Courtesy of Andrew Griffiths - www.andrewgriffiths.com.au
ARE YOU LOOKING FOR A SUREFIRE WAY TO BUILD AN AMAZINGLY SUCCESSFUL BUSINESS?
Last week a good friend and supplier of mine sent me an email that really made me stop and think. Nicky looks after my various websites and I keep her on her toes, as I can be a little demanding of my partners at times! Nicky was reviewing her businesses overall customer service and she asked me a very interesting question, “what could she do to make my life easier?” Now as simple as this question may sound, it is incredibly profound. Surely we should all be looking for ways to make our customers lives easier?
But how often do we actually ask them how could we can do this? Or how could we save them money? Or time? Or frustration? Unfortunately we spend too much of our time looking inside our business, doing things that make our life easier, even if it is at the expense of the customer. We make blanket policies to suit us, rules and procedures, without consulting our customers even when it affects them directly.
How many businesses do you go into where the systems don’t work, where you have to wait in lines with one person serving whilst five others stand around doing “other important stuff?”
Well I hate to break the bad news here, but there is nothing more important in any business than the customers. One thing that I know for certain is that in the coming years customers are not going to be as easy to find as they have been. But those businesses who are smart enough to actually take the time and initiative to find out what they could be doing to help their customers will certainly stand out from the crowd.
So how do you find out how you could better serve your customers? It’s pretty simple really, just ask them.
Nicky sent me a simple, but very personal email that I think made her question so much more meaningful. Don’t do a blanket email, or bulk letter drop, that doesn’t make anyone feel special or important. Pick up the phone and talk to your customers. Ask for their views, their opinions and their needs.
It has certainly made me rethink how I do business and I will be talking to each and every business that I work with to see how I can make their lives easier. Any business, large or small, that adopts this philosophy will be miles in front of any competitors. And the best part of this whole idea is that it costs nothing but time.
Friday, January 30, 2009
Leading a team
- Develop a plan now with your key people - those you can trust who will add value and compliment your team. A plan to grow, diversify or acquire.
- Great attitude with sales people right now is vital. They must have focus and be the best problem solvers in the market. You will also need to run regular 'energy' sessions with them as well as maintaining accountability.
- Hold regular mini meetings with your leaders / managers to discuss good news and review your 'metrics'. These will save lots of time during the day and keep everyone in touch and on the same page. Your people will interrupt each other considerably less during the day.
- Run weekly high energy team sessions. Effective team meetings provide communications, clarity and embrace the power of focused collective intelligence.
- Make attendance mandatory and on time with no excuses - disciplined organisations exude success!!
- All meetings should be short and highly structured. Their primary purpose is to create energy and refocus the team. Problem solving can be done off line.
Fonts and Text
Some typefaces are easier to read than others on a PC screen
Go for a sans-serif rather than serif for on-line work
12 point is easier to read
Recommended fonts are Constantia and Cambria
Tuesday, January 13, 2009
How to send a personal email
How to send a personal email
Here are some easy to follow tips that will help you avoid being seen as a spammer, or having your emails trashed or ignored. The thing is this: email reduces friction. Greedy, lazy organizations have embraced this and tried to figure out how to blast as many emails as they can as cheaply as they can, relying on the law of large numbers. The real law of large numbers is, "using large numbers is against the law."
I want you to add friction back in. If you want to be seen as being personal, the best strategy is to be personal, which is slow and expensive.
1. Don't send the same email to large numbers of people.
2. If you have more than a few people to contact, you'll be tempted to copy and paste or mail merge. Don't. You'll get caught. It shows. If it's important enough for someone to read, it's important enough for you to rewrite.
3. Careful with the salutation. Don't write, "Dear Claudia," if you don't usually write "Dear" at the beginning of all your emails.
4. Don't mush the salutation together with the rest of the note. If I had a dollar for every email that started, "Joe, When experts come together..." That's not personal. That's lazy merging. See rule 1.
5. Don't send HTML or pictures. Personal email doesn't, why are you?
6. Don't talk like a press release. Talk like a person. A person is reading this, so why are you talking like that?
7. Be short. The purpose of an email is not to sell the person on anything other than writing back. If you don't have a personal, interesting way to start a conversation, don't write.
8. Don't send an email only when you really need something. That's not personal, that's selfish.
9. Do you have a sig with a phone number in it? Your phone number? If you don't trust me enough to give me your real phone number, I don't trust you enough to read your mail.
10. Don't mark your email urgent. Urgent to you is not urgent to me.
11. Don't lie in your subject line, and don't be cute. You're not clever enough to be cute. Just be honest.
12. Following up on an impersonal spam email is twice as dumb as sending the first one. Invest the time to do it right the first time.
13. Anticipated, personal and relevant permission mail will always dramatically outperform greedy short-term spam. I promise.
14. Just because you have someone's email address doesn't mean you have the right to email them.
Here are some easy to follow tips that will help you avoid being seen as a spammer, or having your emails trashed or ignored. The thing is this: email reduces friction. Greedy, lazy organizations have embraced this and tried to figure out how to blast as many emails as they can as cheaply as they can, relying on the law of large numbers. The real law of large numbers is, "using large numbers is against the law."
I want you to add friction back in. If you want to be seen as being personal, the best strategy is to be personal, which is slow and expensive.
1. Don't send the same email to large numbers of people.
2. If you have more than a few people to contact, you'll be tempted to copy and paste or mail merge. Don't. You'll get caught. It shows. If it's important enough for someone to read, it's important enough for you to rewrite.
3. Careful with the salutation. Don't write, "Dear Claudia," if you don't usually write "Dear" at the beginning of all your emails.
4. Don't mush the salutation together with the rest of the note. If I had a dollar for every email that started, "Joe, When experts come together..." That's not personal. That's lazy merging. See rule 1.
5. Don't send HTML or pictures. Personal email doesn't, why are you?
6. Don't talk like a press release. Talk like a person. A person is reading this, so why are you talking like that?
7. Be short. The purpose of an email is not to sell the person on anything other than writing back. If you don't have a personal, interesting way to start a conversation, don't write.
8. Don't send an email only when you really need something. That's not personal, that's selfish.
9. Do you have a sig with a phone number in it? Your phone number? If you don't trust me enough to give me your real phone number, I don't trust you enough to read your mail.
10. Don't mark your email urgent. Urgent to you is not urgent to me.
11. Don't lie in your subject line, and don't be cute. You're not clever enough to be cute. Just be honest.
12. Following up on an impersonal spam email is twice as dumb as sending the first one. Invest the time to do it right the first time.
13. Anticipated, personal and relevant permission mail will always dramatically outperform greedy short-term spam. I promise.
14. Just because you have someone's email address doesn't mean you have the right to email them.
Friday, January 9, 2009
Selfishness
And see selfishness as a virtue...
Because if you are not selfish, and take care of your own needs
first, you can't help anybody, other than commiserate in their
victim-hood with them. Do you really get that?
Want to do good, help others, save the world? Start with building
your own prosperity.
Because if you are not selfish, and take care of your own needs
first, you can't help anybody, other than commiserate in their
victim-hood with them. Do you really get that?
Want to do good, help others, save the world? Start with building
your own prosperity.
Friday, January 2, 2009
Yes We Can
"yes we can" is both an affirmation of optimism and the essential claim of the competent.
When the slogan is rooted in a record of accomplishment - when tomorrow's yes-we-can is backed up by yesterdays yes-we-did - confidence and competence begin to feed on each other.
When the slogan is rooted in a record of accomplishment - when tomorrow's yes-we-can is backed up by yesterdays yes-we-did - confidence and competence begin to feed on each other.
Leadership by Obama
"I dont think there is some magic trick here. I think I've got a good nose for talent, so I hire really good people. And I've got a pretty healthy ego, so I'm not scared of hiring the smartest people, even when they're smarter than me. And I have a low tolerance of nonsense and turf battles and game-playing and I send that message very clearly.
If you have really smart people who are all focused on the same mission, you can get some things done"
If you have really smart people who are all focused on the same mission, you can get some things done"
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