If you are familiar with the concept of a “driving force” you know that strong, thriving organizations take their driving force seriously. Apple’s driving force is super cool products. You would never catch them launching something that wasn’t sleek, flashy, high tech, and intuitive. GE is driven by profits and is willing to acquire any business from appliances to healthcare to water quality as long as the profit is impressive. Slip and you are gone in a blink. The products and markets involved are irrelevant. Gerber is a good example of a company that is market driven. As they’ve expanded beyond baby food into children’s clothing and life insurance, their market has remained constant. Additional driving forces include: capacity, production capabilities, sales channels, distribution channels, natural resources, and social cause. A good strategic planning process establishes this kind of clarity. What is your driving force? But before you compare your company to the options mentioned above, take a moment to consider your REAL driving force? It may be none of the above!
Always act in the customer’s best interests. If you can’t serve someone well, regardless of the reason (too busy, mismatched need), try to connect them with someone who can be of real help. If you can’t make an appropriate referral with confidence, give advice that will help your customer find a good resource: criteria to consider, places to look, people to ask, etc. Whatever you do, don’t put yourself first.
How often should you do strategic planning? Every year Every 3 to 5 years Whenever you suspect the competition is about to eat your lunch Whenever sales and profits fall significantly short of goals None of the above Select your answer and then read on to see if you are correct.
OK, I guess you should listen to them, but don’t just do as they say! Too often customers know what they want, but not what they need. If you worked in a hardware store and a customer came looking for a good old-fashioned night-light, you could hand him exactly what he asked for and he would leave happy. However, if you asked some questions and showed him some options, he might leave with a light-sensitive, motion-activated nightlight that only burns electricity when it is needed. He wouldn’t be happy, he’d be thrilled! The discrepancy between wants and needs does not just apply to simple examples like night-lights. I’ve had clients ask me to lead them through strategic planning. After a little discussion, it becomes apparent that strategic planning is not what they need.
If 2012 is approaching faster than you ever thought possible, now is a good time to look around and see if your plane is still soaring, stalled on the runway, or out of sight in a hangar. Ask yourself these three questions: Are we adapting to changes around us, especially changes in our customers’ wants and needs? Are we becoming something new, smarter, and more capable than we were at the beginning of the year? Are we continuing to eliminate the tasks that contribute least to our profits and the value for which customers are willing to pay? If you answered any of these questions with no, not sure, or luckily, now would be a good time to embark on a stronger, more intentional approach to better results in 2012!
In the midst of the biggest power outage ever to darken the Northeast, three days in at our house, I received a call, presumably from no more than 100 miles away, but obviously in the lit half of the state. My alma mater wanted money. I wanted lights, running water, heat, a hot shower, and a refrigerator with the power to stay cold. Had he been calling from California, it would have been more understandable. But he wasn’t. And here he was consuming the battery of my only form of communication. My only means of calling for help, should it come to that. Why do you suppose I wasn’t feeling patient, friendly, and generous? It is too easy to plow through our daily routines oblivious to the possibility of death, famine, pestilence, and other hardships until it walks into our own lives. “How are you today?” roles off the tongue with ease, though many people barely pause for a response.
We have a weird bathroom. When we first moved in, we couldn’t imagine why the previous owner had not installed any towel racks. It took one trip to the local plumbing fixture store to learn why. None of the standard rods are the right length for any of the spaces in our bathroom. Nonetheless, we picked out a style we wanted, one which was not on display, and inquired about the outer dimensions of various options. No one seemed able to tell us whether the length listed in the catalog was the measurement of the rod available for hanging, the distance between the centers of the wall mounts, or the outer dimension of the entire assembly. Guesses were easy to come by; definitive answers were not. So we did without. A year later we returned, repeated the exercise exactly, and left with the same decision: to do without. This past summer, we returned once more. I was determined to have towel racks.
I am tickled pink by the incredibly green mileage of my new blue Prius, but red with anger over the yellow highlighted “Excellent” ratings on the sample customer satisfaction survey handed to me by the salesman as I drove off. “If I get less then 90%, Toyota will throw me under the bus,” he said. Toyota wants feedback that the salesman fears and, as a result, the customer suffers.
I attended a teleconference this past week during which I learned some interesting things. I wanted to follow up with a quick phone call to the presenter. My experience in that endeavor reveals the easiest way to avoid customers. You may be doing the same thing and not even realize it. Here is my story: I googled the company name. The result was nothing but confusing. The only references to that company were on secondary websites (e.g., Facebook and LinkedIn). There was no reference to “that company.com.” The company’s Facebook page had no contact information. It didn’t have anything else either, for that matter. Another secondary site had a link to “that company.com”and it redirected me to “another company.com.” Apparently the company name has been changed recently. When I finally arrive there, I can tell that I have found the right website, but I am many minutes in at this point. How many people would have quit by now?
Are your products as simple as a banana? Do they provide instant recognition? Have no moving parts? Sell for a fairly small and stable price? Require no installation? No explanation? No registration? No warranty? If yes, your products, like a banana, can be sold without building trust. Trust is not a big factor in the sale of a banana. It’s easy to trust a banana. Unless, of course, you are dealing with someone who has never seen a banana. But then, the banana is no longer simple, is it?