Be Different or be dead

March 19, 2012

Why having strong feelings are better than having deep knowledge

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Why having strong feelings are better than having deep knowledge.

There are lots of smart people out there these days. MBA’s. Doctors in this. Doctors in that.

Our world is robust in well educated people. And that’s a good thing.

And businesses are always in the hunt for the cream of the crop when it comes to recruiting capable individuals. Aggressive competition for the best of the best.

Which usually comes down to who has the better marks and which college or university did they graduate from.

The recruitment process is severely flawed.

Focusing primarily on academic outcomes is not necessarily the determining factor in whether someone will be successful or not in your organization.

It is an important decision making element but it is not the be-all and end-all consideration.

Knowledge is a given. It’s table stakes for an individual applying for an opportunity in any organization. It’s expected that the applicant has achieved proficiency in their chosen field of study.

But academic achievement doesn’t necessarily make a person special. Remarkable. Stand-out. Visible.

Its not what you know, but how you feel that places you in these categories.

Special people feel.

They care.

They exude trust.

They are respected by and have currency with their colleagues.

They earn respect.

Knowledge isn’t enough.

Seek out feelers and hire them.

Cheers,
Roy
Check out my BE DiFFERENT or be dead Book Series

• Posted 3.19.12 at 10:48 am by Roy Osing
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March 17, 2012

Why the best measure of success is share of wallet

Source: Unsplash

Why the best measure of success is share of wallet.

Traditional marketing strategy spends a copious amount of time focusing on how to erect barriers to competitive entry.
Unfortunately in my experience this doctrine doesn’t go far enough and it certainly doesn’t create a sustainable competitive position for an organization.

Worrying about the competition is not where energies should be spent.

Worrying about the competition is misplaced — Here are 7 reasons why this traditional business approach doesn’t work:

It’s not a particularly unique approach to the market — Most organizations seem to follow this approach to minimize competition in their business; if everyone pursues the same strategy, how can it result in a differential advantage for any one of them? The truth is, it’s a business school course and every student takes it and typically tries to apply IT when there are other strategies that work much better.

The notion is rooted in a more theoretical perspective and falls short of the practical need to show business people how to do it. It’s all very well to salute a strategy that is rooted in strong theory, but if it can’t be practically implemented in the real world, it’s of little value.

It’s a distraction — While an organization is consumed with trying to find ways to keep the competition out, it’s not spending enough time to ensure their existing base of loyal customers are taken care of.

And it spawns an unhealthy culture that is preoccupied with preventing market activity rather than doing whatever is required to beat the competition in the trenches where the customers are. Earning their business everyday should be the priority rather than erecting barriers to others coming in to compete with you.

It diverts marketing attention — Away from investing in value based offers for the existing customer base. Rather, marketing resources are employed on other activities — regulations, patents and government restrictions — designed to keep competition away.

It creates an illusion — That competition can be restricted. It’s futile in the long run because a hungry competitor will always find a way to gain access to your markets and your customers. You will never keep them out or restrict their natural market activities.

It tends to focus on artificial non-market tactics — To prevent more competition such as regulation and law rather than beating them by providing amazing customer service and unmatched value.

It’s an ineffective use of valuable resources — With an outcome that is inevitable. Back in the day, the incumbent telecom carriers spent an enormous amount of money trying to prevent competitive entry into traditional monopoly markets through a time-consuming and expensive regulatory process.

The competitive tsunami wasn’t deterred, however, and they should have been paying more attention to creating better customer service and a marketing engine that provided compelling and unique value.

I am not suggesting that you shouldn’t pay attention to the competition, existing and potential.

But don’t get obsessed about preventing them from doing what is reasonable given free market conditions.
If they have an opportunity with your customers, expect them to make a play and respond by shielding your loyal customers from the onslaught of their competitive value proposition.

If you feel that a certain non-market response is necessary, go ahead and do it. But don’t let it be all-consuming. Don’t let it gobble up all of your resources. And don’t let it drain the effort in executing a customer response to the threat.

Observe your competitors but ACT for your customers.

Make it so difficult for your competition to attract your customers away from you - by providing them with constant unmatched value - they will be frustrated and will have to endure so much pain, they will decide it’s not worth it. And they will retreat.

How can you hold them? — What are some of the actions you can take to keep your customers close to you and prevent them from leaving?

Music is a great teacher.

The Grateful Dead informed us on how to create a unique competitive claim.

You don’t want merely to be the best of the best. You want to be the ONLY ones who do what you do — Jerry Garcia, The Grateful Dead

And The Eagles’ Hotel California declares the impossibility of patrons leaving.

You can checkout anytime but you can never leave — The Eagles

The message is cool. It’s mysterious. It’s haunting. It’s foreboding. It’s dramatic. It’s scary. It’s suggestive of a clandestine move.

Here are 8 actions you can take to prevent customers from ‘leaving your hotel’:

▪️Don’t be concerned about what the competition is doing; focus on the action that YOU need to take to enrich the stickiness of your products or services;

▪️Action to prevent leaving must be taken quickly. The time it takes to get to check-out and leave the building is short; rapid innovation of offerings your customers love is mandatory;

▪️Abandon the conventional; take risks with out there solutions;

▪️Give ‘em something more. Move ‘em to ‘another room’ with added value. Transform them into another world where a new reality intrigues them to stay;

▪️Intercept them as they make their way to check-out. Don’t follow up after they have left. Have your spider senses ready to know they intend to leave and disrupt their intentions;

▪️Give them a new experience that makes them want to stay. Give them something so dramatic that it will take their emotions to a new level;

▪️Make it personal Speak to them specifically. What works for Mr. Smith won’t work for Mr. Jones;

▪️SURPRISE! SHOCK! JOLT! AMAZE! FRIGHTEN! them to stay. Do whatever it takes.

Too much attention is given to the threat of others taking guests from our hotel.

If you want to worry about something, worry about the door closing behind them.

Measurement — How do you know whether you’re doing a good job at protecting your loyal high value customers from leaving? While most organizations use market share as a key metric, the better measure of how well you are keeping and managing your high value customers is ‘customer, or wallet share’.

The primary objective is to maximize the percentage of the target customer’s business you hold as opposed to the portion of a mass market you possess with the products you sell.

If you have, say, 30% customer share of your target customers you have work to do but a significant growth opportunity exists.
Understand customer secrets, create high value offerings and provide them with tangible benefits from the deep intimate relationships you seek to build with them.

If, on the other hand, you hold 80% customer share, watch your back! You represent a growth opportunity for others and they will be targeting you to gain advantage. Your action plan? Focus on deepening the relationships you have with these customers.

Build barriers to customer exit by providing unsurpassed value.

Cheers, Roy
Check out my BE DiFFERENT or be dead Book Series

• Posted 3.17.12 at 09:18 am by Roy Osing
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March 15, 2012

Why a wishful dream without a purpose isn’t terribly useful

Source: Unsplash

Why a wishful dream without a purpose isn’t terribly useful.

Dreams without purpose are really useless

Some people (and organizations) dream a lot. Individuals dream of getting that promotion or of going on a trip to Paris; organizations dream of being the market leader or of providing the best customer service.

A dream is aspirational. It is nebulous and lacks the precision necessary to execute the specific actions necessary to fulfil it.

It’s ill defined. It’s a cloud. A helium filled balloon. A wish.

A kluge of possibilities.

Hardly something that will guide you to realizing it without a ton of work. Translating what it requires you to do on ground zero. In the trenches where things get messy.

But if you must dream, dream fierce.

Dream in excruciating detail so you can see what you have to do to achieve it.

Dream with the precision necessary to see an implementation path.

Dream with the passion that you will need to stay your course through set-backs and disappointment.

Dream with the adrenalin rush that will make so tenacious in driving to results you will surprise yourself.

Dream with purpose.

Dream to execute.

Dream to get it done.

Cheers,
Roy
Check out my BE DiFFERENT or be dead Book Series

• Posted 3.15.12 at 10:31 am by Roy Osing
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March 10, 2012

How stories are an excellent way to execute your customer service strategy

Source: Pexels

How stories are an excellent way to execute your customer service strategy.

One of the best ways to make your customer service strategy come alive is storytelling.

Many companies use storytelling to breathe life into their vision of service and are effective in getting the message across.

Ask an employee to tell a story about how a customer was dazzled when they were served by someone in your organization.

If they can’t (and for most it is a challenging question) then you either haven’t defined your service strategy in enough detail to clearly understand what is to be expected by employees in delivering it, or there is not enough action around your strategy to be able to observe it and tell a story about it.

Remove the barriers to storytelling and treat telling stories as a fundamental responsibility of your leadership team.

If your leaders can’t describe in vivid terms what is expected of people in serving customers employee won’t get it. Or they will each have their own definition of what the strategy is and will deliver it accordingly with the resulting mosaic of service experiences being delivered to customers with little consistency with respect to the intended strategy.

Get storytelling on the performance plan of your managers and hold them accountable for doing it.

Develop and implement a storytelling development program to:
—  first, remind people what your service strategy is;
— second, what it looks like when it is being pristinely executed (i.e. what behaviors do you expect to see from your employees who are in customer serving roles?) and
— third, what storytelling objectives each manager is expected to achieve in their annual performance plan.

Remind your management team that compensation will have a storytelling component and make it matter!

Finally, provide the opportunity for managers to practice storytelling.

This is about effective communication around a critical part of your overall business strategy so it’s important. It’s about painting a picture for people to see what is expected of them and what the desired outcome is. It’s about providing a way for your leaders to be able to fulfil their fundamental leadership role.

Who are the storytelling champions in your organization?

Who do it well? Find them and ask them to help put together and run your storytelling development program. Use them to show others how it is done. Recognize them for the type of behavior expected. Reward them as an example to others.

Once you have storytelling established as a strategic tool to reinforce your service strategy you can use stories as an integral part of how you communicate your value proposition to the market.

Cheers,
Roy
Check out my BE DiFFERENT or be dead Book Series

• Posted 3.10.12 at 11:31 am by Roy Osing
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