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Your Pancakes are Getting Cold

Your Pancakes are Getting Cold Image

The other day, my seven-year-old son was at the breakfast table. He had a plate of pancakes in front of him, and he was making a noise over, and over, and over again, as he often does. While I tried to ignore it, my ten-year-old daughter told him to stop, then poked him to stop, then yelled that he was annoying and to STOP RIGHT NOW!

Take a guess and tell me if that was effective. Of course not!

What I explained to her was that she was focusing on how she felt, and what she wanted, and that was not the best way to achieve her desired result. She needed to pay attention to him, and determine what was important to him, in order for him to subscribe to a mutually agreeable outcome.

The same mentality applies to many business interactions, among them:

  • Sales
  • Management
  • Employee Development

In Sales, the key is to discover your customer’s frustrations, and offer a reasonable solution to address them. This is often called a ‘pain point’, but can just as easily be related to the effects of success as it can struggle.

In Management, the interaction with employees is best aligned when the employee incentives mesh with the overall company goals. And the employee should be involved as much as possible in this as a collaborative process. This is the most reliable way to have buy-in, loyalty, and a concentrated team effort.

For Employee Development, it is incumbent on the employee to put themselves in the shoes of co-workers, bosses, and customers to best manage those relationships. Each one has its own pressures, and the most effective way to agree on a positive outcome is to appreciate where others are coming from.

In other words, understand the other person, and use that knowledge to adapt your viewpoint and tactics.

As for my daughter, I try to have her see the world through others’ eyes. And it is a daily struggle to deal with two younger brothers. She could have refocused her brother by saying, “Your pancakes are getting cold.” And perhaps that would have worked. Because even at seven, he knows nobody wants to eat cold pancakes.

 

Thanks to Recipes Hubs for the image.

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Wrapping Up Your Customers

Wrapping Up Your Customers Image

As the Christmas and holiday season comes to an end, and we look to the New Year, I was thinking about the parallels for how businesses interact with their customers.

My social media feed was filled with friends and family staying up to all hours of the night wrapping presents, and then being exhausted on Christmas day. This was done for the enjoyment of their children and the perpetuation of the myth (spoiler alert!) of Santa Claus. Parents go the extra mile for their most important relationships, and wouldn’t have it any other way!

In business, you similarly go the extra mile for your most important relationships, providing an experience to cultivate loyalty. And just as parents vary the experience for different aged kids, a business should tailor the engagement to customers in different stages. When a customer is new to you, it is critical to show your value, provide a timely service, and set your name apart from the competition. As customers grow, showing that you can grow with them and continue to provide a high level of service becomes paramount. After all, it is much more costly to find a new customer than to retain an existing one.

The alternative is one-and-done customers, with no brand loyalty. This results in a constant advertising and lead generation phase and a race to the bottom of discounts and gimmicks.

Do right by your customers, and they’ll do right by you. Here’s to a great 2016!

 

Photo courtesy of the Huffington Post.

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Productivity and The Mighty Mighty Bosstones

Productivity Image

How can I be more productive? It’s a question on everyone’s mind. Most current ideas about productivity involve changing everything you do, using the latest smartphone app, or outsourcing your administrative tasks.

While there is certainly value in some of those ideas, most people can start by examining what they already know about themselves. This introspection will help target how you can be the most productive.

Each person will be different, but when I try to focus my efforts, I look at these three factors:

Time: Night owl? Early bird? Afternoon delight? (Well, maybe not that last one.) I am more focused at night, and often my strokes of creativity happen well after dark. Knowing this, I plan my workday and sleep schedule to use that to my advantage. I try to schedule time for specific work into my calendar so I know I’ll have the dedicated time to focus on specific work.

Environment: Library quiet? Or coffee shop background noise? Music, or not? Bright lights or the sole glow (not Soul Glo) of a computer screen? My go-to is bright lights and music. I go crazy in library quiet (the result of growing up with five siblings!), and can’t focus with the activity of a coffee shop. When I perform administrative tasks, I listen to podcasts. When I’m responding to emails or writing, I prefer upbeat music with lyrics. Right now, I’m listening to The Mighty Mighty Bosstones “A Jackknife to a Swan“. When I really need to focus, I play some calm jazz or classical music with no lyrics.

Idea Generation: Shower, driving, or pillow? These are three locations or activities that seem to get my creative juices bubbling. We can’t control when an idea strikes, but we can make sure we don’t lose the idea. I use pneumonic devices to remember ideas that hit me in the shower. I use the voice recorder app on my phone while driving. And I keep my phone and a notepad and pen on my nightstand to quickly jot down any idea that comes right before bed.

By understanding how these factors support or limit your own productivity, you’ll be able to maximize your capacity to do creative, focused, and shareable work.

What did I miss? What helps you be more productive?

 

Album Cover Art courtesy of www.bosstonesmusic.com

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Growth Metrics and Employee Measurement

As business owner’s strive to grow a profitable company, metrics and measurement are critical aspects of that growth. Employees need to be measured for quality of work accountability and incentive calculations. Companies need to be measured to set goals and plan for the future.

In a recent article for ESPN The Magazine, Pablo S. Torre and Tom Haberstroh discuss the future of metrics for the NBA: Biometrics. We see here how a organization with financial resources looks to optimize their resources by using blood samples, sleep studies, and nutritional habits, among others, to maximize the performance of their athletes. (I’ll leave the ethical question of how much personal data an employer should have access to for a different discussion).

For any organization, measurement is key. A manufacturer needs to know his production data. A salesman needs to know his sales history. It stands to reason that a sports team would optimize their most important asset: their players.

 

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Four Ways to Grow Your Business During Vacation Times

Vacation Image

School’s out for summer! Thanksgiving weekend! Holiday vacation! Spring break!

To some business owners, these times are synonymous with a slow down. But do they have to be? Can these slow times be an opportunity for growth? These are great times to focus on the four core areas of your business that make up our VICE Analysis™ (Vendors, Inventory, Customers, Employees).

VENDORS– Ask vendors to come to your office. Most will jump at the chance to get face time with an important customer. They can offer product demos, discuss new R&D, and get a better sense of how they can service your company’s needs. It is also a prime time to renegotiate your pricing, terms, and exclusivity agreement with the vendor.

INVENTORY– Do a spot check on inventory. Give non-warehouse employees a detailed tour of the warehouse and those hard-to-sell items, and ask for their feedback and ideas on how to move them.

CUSTOMERS– Reach out to your best customers and offer to visit them, buy them lunch, and try to solve more problems for them. Offer them a deep discount to keep sales up. Propose something unique to help them grow.

EMPLOYEES-If everyone is gone, how can anything get done? Pick a traditionally heavy vacation week and black it out well in advance so your whole team is at the office. “Shut down” the company to the public and have a targeted, focused week on the strategy and projects that you’ve been putting off. Focus on the back burner R&D and fast-track feedback to end with a focused project with timeline and launch date at the end of the week. This can be a great time for interdepartmental bonding and teamwork for employees who don’t often collaborate. The teamwork is invaluable for camaraderie, employee relations, and culture maintenance, which can suffer as a company grows.

By focusing on these areas, you can continue to grow your company without losing momentum during traditional vacation times. If those aren’t feasible for you, try cleaning the office. Have an end of week BBQ. Do a team building charitable outing. Don’t just let the days tick by!

And there is never a bad time to maintain your network. Have coffee with an old contact. Bring ideas as to how you can help their business grow. Continue to get fresh perspectives and you’ll be amazed at how it can clarify your own ideas.

How do you keep the ball rolling during vacation times?

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Market Basket’s Super Mistake: Forgetting about Employees and Customers

Market Basket Image

The supermarket chain Market Basket is in a battle: between rival family members, between the new management and employees, and between the new management and its once loyal customers. (See a quick recap here.)

Families disagreeing with each other and taking sides against one another always happens, but rarely so publicly.

This time, however, the situation blew up, and Market Basket ownership risked its very loyal customer base and future profits. How?

  1. They underestimated company culture and loyalty. The new board miscalculated, perhaps irreparably. They did not realize how strong the ties are between the employees and their leader, Arthur T. Demoulas. It does not matter if new management thought he was spending frivolously. It does not matter if they wanted their own CEO to represent the new strategy of the board. What matters is the reaction of the employees and the customers.
  2. They failed horribly at Change Management. They did not have risk management or good communication plans in place for implementing the decision. Employee protests and boycotts have resulted in empty shelves, unloaded deliveries, and plummeting revenue, up to 90% in some stores (See story here). The employees love Arthur T., and their loyalty is rewarded with above average wages and robust benefits packages. It does not matter if those wages and benefits were representative of a sustainable financial strategy, or not. It does not matter if the new management issues a statement urging employees back to work. New management missed the boat on earning the trust of the employee base.
  3. They missed the boat on PR and public sentiment. The customer interaction has added another very powerful wrinkle here. Very rarely can a consumer have such an immediate and definitive impact on an ‘unjust’ corporate action. Usually, we watch and listen from afar while offering thoughts to laid off workers or feeling dismay at blatant displays of corporate irresponsibility. In this case, customers loyal to the idea of Market Basket hopped on board with the employees to fight the (perceived) good fight. We honk while driving by a protest in front of an empty parking lot. We take our business to other stores, as those competitors lick their chops.

The perception is reality in this case. The unusual us vs. them story here links together the entire corporate hierarchy: from CEO to stock person. The perception is of a well-liked leader ruthlessly fired by the rival family member who wrestled control away. The loyal employees stood behind him, with him, boycotting their work, risking their livelihood, all for the perception of the ‘right thing’. (See story here).

The counter story is of a family finally regaining control so many years after it had been taken from them, realizing the company’s financials were not on solid ground, and seeking to right the ship with their own leader.

Which story is the reality? It does not matter. The perception of the vengeful board, of the wronged leader, of the courageously loyal employee, yields the customer solidarity that we are seeing. And when perception and loyalty and public sentiment get tangled together? A company’s reputation is in ruins, revenues nosedive, and customers are lost, possibly forever.

The new board is currently reviewing an offer from Arthur T. Demoulas to purchase the company. But will it matter? How do you think Market Basket could have handled this differently?