Archive for the ‘Blog’ Category

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Is It All About Results?

May 18th, 2012

The answer is a resounding NO!

Innocently many small to medium sized businesses use goals as a replacement for a true business strategy. This creates a dynamic where the need for results determines the actions or activities that the business engages in. Even more startling is that most goals are short term in nature and are not typically part of a bigger picture or architecture for long term success. This of course leads to a situation where precious time energy and money resources are consumed to meet short-term objectives at the cost of longer-term leverage and sustainability.

Do not misunderstand results are critical. However it should be actions that produce results and not the need for results that determines actions.  So how do you determine what actions and activities to engage in?

The answer is strategy.

A business strategy is NOT a collection of goals. A proper business strategy is like a lever that magnifies force. In the short term, you could drag a large block of rock across the ground using muscles, ropes and motivation. However, it is wiser to build levers and wheels and then move the rock. Building levers and wheels can only be done when you take a strategic view of the big picture and allocate resources to achieve the maximum results with the appropriate actions.

If both outcomes were completed in the same time with equal resources, which result will create better long-term value?

Posted in Blog, Experience, Good Ideas |

I Wouldn’t Want To Run An Airline

May 17th, 2012

This blog is about seizing the opportunity to become an indispensable resource to your clients. You become indispensable when you know your clients, when you understand what motivates them, and when you willingly take the time to help them.

Can you imagine a worse job than being the CEO of an airline?

No matter how hard you try, most people think you are doing a terrible job. The odds are stacked up against you. You have a crazy responsibility – to move as many passengers as possible, as quickly and affordably as possible, while simultaneously delivering a fantastic experience. You can’t win.

The airports are a pressure cooker of miserable, unhappy people stewing in a toxic mess of barely concealed rage.

There are so many variables you can’t control – if the price of oil goes up a single cent per barrel and your fuel costs explode. Labour is expensive. Equipment is expensive to acquire and maintain and profit margins are so razor thin they are almost theoretical. Not to mention that the competition is ferocious and we haven’t even considered the weather. And don’t think for a second that you are going to catch a break on the weather – forget it. Thunderstorms in August are your responsibility too so you better divert them, and fast.

So all of these people working together manage to load you into a pressurized tube, lift it 36,000 feet in the air, where it then travels at 600MPH and rockets you across the continent in just under 5 hours and somewhere along the way someone is going to ask you if you want the chicken or the beef. For your sake I hope you don’t want the fish.

When you consider it all – isn’t it just amazing that an airline can do all that it does as consistently as it does?

Luckily for you, you don’t run an airline …

Because I fly so often I experience a very special level of service. When I have a problem I find out after it’s been solved – when I hear, for example, that my flight is delayed or cancelled I don’t even consider it. I know that Air Canada knew before I did, and by the time I find out they have already solved my problem by rerouting me somewhere else.

When the whole crowd groans, swears or complains I just call Air Canada Super Elite line to get my new marching orders – it takes me less than five minutes.

I’m sure that the CEO of Air Canada wants to treat all of his clients like that, but the reality is that he just can’t. Every day he has 1000s of clients to take care of, and there are only a handful of Super Elite members, and with all due respect to my fellow passengers, they are not the clients paying the bills. I am.

You don’t have 1000s of clients. You might only have 200. Why wouldn’t you take every measure you could to make sure that every client you have is treated like a Super Elite member?

Your clients want to feel valued. They want to feel known. They want to feel like someone, somewhere in your organization is thinking about them and working in their best interest. Your clients want to know that problems get solved and that everyone is contributing to their experience.

When you have your assistant confirm a conference call ahead of time you are not only being courteous and professional – you are also reinforcing your brand – and your brand is that you care. You want your client to know that you value them, and you are demonstrating this by taking the time to reach out (in this case ahead of time) to confirm that everyone is set.

When you have your assistant wait for your clients in the lobby, rather than have the client check in at the receptionist, you are reinforcing your brand and your commitment and you are completely enhancing the experience and the dynamic between you and your client. You are saying: “We value you. We want you to feel appreciated, and we want you to know that we take our professional responsibility to heart.”

Who are your VIP clients and relationships?

Do they know?

 

Posted in Blog, Client Service, Good Marketing |

Getting it All in Perspective – Sales

May 16th, 2012

It is all about your intention.

In the Experience Economy your sales process is not about ‘closing’ or ‘doing business’. Instead, consider that what you do is guide a client through a process of commitment.

If you believe that actions speak louder than words then you have to accept your client commitment process will leave a lasting and indelible imprint on the overall impression you make on a client.

What impression do your actions make?

Hint: just because you ‘closed’ someone does not mean that you made the right impression.

Posted in Blog, Experience, Good Marketing, Prospecting, Referrals |

Care

May 15th, 2012

You can spend a lot of money, and a lot of time trying to improve your customer service, or you could just care and make sure you hire people who care.

The desire to want to help, and find solutions can’t be taught in seminars. Generosity is learned by example and mentoring. Teach it, evangelize it, and focus all your energies on achieving this purpose.

Posted in Blog, Client Service |

Getting it All in Perspective – Marketing

May 14th, 2012

The distinction between sales and marketing is a blurry line for most. The problem with this perspective is that it distorts your worldview and does not allow for the reality that sales and marketing are very different. Sure, both activities play important roles in generating revenue but they are still different. When it comes to solving business constraints, you will not be able to solve a sales issue if you have it lumped in with marketing. Likewise, you will not be able to solve a marketing issue if you have it lumped in with sales.

A professional services provider needs a distinct sales process to continue securing work/clients AND a deliberate and focused marketing process to consistently create opportunity. It is true that marketing feeds sales AND it is also true that they are not the same and are separate systems in your business.

The secret to a marketing system for a professional services provider is choosing a set of simple, effective actions that are done consistently. The true secret to successful marketing is the consistency with which the activities are done.

If you want to get unstuck from the gray area between sales and marketing start by separating the two and taking the time to write out and document your process for marketing.

Posted in Blog, Good Ideas, Good Marketing |

Keeping Score

May 11th, 2012

Earlier in the NHL season the hockey writers were asking Paul MacLean, the new head coach of the Ottawa Senators why the team was playing so well, and what his coaching philosophy was.

My beloved Sens were picked by all the hockey writers to finish dead last, they lost in game 7 of the first round to the New York Rangers – it was a good season for the boys, and I thank them for the effort.

Coach MacLean said something so brilliant that I scribbled it down, and since then I have been waiting for the inspiration to use it.

He said that rather than trying to win the game, they just try to win each shift.  Each line is on the ice for a shift that lasts about 30 seconds, and then they change lines. Just win the face off, don’t worry about the final score.

Win the race to the puck. Win the next 20 seconds of the power play, or the penalty kill.

Essentially what Coach MacLean did was break the ultimate goal of winning the game down into measurable, achievable steps.

It’s so simple it’s brilliant. Just keep winning little battles, and if you win enough of them you should win the game.

How do you break down your success as an entrepreneur?

I know a lot of incredibly successful entrepreneurs, and I know a lot of other people who want to be successful entrepreneurs but they mostly just talk about their ideas. Those who are incredibly successful keep score. They track progress. They win their shifts, and their own race to the puck.

Learning to keep score is part of achieving The Great Leap Forward. There should be some internal tension or pressure that you feel, an invisible force that is pulling you from where you are to where you want to be.

You might read “tension” and think that you don’t want to feel that, but you are mistaken. You are going to feel tension; the question is what tension do you want to feel? The tension from measuring your progress, or the tension that you feel when you can’t say for sure just how well you are actually doing? It’s your choice.

Keeping score helps to ensure that you are actually getting closer to your achievement. So much of your success is going to be a direct result of what happens inside your own head.

When you get on a roll, you are eager to get to work, to win the shift, to make the call, to finish the proposal, to reach out to another decision maker and move everything along.

When you don’t keep score, then everything is just an idea, and when the achievement of goals is spoken of, it’s in vague terms “So I will probably pick up a client there, do some consulting here …” Or my personal favorite “I’ve got a lot of irons in the fire.” I don’t even know what that means.

When you are unclear, it becomes a little too easy to sit back and wait. You can get afraid to find out the score – to admit that your irons in the fire are just conversations and nothing more.

Here at DMWSC, we keep score on everything. We started the year by laying out our goals for various initiatives. For example, how many days of speaking will Dennis do? How many private consulting clients will we bring on? How many workshops will we host this year? How many new corporate relationships will we engage in this year?

We have our score card meeting once a week – because of my travel the day may change, but we try to have it weekly. I have learned to love it.

When you are an entrepreneur, you learn to trust the magic, or your gut feeling, or yourself. I would be willing to bet that one of the most commonly muttered phrases by an entrepreneur is “It’ll work out.” I know that Seth Godin made me realize that it was not only acceptable to not have a Plan B; it was detrimental to have a Plan B.

“It’ll work out.” And sometimes it does.

However, when you keep score, it always does. You see that you have booked 66% of your speaking goal, and you are 50% through the year. Or that in Q1 you didn’t bring on as many Private Consulting clients, but you can also measure that when you a adjusted your process, you brought on a bunch, so you can then track that through Q2. If you are unhappy with the results, you can identify a constraint and tweak your process, it isn’t even a big deal.

You might realize that you are not achieving your goal – which the distance between you and your desire is increasing not decreasing, and you risk falling into the gulf between you and your goals.

So what? Get a new goal.

You know you can do that right? Scrap it. Start over. Admitting that “this idea isn’t going to work” isn’t a bad thing, it’s a good thing. Spending time, money, and energy on bad ideas that you haven’t figured out are bad ideas is a crime. You are robbing from yourself and those you care for, and are responsible for.

Begin, as we all do by dreaming and creating an inspiring vision of success.

Then get real.

Get some targets written down.

What has to happen, right now, to move the ball down the field a little?

Posted in Blog, Client Service, Experience |

The Experience of the Experience

May 10th, 2012

In the Experience Economy the quality of a client relationship is reflected in the affinity they feel with you. It is stating the obvious that the interpersonal interactions that you and your staff have with a client go a long way in establishing affinity.

However, what might not be so obvious if whether you have developed the skills required to relate to your clients in a very personal way. When was the last time you attended a course or read a book on interpersonal communication? What expectations do you have of your staff to be experts in communicating with your clients? Do you know the finer points of communication with different personality styles?

In the Experience Economy one of the key differentiators that will separate the professional from the journeyman will be your capacity for meaningful communication.

Hint: the journeyman already thinks they are an expert and the professional strives to get better and more proficient.

Posted in Blog, Client Service, Experience, Good Ideas |

Motivation or Inspiration

May 9th, 2012

So much has been written about motivation that I hesitate to continue this post … I don’t think I like the idea of “motivation” – the root word being “motive” suggests to me that a person will only take action if there is something in it for them, where I would prefer that they take action because there is something in it for someone else.

Inspiration is an internal force. You are so passionate about what you do that you throw yourself at it with enthusiasm. You go above and beyond because you want others to feel as passionately about you, your business, or your service as you do.

Motivation … You run to lose weight, to look better, or to raise money to fight cancer. There is nothing necessarily wrong with any of these answers.

Inspiration … You simply love to run, and when you run you feel more alive and content and at peace. You could care less about what you look like; it’s just about how you feel doing it.

Motivation … If you write the book, the blog, if you tweet, if you join some newsgroups and comment you will raise your profile, get more interest in your services, increase your speaking fee. Just set aside time each day, write every day, for a certain number of days, then cross the line and presto you have a book. Again, these are all fine reasons to be motivated to write a book.

Inspiration … I have something to say that needs to be heard. When I write I feel like I am “on to something”, I feel closer to honing and understanding the message. I need to write this book because I want to help others. I want to write a book that doesn’t need a follow up. I want to write a book, and supplement it with a blog. I want to blog more often. I want people to start their day by reading my blog and I want them to be happy they did. I am committed to learning and sharing my passion.

I think motivation is only required to get people to do something they don’t want to do and if they don’t want to do it, it’s probably a bad idea to get them to.

We are all inspired when we are doing what we love, and not doing anything we hate. There is nothing worse than being good at something you shouldn’t be doing, or don’t want to be doing.

When your life has purpose, when you do what you love and love what you do you will find all kinds of inspiration and desire to do it. I climb onto over 100 air planes a year because I love to speak at conferences. I write a lot of blogs because I love to hear that people read them and send them around, and I do a lot of day dreaming about making my business better for my clients because I love what I do.

Somehow I know it would be impossible for me to be motivated to do this if I didn’t want to.

Inspiration is a completely different force of creativity and commitment.

What is motivating you?

What is inspiring you?

What is pushing you?

What is pulling you?

Go with the pull, it’s the first step to flying.

Posted in Blog, Client Service, Good Ideas |

Are You Sure?

May 8th, 2012

I recently read a report that said that the majority of business leaders in large and small enterprises across different sectors were able to clearly articulate the competitive strategy of their competition in clear and specific terms. However, when asked to describe the competitive strategy of their own business their language becomes uncertain, uncommitted and vague.

Lack of clarity about the strategic direction of your business is a sure fire way to spin your wheels and not realize the full potential of your efforts. Always remember there is a difference between being busy and being effective.

Being effective means you have a clarity of purpose and a defined objective and know exactly what needs to get done and why. Being busy means just doing whatever hits your desk that day.

Which are you?

Posted in Blog, Client Service, Good Marketing |

The Cup is Always Half Full

April 16th, 2012

From home renovations to vacations, nothing goes as it should. In case you had not noticed things do not always go as planned in business either and we often have setbacks. So, instead of communicating the wrong message to yourself and your employees, get over yourself and turn any setback into an opportunity for future benefit. Some suggestions are:

Reframe. Don’t treat setbacks as failures and don’t assign blame. Instead, frame them as learning opportunities and focus your team on solving problems so that you become more proactive, experienced and resilient as a group.

Don’t constrain the solution. When faced with a problem, you don’t always figure out the solution right away. Be open to changing direction and give people the freedom to look for alternative answers. There is nothing more inspiring for a team member than coming up with a solution.

Focus on small wins. Help people see their progress in other areas. If people have regular successes, even small ones, then a setback will sting less.

Posted in Blog, Good Ideas |

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