Be Different or be dead

June 6, 2016

5 vital traits to hire for high performing amazing teams

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5 vital traits to hire for high performing amazing teams.

You’ve heard it a million times. Building extraordinary value in an organization requires amazing people.

You can have the most innovative technology and the coolest products and services, but without the people layer to transform these capabilities into value, they are worthless.

How do you recruit people who will deliver unbelievable performance for your organization?

What do you look for?

The profile of the person you recruit must fit the challenges that organizations face in today’s markets. Intense competition, highly empowered customers, and unpredictability describe the barriers to success and survival.

Recruit these 5 traits to build a team that will stand out from the crowd and raise your performance to unbelievable levels.

#1. Human being lovers — They have a genuine affection for people; they care for others. This makes them extreme team players who will actually do whatever it takes to help their fellow employees to move the collective forward.

#2. Goosebumps story teller — They love telling a story and they have a million of them. They tell their story with such richness and emotion, they take your breath away. They are particularly good at telling stories that illustrate their desire and commitment to have credit go to others.

#3. Anti-rhetorician — They focus on what they’ve actually achieved rather than attempt to persuade and impress through high fog factor language. Results speak louder than intent; they get it and they can prove that they’ve done it.

#4. Driver — An intense sense of urgency fuels everything they do. It’s more than ‘action orientation’; it’s more a natural element of their personal DNA. They don’t tolerate discussing the theoretical benefits of an idea; they want to get on with trying it out to see if it has any practical value.

#5. Un-perfectionist — They are satisfied with getting it just about right and are prepared to change course in the face of unexpected events. They are ‘learn as you go’ individuals who see value in making progress, learning from execution and delivering results.

The academic pedigree isn’t a helpful predictor of an individual’s contribution to organizational performance. It shows what you know not what you will likely do.

And ‘doing it’ is what is needed for success.

’Knowing it’ alone is worthless.

Recruit people with these 5 competencies and you will be able to ‘do it’.

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

• Posted 6.6.16 at 04:30 am by Roy Osing
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May 30, 2016

7 simple ways to save your customers after a screwup

Source: Unsplash

7 simple ways to save your customers after a screw up.

People would rather have a root canal than have to deal with a customer who has been screwed over.

It’s always amazed me that organizations don’t have a strategy in place to recover from a customer screw-up.

It’s not like screw-ups won’t happen; unfortunately they happen with regularity and for a variety of reasons.

And they are certainly not viewed as a source of opportunity; the intent is to get it over with as soon as possible. Endure the pain and move on without looking back.

We spend literally all of our time trying to prevent screw-ups. New fulfillment systems are implemented, employee training programs are created; anything to deliver service flawlessly and prevent bad stuff happening.

Nothing wrong with this except it denies the reality of screw-ups happening; virtually no time is dedicated to building a recovery capability.

Ironically we EXPECT things to go as promised when we transact with an organization and give them a “C” on their service report card when they do.

Successful recovery has two significant benefits.

▪️Customer loyalty actually increases compared to the OOPS! never having occurred at all!

Customers are impressed with what you did to make things better and tend not to be bent out of shape about the mistake made in the first place. They go WOW! give you an “A”, tell others about their experience; their loyalty deepens.

▪️Effective recovery creates a competitive advantage for the organization because others don’t see the need and continue to pour all of their resources into service breakdown prevention (and continue to get “C’s”).

Focus on these things to turn a screw-up into a competitive opportunity:

1. It is critical to build a service recovery strategy to give recovery activity a strategic context in the organization;

2. Hire people who love chaos and who welcome diving into a mess and sorting it out. They need a high pain tolerance and they need to be amazing problem solvers;

3. Give power and authority to the owner of the screw up (who has the ranting customer in their face) to do whatever it takes to resolve it. Ignore job descriptions;

4. Fix it fast. You have literally 24 hours to recover and reap the rewards of enhanced customer loyalty. After that, you’ve blown it and all you get is misery and a brand rap as they everyone about your crummy service;

5. Surprise them with what they don’t expect. Know the customer you’ve screwed over and personalize the experience for them rather than use a boilerplate solution applied to everyone. If you knew I loved Pinot Noir you could use this knowledge in how you recovered with ME.

6. Take responsibility for the OOPS! whether or not you were directly at fault. Lose your ego. Don’t quote policy. Don’t make it out that it was the customer’s fault (happens all the time). Customers want you to show some empathy then launch into solution mode.

7. Recognize recovery addicts; those individuals who exhibit greatness in mending broken promises and who are natural loyalty builders.

Measure how effective you are at making up with a customer after a fight.

Get their feedback immediately after the scuffle.

Improve as you move on.

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

• Posted 5.30.16 at 05:28 am by Roy Osing
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May 16, 2016

Is your product really worth taking out for dinner?

Is your product really worth taking out for dinner?

Or would you make a weekend out of it?

A dinner conveys a certain amount of value being derived but a weekend is at another level completely.

And of course if you wouldn’t even talk to your product, that’s another story.

The amount of personal time and money you are prepared to invest depends on the value you receive.

How is value described? 

By how your product functions? Does it work as promised? Does it deliver to specifications?

Or is value related to how your product makes you feel when consumed? Are you proud of it?

Does it blow your mind?

Does value derive from function or does it come from feelings?

Which is more important? Which is the better metric of product performance?

Most organizations believe a product is performing well if it consistently does what it’s supposed to do.

Product specifications are delivered 24X7. Dependability is the key success factor.

The issue is that performance doesn’t go far enough today; customers expect products that work as promised. And when they do, they are at best satisfied.

No loyalty is created and the customer will leave for a better mousetrap when it shows up.

On the other hand, when the product amazes, when memories are created and when magic happens, customers buy in at a completely different level.

They turn into maniacal fans who go out of their way to support your organization in every way.

And they spread your word to others.

By all means ensure your product performs consistently, but don’t stop until you wrap it up with an AMAZE layer that delights.

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

• Posted 5.16.16 at 04:04 am by Roy Osing
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May 9, 2016

5 practical ways to diversify your revenue growth

“It’s not good to have all your eggs in one basket” is a saying that speaks well to the business risk of relying on too few assets for a disproportionate amount of your income.

Too much from too few leaves you vulnerable to the negative effects of unexpected economic and competitive events.

Five steps will help you develop valuable diversity.

Target customers where your wallet share is low

These are customers whose spending on your service or product comprises a low percentage of their overall spending in your particular business sector.

Sell current product applications

Focus on applications provided to your most popular customer groups and market them to other customers who don’t currently use your products in the same way. Use existing marketing materials in the sales process to maximize return on investment.

Develop new applications

Develop new applications for your current products based on the wants and desires of your high-value customers. New application success depends on the clarity and ‘intimacy’ of the customer requirements you identify. Emphasize the value derived from your products, not the technology used to deliver it.

Go fast and easy

If you are tempted to pursue new customers for your products, employ the fast and easy approach. Identify those who have good revenue potential and are easy to pitch to and quick to buy. Business risk is increased by going after new customers who pose difficulty and consume too many of your resources as you try to sell to them.

New products

For the longer term, develop new products to satisfy unmet customer demand. This usually involves new technologies that are more difficult to adopt and take longer to assimilate.

But don’t be too diverse.

Provide what your customers care about, and be the sole provider.

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

• Posted 5.9.16 at 05:08 am by Roy Osing
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