The customer has said yes. He or she will buy our product and service.
Now what do we do?
1. Shut Up and Get Out
As Michael Bloomberg, the billionaire Mayor of New York City, puts it so well:
First, always ask for the order, and second, when the customer says yes, stop talking.
Today, we are all overwhelmed with communication of one type or another– too many and too mixed messages from our supervisors, too many E-Mails, too much information. In trying to absorb and process the daily blitz of messages and communication, we can easily lose our ability to focus on the important.
“As communication grows ever easier, the important thing is detecting whispers of useful information in a howling hurricane of noise.”
Schumpeter in The Economist
What can we each of us do to reduce this onslaught of communication? Continue reading
More than ever, companies need to train and develop their employees and managers. As such, countless billions of dollars are spent on seminars, executive education, speakers, etc. The results, however, have been underwhelming.
The dirty little secret is that, done right, the best employee training and managerial development takes place on the job and in the office. And usually this training costs absolutely nothing to do.
The training may be free; but the benefits are enormous. Continue reading
This is a guest blog by K. Armen Miamidian, a time-tested CFO for successful mid-market companies.
What’s Pumping Your Profits: An Internal Look at the ROI of Product Development?
For many companies, the last few years have been a long, hard slog for the leaders and employees alike.
As a result, many businesses lack the passion and drive that they once had.
Within each of our companies, how can we, as business leaders, re-ignite the enthusiasm, energy, and drive to be the best? Continue reading
Social media – Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, blogs, etc. – usually revolves around business to consumer (B2C) efforts. In it, companies are trying to reach many possible customers through their social media effort.
For business to business (B2B) companies, the situation is quite different. The prevailing relationship is not one to many. Rather, it is one to one or one to few. In B2B, it is vital to have personal interaction and develop real off-line relationships. As such…
B2B companies need to use the on-line world of social media as a gateway to create relationships in the physical world. Continue reading
Data Analytics…Big Data…Sabermetrics
With the success of the book and movie, Moneyball, a few success stories in the retail world (Amazon and Wal-Mart), and a lot of hype from the consulting and technology industry, data analytics has become a buzzword in the C-suite.
The goal of data analytics is to properly evaluate and model the data your company collects on sales, customers, marketing, profitability, etc. in order to spot a growing market segment or business opportunity and make your company more profitable.
The holy grail of analytics is to match what Amazon, Google, and Wal-Mart have done in using analytics to transform their industries and reap substantial profits. Continue reading
As your company expands or as you progress up the ranks in your company, you will likely move from having P&L (profit and loss) responsibility for one business unit to having P&L responsibility for several different business units (usually located in several different geographic markets).
To be successful in this role, you will have to balance three paradoxes.
1. Centralization v. Local Autonomy
In their book, The Goal: A Process of Ongoing Improvement, Eliyahu M. Goldratt and Jeff Cox introduced their Theory of Constraints as a primary method to realize operational improvement.
Key Concepts
Every year, countless companies undertake process improvements and change initiatives. Most fail. Generally, they fail for one of three reasons:
In their book, All I Need to Know About Manufacturing I Learned in Joe’s Garage: World Class Manufacturing Made Simple, William B. Miller and Vicki L. Schenk lay out the basic principles of low cost, high quality, on-time manufacturing. The book is a quick read and a nice reminder of the importance of keeping any and every process as simple, fast, and intuitive as possible.
Ten Commandments of Manufacturing Excellence
In today’s over-saturated world of twenty four hour media, advertisement, and promotion, we are drowning in too much data and too many messages. Our brains are full, and our attention span is depleted.
Paradoxically, despite this flood of information, we remain thirsty for highly specific information that directly helps us solve our problems.
As such, the goal of sales and marketing today needs to center around providing only that specific information that is highly relevant to the prospect or customer. It is WII-FM (What’s In It For Me) on steroids. Continue reading
My re-reading of William T. Brooks’ 1988 book, High Impact Selling: Power Strategies for Successful Selling, reminded me that the keys to successful sales have been known for years. They just need to be implemented and followed.
Fundamentals of High Impact Selling
In her thought-provoking book, The End of Leadership, Barbara Kellerman writes:
One of the problems plaguing the leadership industry is its fixation on developing good leaders, while ignoring completely the problem of stopping or at least slowing bad leaders. Stopping bad leadership is as important as creating good leadership.
Based on my experience with turnarounds and re-igniting growth at stagnant companies, I agree fully. The problem at all of these stagnating or declining companies was that there was too much of the wrong kind of leadership; there was too much bad leadership. Continue reading
“No management style can undo the damage of a poor hiring decision.”
Red Scott
In the quick read, Hire Smart or Manage Tough, Red Scott, the former Vice-Chairman of Pier One Imports and a grand-nephew of legendary tough guy, General George S. Patton, dispenses advice on why and how to hire top talent. Continue reading
With title inflation, clever wordsmithing, and self-marketing campaigns, every employee or potential employee appears to be a great employee. However, we all know the truth; few people are stars. In order to differentiate people and find the gem, seek out people with all of these four innate qualities: Continue reading
In his still-insightful 1999 book, Fast Track to Waste-Free Manufacturing: Straight Talk from a Plant Manager, John W. Davis discusses how to improve a manufacturing operation by a simple and relentless focus on waste. The methodology he describes is really applicable to improving any process in your business.
Introduction
Over the last month, my family and I have moved from Chandler, Arizona to Newport Beach, California. We sold our house in Chandler, moved ourselves and our belongings, and bought a house in Newport Beach.
As so many of you who have done similar moves know, we became “turbocharged customers” during this two month process, hemorrhaging money as we fixed up our former house to get ready to sell, moved, and fixed up our new house. By my latest reckoning, we have dealt with 106 stores, companies, and service providers in the course of this move.
The overall lesson from this one customer is sober.
Good Customer Service is Rare
In their book, The Leadership Machine (Architecture to Develop Leaders For Any Future), Michael W. Lombard and Robert W. Eichinger discuss ways to build leaders and develop leadership competencies (skills) in any company. Although the book is a bit too full of consulting speak, it does contain useful ideas on what makes good executives and leaders. And it provides insights and ideas on how to develop specific leadership skills that may be lacking in your executives.
Why Leadership?
A few months ago, there was a lot of discussion and a bit of vitriol about Sheryl Sandberg, the COO of Facebook, and her habit of leaving the office at 5:30 pm in order to have dinner with her family. Much of the discussion has focused on the difficulty of women in executive positions to balance work and life, etc.
For me, the issue is that Ms. Sandberg is puncturing that greatest of American entrepreneurial and corporate myths:
To work hard is to work long hours.
David M. Shedd - Move Your Company Forward 