GET FEEDBACK FROM YOUR AUDIENCE

Do you have loyal employees? Low turnover? That's a good thing, right? Well yes, for ongoing operations. Here's an interesting dilemma.....want to improve your business and generate new ideas for your customers? Don't just rely on ideas from those loyal employees. Problem is.....they are no longer objective about your business. You need to get feedback directly from your customers!!

So, how do you go about getting feedback, on a regular basis, from your audience? At a reasonable price. If you are a small to mid-size business, it might be too expensive for you to implement a custom research project, with a professional market research firm. While this is often preferable.....one in-depth customer satisfaction survey with a couple hundred responses can easily cost you $15,000 - $30,000.

Good news.....there are some excellent internet tools that you can use to probe your audience. Services like Survey Monkey, Zoomerang, and others. Your requirement is to be collecting email addresses for your customers and prospects and then structure the questionnaire. You can do this yourself or better yet, have someone help you who has some experience with market research.

I prefer Zoomerang.com They have several pre-formatted surveys that can fit your needs. Sign up to their service, then pick a format (like customer satisfaction, employee morale, etc.) and next edit the questions to make it more appropriate to your specific audience. Send it out and read the results!! Importantly, do this 1 - 2 times per year and look for the trends. You are trying to move the needle and improve......this means that the trend is important to see if you can better serve your customers. Go for it!! I think you will like it.

Choose a Strategy to Focus your Business

Mktg & Leadership Insight

It’s hard for leaders to choose just one strategy to focus….after all, isn’t it better to appeal to many different audiences? Actually not, if you want your customer to remember what you stand for….how are you different from competition?

This is the suggestion from author Michael Treacy in his book titled “The Disciplines of Market Leaders.” There are some powerful messages here that leaders should probe to increase performance.

The book describes three overall strategic alternatives: Operational Excellence, Product Innovation, and Customer Intimacy. Firms should implement pieces of all of these BUT FOCUS on ONE to truly stand out and be great!! What defines these strategies?

Operational Excellence……think Walmart, Southwest airlines, and Dell Computer as examples. This is a best value, low price focus. Firms tend to be highly centrally controlled regarding decisions and operate in a very disciplined, structured format. Extra frills are rejected….everyone is focused on saving every penny, or dollar and delivering outstanding value to the customer at the best price…..consistently. Does this define your company?

Product or Service Innovation……think Apple Computer, Intel, Sony, Toyota as examples. This is a best product, premium price, and leading edge innovator focus. Firms tend to be focused around product life cycles, they might even obsolete their own products to develop the next generation of features for customer preference. The organization is structured in product teams, often not functional lines, and creativity and best in class is valued. Rapid change is a part of their existence. Does this define your company?

Customer Intimacy…..think Ritz-Carlton, Nordstrom’s as examples. This is a focus on the customer as king and creation of activities based on what the customer wants….the ultimate in empowerment of your employees to do whatever is necessary to satisfy the customer. Your service is premium priced, but the customer is willing to pay for the extra benefits. Your objective is to generate a WOW response from the customer based on your responsiveness and the initiative taken by your employees. Does this define your company?

These three strategies are quite different. The difficult choice is for you to choose ONE to place your focus. You cannot perform all three with equal focus….too many elements are contradictory and you will confuse your audience as well as your team. Be black or white to your audience……pick a strategy!! Try to focus on all three…..you will appear grey to your audience and be mediocre, at best.

Narrow your Focus to Stand Out

Mktg & Leadership Insight

Does this sound like an oximoron...to be remembered by your audience Narrow the focus....be black or white NOT grey to your market.

There is a great tendency for business owners to want to be all things to all people. After all, this way they can appeal to the whole market, right? Why give up any possible prospect?

Actually this will make it much tougher for you to stand out in your market. Your prospect will not remember you with a clear focus. Your prospects are inundated with messages from numerous places.....especially in today's digital world.

It is remarkable what people can remember if it is focused and has some meaning.
This is what Apple accomplished with the iPod....what Google accomplished with a search tool...and what Starbucks accomplished with a coffee experience.

They were targeted to a clear and narrow niche.....people remembered.....experienced a good product or service and then ironically a very large market developed.

Try it, you just might like it!!

Communicate with Your Employees......especially now!!

Given the status of the Economy and the anxiety on the minds of your people.....it is ESPECIALLY important NOW to have the right kind of communication with your leadership and your team.

Here is a rather insightful article I noticed recently that you should find valuable. Try it out. Hope that it helps your communication and culture.

Steve Brody
Vistage Chair & CEO Coach

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Don't Live in a Half-Built House

May 6, 2009 Peter Bregman Harvard Business Publishing

There is something curious about a group of houses in Utah. They're falling apart. Windows covered with wood. Roofs patched with blue tarp, blowing in the wind. Walls simply missing.

And yet people live in them. These houses are not being built; they are half-built. This has nothing to do with the real estate crash. It's not a consequence of poverty. Nor is it a design statement.

Their inhabitants simply aren't motivated to finish them. You see, they're fundamentalist Mormons who have been excommunicated by the mainstream Mormon church for their practice of polygamy. And their last known leader, Warren Jeffs had a penchant for predicting the end of the world on a rolling six months basis.

If you think the world is about to end, what's the point of fixing your house?

When I described these houses to a senior leader of a large retail bank — we'll call her Anne — her face contorted with recognition.

"That's exactly what I'm doing!" she said.

"Living in an unfinished house?" I asked.

"Yes!" She told me she hadn't done her usual quarterly all-hands call with her team.

"Why not?" I asked.

"What's there to say?" Anne responded. "Nothing's clear. I have no idea what to tell them. Will they be in their roles in two months? Will their priorities change? Will we even exist? There's too much uncertainty."

She knew it was a mistake not to do the all-hands call. And yet, she admitted to me, she hadn't done many of her normal management routines. She regularly canceled meetings with her direct reports and even skipped their performance reviews and career development conversations.

Why have a career development conversation with someone when there's a good chance they may not have a career with you at all? You're super-busy, understaffed, stressed, and feeling vulnerable yourself.

On top of all that, the people who report to you aren't pushing for conversations either. Sure they want some answers. But they're lying low. Keeping their heads down, trying not to make a splash. Because if you happen to be working on that layoff plan when they come by, you might take notice and add their name to the list. So they try to look busy. And they take the long way to the bathroom to avoid your office.

Here's the problem: When our future is uncertain, we have a hard time functioning in the present.

So what should you do?

David McClelland, a Harvard psychology professor, wrote the book on Human Motivation. It's 688 pages long, but since the world might end in six months, I'll give you the short version. Everyone is driven by three things:

1. Achievement (the desire to compete against increasingly challenging goals)

2. Affiliation (the desire to be liked/loved)

3. Power
• Personalized (the desire for influence and respect for yourself)
• Socialized (the desire to empower others; to offer them influence and respect)

If people have the opportunity to achieve, affiliate and influence, they'll be motivated and engaged. Even without a clear vision of the future.

So instead of worrying about what life is going to be like tomorrow, focus on these three things today.

Sit in your office for an hour and think, one by one, about each of your people (including yourself). Ask:

• Is this person working on something meaningful and challenging; something for which he has about a 50% chance of succeeding?

• Is this person relating to other people in the office; people she likes and to whom she feel close?

• Is this person being recognized for the work he is doing? Can he influence decisions and outcomes?

If the answer is yes, great. That person will be motivated. If not, then create those opportunities immediately.

Give people clear goals and the autonomy to achieve them. Make sure they are working on something they find challenging and interesting.

Give them opportunities to collaborate (and celebrate) with others. This is especially important because at times of uncertainty, people become more political. They start to suspect that their colleagues are trying to be noticed, take more credit, work on better projects. But as they work on projects collaboratively, their trust grows.

Also give them opportunities to offer their input on how things should be done. Reward their participation with public recognition.

Anne realized that even though she was a "leader" in the bank, she too was paralyzed by the uncertainty of the future. That was several weeks ago.

I met with her again recently and she told me she had held one-on-one meetings with each of her managers that week. In those meetings she made sure each person had some kind of challenging, meaningful project to work on. She also made sure each had at least one project on that involved collaboration with other people. She told me that the third motivation was harder because it felt fake to recognize people for something they had done when she didn't feel they had been doing much. She did give them influence over how they were going to achieve their projects, and as they made headway, she was looking for opportunities to recognize them.

Doing this had a side benefit for Anne. She was considerably more energized when I last saw her. Following through on this plan tapped into her motivation. It was challenging (achievement), helped her connect to the people with whom she worked (affiliation) and enabled her to enable others (power).

So it's time to choose. Do you want to live in a half-built house while you wait for the end of the world? As it turns out, some people have been living in those houses for years.

Or do you want to be like Anne and spend whatever time you have fixing your house, along with your colleagues?

The world may end in six months, but at least those six months can be filled with engaging work, connected community, and empowered action. Since you can't do anything about the future, don't try. But you can do something about the present. And who knows, that just might make for a better future.