A little exercise……Sit down with two or three colleagues (preferably motivated ones) and launch informally into a discussion around:

WHO ARE WE?

WHAT DO WE STAND FOR?

HOW DO WE STAND OUT FROM OUR COMPETITORS?

WHAT EXPERIENCE DO WE WANT OUR CUSTOMERS TO HAVE?

Honest answers only please! With those same two or three colleagues map out what a great (the business your’e in) would look like? What should it feel like when customers engage with you? Make a list of what you need to do, then go ask some of your clients the same thing…….

Just before we talk ourselves into a recession. Thought the following might be interesting. It’s taken from Ken Blanchard’s Thought Leadership Research.

Top organisational challenges; competitive pressure, economic challenges, growth and expansion

Top management challenges; creating an engaging workforce, managing change, developing potential leaders

Top employee development challenges; performance management, manager/supervisor skills, interpersonal communication skills

Top HR and training challenges; connecting training to business results, sustaining training with follow up and reinforcement, strategic alignment of training goals and business initiatives

For the full research go to www.kenblanchard.com/thoughtleadership/research_findings/2008_corporate_issues

Been doing some digging! Well some research really on what the people in customer service think will be the future challenges small businesses will have to face. It’s been interesting asking around and reading the enormous amount of information out there. I’ve summarised the most popular thoughts:

1. The IT savvy generation will choose technology over direct communications to contact companies they want to buy from.

2. Future buying behaviour will be heavily influenced by social networks. Customers will ignore advertising (they already are)and use these sites to make buying decisions.

3. To be competitive in the future, we will need to eliminate queuing on the phone, in the shop and on the internet.

4. Some customers are more important than others. Knowing who they are is half the battle.

5. Manage the ‘white space’ the bit when you are not contacting or communicating with customers. For example when you have booked a restaurant for two weeks time and there is no contact in between! What can you do to keep customers informed.

6. Customers will expect to communicate with people who know about the product/service and empowered to make decisions - implications for recruitment, skill development and salaries!

7. Going that extra mile when the customer thinks they are already satisfied (I’ve blogged about this before)

In a world of sameness, we all better get thinking about how to make the most of customer experience, true customer experience…..

Whilst the traditional differentiators such as price, products, quality and delivery are on their way out and becoming increasingly unsustainable. It’s recognised right across all sectors that the main differential advantage is now in customer experience. The research speaks for itself. Get moving on providing great customer experience not just good enough customer service. It’s interesting to note that when business was questioned recently about employee development only 10% of businesses identified customer experience as their top management challenge for 2008. (Ken Blanchard Companies www.kenblanchard.com)

Imagine that. Only 10%. Customer experience is pretty much your only way of providing that all important competitive edge today, yet, most businesses are doing nothing about it in terms of developing staff to deliver that all important experience. Your products are the same, your quality is the same, even delivery pretty much the same. The only thing you have left is the experience you are giving your customers, how you make them feel and spotting opportunities to differentiate yourself with them.

What are you doing?

Everywhere we look big businesses are burning the midnight oil trying to look, and in some cases, be smaller than they actually are. At the other end of the spectrum us smaller businesses are tapping our imaginations hard trying to look bigger than we really are. What a farce! If we spent just as much brain power on developing new ways of doing business, being creative or creating a leading edge product, things could be a lot different!

As I’ve mentioned before, traditional marketing is over, thankfully. I was never comfortable with it anyway. Now the playing field is more level. Technology, the internet, mobiles and global inter-connectivity mean that small business can play with the big boys or girls! You don’t need a multi million pound budget to reach your customers. A few thousand quid will often do.

But what do we do instead, we act like big corporates when they grow and hit a certain age. Small businesses stabilise, systems rule the roost and ideas run out. They become boring, risk adverse and whilst the larger business usually has huge cash reserves to weather the storm, the small business doesn’t. In fact the small business should have just done the complete opposite, taken the risks, kept nimble, utilised its close team and generated lots of ideas that it could quickly take to market.

Our biggest and most aggressive enemy is complacency itself. Small business must not lose the character that made them successful when they first started up. They can easily be closer to the customer, better able to add value to the customer and have more chance of making creative decisions than big business.

Times are tough, the buzzword of the moment is recession and the strong economic climate looks like it’s taking a battering and for some time to come. Customer confidence is wobbling, cash is tight and we are all feeling more than a pinch. So its easy to take a knee jerk reaction and try to cut costs, yet perhaps thats the easy route and a route to nothing. So what are you going to do?

The best answer is before you do anything…….. ‘think.’ Here I offer some thoughts:

1. It’s a long haul - whilst there may be some quick hits you can implement, make sure you don’t cut costs too much, an anorexic business ain’t going to get you far in the long term. Being overstretched will only work for so long.

2. Understand what creates the true value in your business. Is it the staff? Is it employees? Is is your products? Is it your customers? Whoever provides the value, they are providing the profit and they need supporting it’s as simple as that.

3. Differentiate, differentiate, differentiate. Get to grips with why people buy from you, invest in marketing and sales tactics that communicate that and if you have creative thinkers…..these are the last people you get rid of in these tough times.

4. Lead your team through this period. Don’t make it tougher for your staff. Encourage, engage, motivate and inspire them to become better at what they do and more productive. If they are led with those words in mind they will come up with the solutions and make it easier for you. Keep morale high and don’t start slashing expenses, bonuses without doing it properly. Strong, clear communication is priceless.

5. Concentrate on customers even more. Identify your top 20% of customer performers ie: those contributing to profit, growth and cash and go visit them. The last thing you want to do is lose customers at this time because in the panic you forgot about them. Set targets for increased spend from these customers. If your top 20% of customers spend 10% more this next year, what difference would that make?

6. Do something now. Get on with it and don’t put it off…you don’t want it biting you on the bum in the next few months. Think, understand and prepare for the actions required. Don’t let decisions be forced on you and think long term solutions.

Looking back on these points, perhaps it’s timely reminder that tightening the old belt can sometimes be good for us!

I recently conducted a seminar about small business growth. As usual, it all got a little interactive and we got talking about keeping objectives as simple as possible especially at start up and the growth stages. This is what we came up with:

1. Produce lots of loyal customers

2. Attract new customers at least cost

3. Reduce costs as far as possible

4. Increase customer spend by getting them to buy more

5. Build reputation and brand equity

I would argue/debate/discuss that keeping focused on these objectives will drive your business forward….wouldn’t it?

Just finished a few books! There are so many books out there, it can be easy to read stuff that’s boring, old school and simply rubbish. Here are a few I think will get you thinking about how to do things better:

“The Laws of Simplicity” - John Maeda

“Authenticity” - David Boyle

“Small is the New Big” - Seth Godin

Well worth your time. Enjoy…..let me know what you think.

Great post by Mark Ramsay at:

www.hear2.com/2008/05/it-doesnt-have.html

I supply a lot of training to business support agencies funded by the government. I enjoy doing them and I meet some great people running businesses. Yesterday I got a letter from one of them, who will remain nameless, addressed to “Dear Valued Supplier.” It annoyed me…if I’m particularly valued why haven’t they addressed me by my name?

Fundamental mistake in marketing no business, if you are addressing a letter to someone never ever make it ambiguous. Be courteous and get straight to the point…Dear Ann, Hi Ann or whatever! It’s unbelievable that basic errors like this are being made.

Rant over…….!