'A Blinding Flash of the Obvious*'
Brigitte Dove
Business Mentor for Female Founders and CEO of F.A.B. - the Female Academy of Business.
*A Passion for Excellence - Tom Peters & Nancy Austin 1985
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Your business is at a crossroads, not enough of your product is leaving the building, it may be so little is leaving the building you’re actually making a loss. You’re supposed to have the answers, you don’t know what’s changed, you didn’t think you’d done anything differently, what you sell is great………
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…… that’s tough, because if you’re that far down the rabbit hole, you need to take a step back, a deep breath and, most importantly, time to think, really think about what’s going on in your business so you can have a 360° look at everything that’s going on. This is NOT the moment to give in to pressure and convince yourself ‘you don’t have the time to think’. This is THE moment to stop.
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When you stop, this is what you need to think about - I hope it’s obvious to you, I hope it’s common sense to you, I’m sure you do know this – but be honest with yourself, are you actually DOING it? So, here goes, the holy trinity of business success 1) Customers 2) Innovation 3) People and in the middle of those three is you, the Leader. Sounds too simple from where you’re sitting? It is simple and these are the common sense questions you should be asking:
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Customers
-?????????Do you know exactly who they are? In a busy room, could you spot your customer and know that’s who buys your product? The original customer who bought your product might want something different now and a different customer might want what you’ve got. When did you last check?
-?????????How do you show your customer love? Is your customer service, however basic your product, the best you could possibly deliver? Did the tiny plastic object they bought get delivered in a beautiful box, with a little note thanking them for buying from you and are they now telling all their friends the experience of buying from you was so fantastic, they should buy one too? And, when people feel this good about buying from you, you can charge more – even for tiny plastic objects – because you weren’t cynical about the sale, you showed them love.
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Innovation
-?????????Has your product evolved? Have you regularly checked the marketplace to make sure it’s still relevant? If you’re not selling as much as you once did, you need to find out exactly why not by asking existing and potential customers what they want?
-?????????What are your competitors doing? Are they producing a better product, more choice, better customer experience? Copy, or better still, improve it.
-?????????Are the people around you free to innovate? Have you created the environment where you are open to fresh ideas about how to improve what you offer? If you work solo, you need to find a way of having a group of people round you that can inspire and innovate with you.
Find a way to be passionate about your product, so that you want to see it grow, not stagnate.
-?????????Innovation isn’t just about the product, can you improve the way you market the product, the sales channel, the packaging, the delivery method? Constantly look to do it all better for the customer that buys your product.
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People
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-?????????If you employ people, do you ask them for their input, do you make them feel like they are a valuable part of the business? Your people are part of the product, they create, organise and deliver it, they need to actually feel a connection to that process, to care about getting it to the customer in the best way possible. Customers can tell a company cares and they buy again.
-?????????Do you feed back to your people? Do they know your vision, do they feel part of the plan? Have you got a system in place that allows you to regularly feed back the good, the bad and the ugly? Most people who work for you do care about what they do, but they will stop caring if you don’t give them a reason to care.
-?????????If it’s just you, find people to share with, you are not the only one who’s faced your current challenges. Networking groups like the Federation of Small Businesses or your local Chamber of Commerce are full of people just like you. Or just find another business down the corridor or across the road and find out how they’re doing.
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Now, here’s the biggy, let’s take a look at YOU.
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The Leader
The person at the top is the company, even if you’re on top of a huge corporate giant, the decisions you make and the manner in which you make them, ripple through the organisation and set the tone. In a big company, with many management layers, that impact is often not that immediate, however, if you run a smaller company your personality and your decisions will be felt instantly.
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This isn’t about having a personality transplant, it’s about making sure you understand everybody’s needs in the whole of your company’s functions – creation, to customer, to delivery – then making sure you drive the change and create the environment to deliver excellence. And, to be blunt, if you’re are not delivering excellence with everything you do, you cannot begin to address the issue of the bottom line.
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In the early 90’s at the start of my career, I was given a book by a family friend and the CEO of GE Capitol UK, ‘A Passion For Excellence’ by Tom Peters and Nancy Austin. It may have been written over 30 years ago, but it’s basic premise still holds true today, because it’s common sense and common sense never goes out of fashion.
Their philosophy is Management By Walking About (MBWA). Basically, get out of your office and walk about, get in touch with what’s going on, speak to your people, customers, anybody that’s anything to do with your business. That’s how you get a feel for your business, an understanding for what’s going on. This is the opportunity to see how things really work, not how you thought they worked, or you intended them to work. You may not get a magic solution to the bottom line, but I guarantee you’ll know how to take the next steps to improving it.
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My Challenge to You – 3 actions you can take in the next 7 days:
1.?????Speak to a customer (or three).
2.?????Spend an hour researching the competition.
3.?????Get out of your office – speak to anybody or everyone that works for you – what do they think? Or, if you work alone – speak to all the people you come into contact with in your business, the courier, the cleaner, your web developer.
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