Changes Coming to Bennett's Blog

Spring Cleaning Your Business – 10 Things to Do

I’m getting Spring Fever. The temperature in Denver was 70 degrees Wednesday and that did it – I’m ready for spring!  In fact, I might even do some spring cleaning this weekend…you know, take a good look at the closets, the cabinets, determine what I need and what I don’t, perhaps even file our 2010 bills (no, I haven’t gotten to that yet).

All this thought of spring cleaning reminds me that I should take a good look not just at my house, but also at my office and my business.  Is it time for your business spring cleaning too?  There’s no time like the present…here are some things to review:

1. Look at your business plan. Perhaps you haven’t dug it out for a few months, maybe even several years. Are you hitting your targets? If not, why?  If so, what are your next milestones? Create next steps.
2. Look at your sales projections. If you haven’t made them for 2011, get busy. If you have, how are you doing against them?  Do you need to step up the pace, keep going, set the projections higher?
3. Look at your offering, whether product or service. Is it a relevant offering in today’s market? How does your competition stack up against you and vice versa? Do you need to add or lose any products or services?
4. Find your offering’s sweet spot. Build a differentiated message around that sweet spot to be used in your sales and marketing materials.
5. Systematize at least one WOW factor in your customer experience. Make it happen every time it should.
6. Talk to your customers. Ask them how you’re doing via survey, focus groups, or just asking them when you see them.
7. Thank each of your favorite customers with a phone call, hand-written note, or personal token of appreciation.  No form letters or cards, please.
8. Thank your employees and your colleagues. Without these people, you probably wouldn’t be where you are today.
9. Take a class or continuing education course in something you need to learn about your business. We all have room to learn!
10. Get your company involved in the community. Enough said.

These ten things will take some time, just like spring cleaning your house, but they will pay back both professionally and personally.  Shake that winter dust off and welcome spring! 

jkl 

 

Crowd vs. Tribe

Do you foster a crowd or a tribe in your customer relationships? The difference is ownership, care, and defense.

Visualize a crowd. There are crowds all over the place. We’ve all been in the midst of them. In a crowd, people tend to their own business, think about they have to do, typically look down as they walk or move forward. Picture a crowded street in Manhattan. Each individual is there as an individual, each owns his or her own agenda and space; each cares for their own needs.

Now think about a tribe. The word tribe is typically used to describe a community. But not just any community – one united by common traits or interests. In a tribe, people are connected to each other, watch out for each other, look around as they move around and interact with each other. In a tribe, an individual is part of a whole, shares a common agenda, and cares for each other’s needs.

And there’s one more huge difference. A tribe comes after you if you mess with one of their own.

So I go back to my original question. Do you foster a crowd or a tribe in your customer relationships? 

• Do you treat your customers as a crowd that transact or a community of customers that share a common business or personal need or purpose?

Big Star Performer: Starbucks, who created a business around community, not coffee, and built that into the design and atmosphere of their stores.

Small Star Performer: “Pilates with a Purpose,” a weekly Pilates class at my church that sends 100% of class fees to the Haitian Timoun Foundation to build a better world there.

• Do you watch out for yourself or for your customers?  Do you want prospects and customers because they’ll help you – or because you can help them?

Big Star Performer: Zappos, an online shoe and clothing store, which offers free shipping both ways and a 365-day return policy. By helping their customers, they’re helping themselves.

Smaller Star Performer: My bagel guy in Manhattan, who operates a street vendor cart.  It takes about two visits to become a regular; then he remembers your order and prepares it while you plunk down your money and make your own change from the quarters lined up on the counter. He has a line about 20 customers long throughout the morning.

• Do you look at your customer experience from an internal perspective or from an external customer perspective?

Big Star Performer:  Nordstrom, which engages customers in conversation about why they are in the store and for what they are looking.

Small Star Performer:  My dentist, who has a small office that is warm and inviting, whose receptionist calls you by name, and who goes the extra mile to solve her patients’ challenges on their terms.

• And finally, do you go after someone who messes with your own? Do you show them that you consider them a valued member of your tribe through your actions?

Big Star Performer:  Ritz Carlton, whose ladies and gentlemen welcome regular guests “home” when they arrive and then make “home” happen during the entire visit. That’s a hard act for any other hotel to follow.

Small Star Performer: My hair stylist, who calls if I haven’t made my regular appointment to see why and ensure I’m back in within the following week, even if that means arriving early, staying late, or coming in on a day off to accommodate my schedule.

You don’t have to be a big business to have a tribe. But you do have to be intentional about your mindset and actions. Crowds will come and go...tribes will stay and grow. So which would you rather have…a crowd or a tribe?

jkl

 

Good Habits

What do smart diets and office makeovers have in common?  They are both about habits. Smart diets are founded on the premise of making healthy food and exercise choices habits on a daily basis versus the regular chips and couch routine. And business makeovers are all about establishing good, smart habits rather than approaching things on an ad hoc basis and hoping for the best.

Establishing those good habits is a noble concept, but be careful. When most people decide to adopt new habits, they try to do everything at once and at an extreme level. For example, people who begin a diet might decide to deprive themselves of all fun foods, lower their caloric intake to near-starvation levels, and oh, by the way, they exercise until their legs scream from shin splints. And then what happens…it’s not fun, they get frustrated, they are drained, and ultimately, they often fail. They tried to do too many things at once to an extreme level and it was unsustainable.

But people who are successful at dieting often begin gradually making healthier choices. Perhaps they choose a baked potato instead of fries, or sorbet instead of ice cream. They limit their portions so that they don’t feel denied. They start exercising at a moderate rate and build up as they can. In short, they develop new habits for their new way of life. They are encouraged, they are energized, and they succeed.

It’s the same with your business makeover. Pick several things you really want to improve. Don’t try to take everything on at once. How do you choose where to begin?  Here are some thoughts:

• What prevents you from reaching your goals or achieving your objectives? 
• What keeps you up at night – or bothers you every single day?
• What will give you the biggest return for your investment?
• If you pictured “success” for your business, what does that look like?

These questions will help you identify those things you want to change first, second, and third. Once you’ve identified and prioritized them, determine the new habits you need to develop to improve them. Business makeovers are really about developing new, smart, good habits.

Research says it takes 30 days for an action to become a habit. So give it 30 days…give it 90 days…give it as long as you need. Just make sure you have the right structure around you to reinforce the good habits. Here are some tricks dieters use to reinforce their healthy habits...think about how you integrate similar ideas into your business to reinforce your business-smart habits:

• Set realistic goals with milestones along the way.
• Make sure you have your carrots in the fridge versus chips in the cabinet, whatever your carrots may be.
• Keep a tally of your daily routine.
• Weigh yourself every now and then...check your progress.
• Don’t punish yourself for a slip every now and then…it happens. Just get back on track immediately.
• Celebrate your accomplishments.
• Once you reach a milestone, reflect on what you’ve done, what you’ll continue to do and what you might change as your move forward, then set your sights on the next milestone (or habit) and get going.

Old habits die hard…regardless of what habits you’re trying to change. But they can die and be replaced by new ones. Prioritize your habits, integrate them into your daily routine, celebrate, and continue to move on…to a better life...or business.

jkl

...The Tough Deliver the Message

This is the second of a two-part series on delivering tough messages. The first was published in our blog yesterday.

Yesterday you delved into how to prepare to deliver a tough message. So you’ve crafted a clear message, practiced it, and set the appointment. What happens when the moment comes?

The following are some good tips for that meeting:

1. Don’t beat around the bush. We talked about avoidance in yesterday’s post – this is just another form of avoidance. Don’t you just hate it when someone makes small talk at the beginning of a very important meeting – your review, perhaps? You just want them to get to the crux of the review. The same is true with a prospect or client. If there’s a point to the meeting and it’s going to be a tough message, get to the point quickly.
2. Show compassion but be clear. Sometimes people who deliver a tough message get so wrapped up in their own feelings that they muddle the message. Other times, people are so intent on just getting through the message that they barrel through it and come across as completely insensitive. Create a balance between the two. By the way, practicing your message, like we talked about yesterday, helps with this, especially if you can practice with a partner (think significant other here) who can give you feedback on how the message – and you – are coming across.
3. Use “I” and “we” (if representing a company) more than “you” when communicating the message. Unlike sales messaging, where you want to make the customer the focus, in a dreaded discussion, the use of you simply raises the recipient’s defenses and, as a result, the likelihood of an emotional argument.
4. Don’t interrupt the recipient when they speak. It’s a natural reaction to try to stop someone who’s rebutting you. Don’t do it. Having heard a difficult message, the recipient may need to vent (and the emphasis is on may – they also may say nothing). If they do vent, allow them that time as long as they are not conveying damaging or disparaging remarks that both of you will regret later.
5. Finally, ask the recipient to recap what they just heard. In a difficult situation, people hear things differently. When more discussion takes place, statements may get confused. Ensure you are both on the same page by asking them their understanding of the message. This not only helps to reinforce the message, but also calms the situation and reduces potential downstream conflicts.

We all have to deliver tough messages every so often. Although this blog was written focusing on communication with prospects and customers, these techniques are equally effective for a tough conversation with a colleague, manager, or direct report.

No one enjoys delivering difficult messages, but it can be done and the better you are at it, the less stress it will cause on everyone involved.

jkl

 

When the Message Gets Tough...

The pain is all too familiar. There’s a tough message to be delivered to a prospect or customer and you drew the short straw – or maybe you’re the account representative so there’s no straw to be drawn – it’s always just you. And unlike George Clooney in “Up in the Air,” most people don’t enjoy delivering the dreaded message.

So how to do you it without compromising the relationship, without feeling guilty for delivering the message, or without getting angry at “them,” defined as whoever made the decision about the message you have to deliver. If customer experience is defined as the union of what a customer sees, hears, touches, and how they interact with you, tough messages are part of that customer experience. How do you continue to deliver a stellar customer experience even when you have to deliver that difficult message?

First, it may help to remember two things:

1. Everyone has to deliver tough messages at points in their lives and businesses. The person to whom you’re about to speak has had to do it so is not immune to being on your side of the table.
2. Everyone has heard a difficult message, so you can’t be immune to being on the other side of the table.

That may not make it any easier to do the deed, but at least you know it’s not the one time in the world that this has ever – or will ever – happen. And you can survive it.

Second, there are a few tips that can help you prepare to deliver that message in the best manner possible so that you bolster, rather than harm, the customer experience.

1. Define the message. What is the real crux of the message? Take some time to think about it to ensure you aren’t communicating a symptom of the issue, but the issue itself. When you take time to define and clarify the message – over a few hours or days, not seconds – you lessen the level of anxiety and emotion you have. Remember the adage that you should never hit the send button on an email written in frustration or anger? The same thing goes with crafting a difficult message – take time, think about it, go away and revisit it…just don’t do that for weeks as a way to avoid or delay delivering the message.
2. Practice the message. About the worst thing you can do is “wing it” with a difficult message. Try practicing in a mirror. This helps you determine what facial and body expressions you need to exhibit calmness and sensitivity while delivering a message that must be heard. If you have a significant other, practice with him/her and get feedback.
3. Take control over your own avoidance tactics. Avoidance usually occurs because you don’t want to “hurt someone’s feelings.” But is it better to potentially let the situation get worse? Here are ways to determine if you need to deliver the message now.

• Is delivering the message now in the best interests of the recipient and your company?
• Will the situation continue to escalate – potentially with harmful ramifications – if you wait?
• Is delivering the message consistent with your company’s reputation?
• Are the justifications you have for not delivering the message driven by emotional factors, such as fear of rejection, lack of confidence, or not wanting to hurt someone’s feelings?

If your answer is “yes” to each of these, you need to think about the timing, not whether to deliver the message.

So you’ve crafted a clear message, practiced it, and set the appointment. What happens when the moment comes? Check in on tomorrow’s blog and I’ll give you some tips on how to actually deliver the message.

Until then…

jkl

A Championship Season

I love college football! I guess that’s what happens when your alma mater is the University of Nebraska! I’m a Cornhusker and college football fan at heart.

While the college football season is ending, you're just beginning your new "season," the season of 2011. And that makes this the perfect time to set your game strategy so you can be a championship team this year. Following are 10 steps to do that:

1. Name your players
2. Paint the picture of what the championship – aka a successful year – looks like
3. Make sure each individual knows what position he or she plays on their teams
4. Identify where players excel and how to leverage those strengths
5. Identify where players need more practice, experience, or skills and determine how to address those
6. Create the plays – aka processes – and ensure everyone knows when and how to run them
7. Hold players accountable for their positions and performance
8. Coach, coach, and coach
9. Make adjustments as necessary
10. Celebrate the small successes on the way to the big one

Here’s to a championship season!

jkl

 

Does One Size Fit All?

Every holiday season, I think about some doozey gifts I’ve received. You know those one-size-fits-all clothes? If you’re like me, you’ve quickly discovered that one size does, indeed, not fit all!  Rather, different shapes, different weights, different heights require different sizes. And it’s just not quite right when it bags or pinches, is it? 

So if clothes can’t really be one-size-fits-all, can other things in our lives? Can the solution you sell fit every prospect? That’s kind of what happens when you try to sell to anyone and everyone. I call that a “one-solution-fits-all strategy” and that feels a lot like “one-size-fits-all clothes” – in that it doesn’t fit at all.

But in a tough economy like we’re currently in, doesn’t it make sense to try to sell to anyone who will listen? Absolutely not! If you try to make your solution fit the wrong prospect, it’s like trying to make a one-size-fits-all sweater work on an XS or XXL. You won’t succeed, but you sure will create a lot of frustration in the process of trying.

And the funny thing is, the more you define your target audience, the easier it is on you and your prospects…the easier it is to find the right prospects (and not bug the wrong ones), the easier it is to listen to and truly understand their challenges (because you “get it”), and the easier it is to help them overcome their challenges through your solution (because it is, in essence “tailor made” for companies like them).

You aren’t a one-solution-fits-all company; you shouldn’t have a one-solution-fits-all strategy. As you look to 2011, take the time to figure out the type of prospect for which your solution is tailor made, create your story, and go get those prospects.

You’ve outgrown the one-size-fits-all clothes. Now outgrow the one-solution-fits-all strategy.

jkl

 

Bossy Bosses

I saw an interesting USA Today Snapshot last week. You know those little fun facts in the lower corner of the paper? This one showed the results of a North American Best Boss survey. Here they are:

• The boss style most desired by employees:  Visionary, Democratic
• The boss style most reported by employees: Commanding
• The most self-reported style by bosses: Coaching

Isn't that a hoot? Talk about differences in perceptions! Does "coaching" feel like "commanding" by employees? Does "commanding" equate to "coaching" in some managers' worlds? And where in the heck does vision and democracy come in? It's a conundrum all right! 

While the survey may strike a funny bone in some of us, it also gives us a good picture of the "reality" in employees' minds. Thus, it should serve as a wake-up call for all of us who manage people. What behaviors are we demonstrating that are perceived as commanding? How can we be the visionaries and democratic leaders our people want? 

Perhaps a good starting point is asking our team members for input. We are typically pretty open in sharing how they can be high-performing employees; how about turning the tables and asking them how we can be high-performing bosses? Just asking employees that question will make them feel more engaged.   

A next step: listening to their responses. Acknowledging and valuing employees’ input speaks volumes to them. And learning how we can better support our people and help them succeed not only helps them; it ultimately helps us.

One more: applying what they say. That doesn’t mean we have to lie down and let ourselves get walked on...rather it just means taking the feedback to heart and working to better ourselves as managers. Continual improvement as people leaders is a pretty cool thing.

So are you visionary and democratic, commanding, or coaching? Most likely we’re each of these at some time or another in someone’s eyes. But setting our sight on being that visionary and democratic boss is a mighty good ambition, and one that we can all hope to attain someday.

jkl 

 

The Blessings of Conflict

Last night I attended a workshop focused on conflict. The intent of the workshop was to change the paradigm we all tend to have about conflict. Our paradigm is that conflict is negative when, if approached properly, it can be extremely positive. Here's the thing: conflict can push us to really think, reflect, communicate, open our minds, get us out of our comfort zone, see things in a different light. I had to admit that, when pushed, I truly could think of specific situations where, because of conflict, a better outcome resulted than I would have ever imagined.

Why do we even have conflict?  Well, is sounds basic, but it's simply because we are all different people and, as such, see things different ways. We each apply our own filters to situations because of our roles, backgrounds, values, relationships, information processing...in essence, the "baggage" we all bring to the situation. Applying this theory, it's amazing we aren't involved in conflict with others constantly!

But that's where it gets really cool. If we can engage in conflict in a trustworthy, respectful manner, some amazing things can happen. In our organizations, we can choose to prompt and be open to new perspectives and ideas. These perspective and ideas may just be what open up a whole new world to us; a world we hadn't thought of before. Those new worlds are what we need right now. Honestly, to stay on top of our game, we'll always need those new worlds. 

We each choose how to respond to conflict. We can hide and avoid it, we can stand up to it, we can bargain with it, we can embrace it and work to ensure great things come from it. It takes practice and will probably start, at least for me, with some self-control and thought breaks to determine how I'll respond. In time, I'm sure it will become easier for me to respond more quickly as I'll have an innate ability to assess the situation in a nanosecond and respond accordingly. I'm making a commitment to hone and master this leadership skill as much as I would a technical skill. I'm committing to recognizing the blessings of conflict. Care to join me?

jkl

Putting the Mini-Steps Into "Stages" to Streamline Pipeline Tracking

One of the challenges I've heard from managers to my "Mini-Step" methodology is "there are too many steps in the sales process, and I don't have time to hear salespeople break everything down into the steps they've made, or are trying to make"....so I'll ask them, "Are you saying that even though the answers were vague and full of potential B.S. 'spin'...it was just easier when the seller said...'ACME is interested boss'...or "ABC COMPANY is still looking at it'? '"   

And the answer is basically, "Yeah, Greg...we get the Mini-Step idea, but I've got just so much time in the day to spend with my sales team...I have to get a snapshot and move on"...

Well...I feel your pain ...as managers we're all over-booked...over-stretched...over-committed... or just over-everything'ed!!   And it's understandable....we've got more people to manage...more products...more bosses wanting more reports...and all the while we've got pressure coming down hard from the top to close more deals NOW and get more revenue in the door IMMEDIATELY!!

Who's got time to listen to salespeople and what they've got "going on"?  Just tell me what you can close in the next two days!!!

Of course we all know the problems that will come from this verbal-only, gut-feel "check in" type of b.s. reporting...sellers will over-hype opportunities and managers will start to believe they've got more in the pipeline than is really real.  THIS IS DANGEROUS FOR FORECASTING, PLANNING, RESOURCE ALLOCATION, ETC..

So, to save the sanity of my managing brothers and sisters, I've come up with the following recommendation:   

Create STAGES out of STEPS!

Just take the Mini-Steps and drop them into STAGES...and have say THREE or FOUR stages they can start to describe opportunities with...

• • For instance instead of having these 5 Mini-Steps as separate stages to ask about:
    • Schedule a brainstorming session,  write ad for web site, arrange studio time,  get credit ap in, collect deposit
  • You could turn it into a two-stage process:
    • Stage 1:   Schedule brainstorming, write ad for web site, arrange studio time
    • Stage 2:  Get credit ap in...collect deposit
• Once you've trained your sellers how to put steps into stages, you can then attach a percentage of close to the attainment of the stages vs the steps...

With STAGES, when you ask a seller..."Where is XYZ?", they should forget the verbal b.s. and have to report the STAGE..."they're in Stage 1... getting ready to move them to Stage 2..."  as long as everyone has the same interpretation of what steps are in Stages 1, 2, 3, etc...it should cut down on the b.s. and speed things up at the same time...

GB