that has likely come from profits or your back pocket that you threw at some sort of activity. Its likely to have been marketing or people, or lets say it should have been. How is it measuring up? What ouput has it created? Whats the return?

The tighter the budget the better the decision has to be and the more it needs to be measured and if you are not measuring you’ve already lost control. Not considering return on investments is a flaw in leadership that needs fixing. Ask the question; for every pound I have spent, by how much has turnover and/or profit increased? Measuring can identify mediocre performance, expose mistakes and deliver promises.

Its worth making the distinction of whether your investment has trurly created value or just increased complexity.

……particularly in the service industry. It costs nothing to present  a spark in your dealings with customers. Being actually nice is a start. Hub have got this sussed in St.Ives, Cornwall. Spent a bit of time there this week as its the only place I can get a decent internet connection with my dongle. I’ve witnessed a consistent approach to the customer experience.

Not one person sticks out for being rude, obtrusive or grumpy and not one stands out for being outstanding. Thats because they all genuinely have manners and thats down to recruitment, training and values. Nothing is too much trouble, always on hand to help and offer extra drinks with sincerity, conversation and humour. It takes a lot to make me feel elated by service like this. It really isn’t that difficult to be different and better! So why the hell is it so rare?

We either love or hate it. Some of us can spend hours immersed in it, others, would rather swim through nuclear waste than even spend an hour trawling it. It’s a turn off, boring and for many, we try and avoid it at all cost.

But what about strategic detail? Strategic detail is not about crossing the ‘t’s’ or dotting the ‘i’s’ that’s proof reading. It’s not about cross checking things in minute detail, that’s auditing. Strategic detail is like looking at a valley of fields in June and seeing more than just the green. You see much more than that. The different variety of flowers, the lack of hedgerows, there are more rabbits than there were last year and how the wind changes the flow of the grasses.

Strategic detail is about looking at your business from a distance, identifying the detail and understanding it’s effects. It’s impact on various departments, customers, staff. It’s ability to either stifle or innovate. You may never touch it, but you need to feel it. You need to know where the detail is and its effect. Then you can decide what detail you get involved in and, of course, that depends on what you see.

As small business owners we have a tendency to get involved in everything or lots of things. We market as if we need to sell to all customers/consumers. We network at all the events that are going on in our area. We get involved in all the aspects of our business. That’s why we never have any time!

Time is limited so we have to be careful where we spend it. Better to focus on the three things your business must do right, no compromise, no cutting corners. In fact, what makes you potentially world class. It’s a case of what are the priorities and concentrating on those.

If you are a design agency, perhaps it’s about fabulous, cutting edge design, recruiting world-class people and marketing. If you design and manufacture innovative products its product development, production efficiency and marketing. If you are a creative it’s your reputation, credibility, bespoke products/solutions and marketing. A restaurant, possibly amazing food, world-class customer experience and marketing!

One observer of the Welsh Rugby team who won the six nations in 2008 said that the key to their achievement was that they identified what the critical success factors were in the game and went out and did those abundantly well. It’s the same for small business. Concentrate on 3 – 5 core things and stick to what you are good at, or, need to be brilliant in and stop worrying about the elements that are not mission critical.

This is a great little video. Thanks to funding universe at www.twitter.com/fundinguniverse for sharing it

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T6MhAwQ64c0