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If you are in a room with 22 other people there is a slightly greater than 50% chance that at least 2 of you will share the same birthday.

 

Do you doubt that?

 

It would be natural if you did.  It’s counter-intuitive.

 

However, stay with me a little as I explain it.

 

If you are on your own in a room, the chances of you having a birthday unique to yourself is 100% – or 365/365.

 

If a 2nd person enters the room, the chances of them having a birthday unique to themselves is a little less than 100% – or 364/365 – because one day is taken by you.  You can see that 364/365 is actually (365-1)/365.

 

If a 3rd person enters the room, the chances of them having a birthday unique to themselves is a little less again – this time it’s 363/365 – or (365-2)/365.

 

Etc…

 

When the 23rd person enters the room, the chances of them having a birthday unique to themselves is (365-22)/365.

 

Now the probability of all 23 having a birthday unique to themselves is calculated by multiplying all the individual probabilities.

 

That number comes out at 0.491 – or just less than 50%.

 

So if you flip that around, the chances of at least 2 people sharing a birthday is 1 – 0.491 or 0.509 – just over 50%.

 

So you only need 23 people to have a greater than 50% chance of 2 of them sharing a birthday.  Maybe your classes at school reflected this?

 

The World Cup squads do!  They’re 23 in size and 16 of the 32 squads have at least one shared birthday.

 

What has this got to do with your business?

 

Gut feelings can sometimes reveal the direction you should take – indeed sometimes gut feelings are all you have.

 

But not always.

 

Sometimes you have numbers to look at.  And when you do, you should heed what those numbers are saying – even if the results seem counter-intuitive.

 

And, if you’re not mathematically inclined, and you’re wondering who can help you with data, the good news is that you know someone who is – you’re reading his blog post!

 

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A few years ago I was in BNI – a referral-based networking group.  At every meeting you did a pitch to the members in the room – and indirectly to their networks.

 

One week I asked the people in the room to raise their hands if they felt they were delivering excellent customer service to their customers.  17 out of 21 raised their hands.  One of the 4 who kept their hands down intrigued me.  Let’s call him “John”.

 

John intrigued me because, without prompting , he offered the comment : “No WAY can I ask them what they think of me!”

 

The meeting didn’t lend itself to probing much further – the BNI meeting formula doesn’t lend itself to that.  But I did follow up with John offline.

 

Guess why he didn’t want to ask his customers for their opinions?  It wasn’t that he knew that his customer service wasn’t excellent. The reason was because` he felt that, by asking them, they’d be reminded of his less than excellent service.

 

That is where he was wrong.

 

His customers have their opinions of him and his service – whether he asks them or not.  If they’re dissatisfied they won’t forget.  Indeed they may well tell others.  And they’re actually more likely to tell others if they feel ignored – if they feel that John isn’t interested.

 

There is no downside to asking your customers for feedback – so long as you do it right and not too often.  But work with me and I’ll make sure you don’t make those mistakes :-).

 

Oh – and the 17 companies who considered themselves to be delivering excellent customer service?  A large majority of them are probably wrong – but that’s a post for another day!

 

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The problem with memories is that they’re often false.

 

Let me explain…  You’ve probably heard about what can happen to a “true” story if John tells it to Mary and Mary then tells Patrick and Patrick then tells …..  until someone tells the story back to John.  The story will probably have changed substantially.

 

But that’s not the only problem.  As individuals we revise our memories over time.  Totally innocently.  And we can do so with conviction.  As Elizabeth Loftus said in a TED talk in Edinburgh last year, memory works “more like a Wikipedia page: You can go in there and change it, but so can other people“.   (Loftus is a renowned psychologist who has been studying this area since the 1970s.  You can view the fascinating TED talk here. The quote is at around the 5:25 mark.)

 

How is this applicable to your business?

 

The answer is data.

 

Collected data, if held securely, does not change.  Mathematical analysis of it does not change.

 

Don’t rely on vague impressions such as:

 

“Our customers are fairly satisfied with us – they don’t complain much”.

 

Or :

 

“Our employees feel fairly engaged – they’re not revolting and we’re reaching a lot of our targets”.

 

Those are weak.

 

You also can’t measure any future trend because you don’t have a baseline to start with.

 

So – measure and get the data.  Collected data will allow you to avoid the problems of false memories – whether the falsification is malignant or benign.  And it’ll also give you a numeric baseline against which to measure future performance.

 

You want to collect some unambiguous hard data on which to base your business decisions?  I’d be glad to discuss!

 

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“I want to do an online survey of my customers.”

 

That’s a statement I’ve heard many times from people.  However, it might not be the best thing to do.  Or it might not be sufficiently well defined.

 

People are always surprised when I don’t immediately say – “Ok – let’s do it”.  Maybe they’re wondering : “Why is this guy talking himself out of a possible sale?”

 

The reason is simple.  I’ll only do an online survey for people if it is what’s best for them.  And, to determine what is best, we need to step back a little and ask : What is the ultimate goal here?

 

Imagine, for example, if your customers don’t use email or don’t have good internet access.  Or imagine if they employ gatekeepers to filter their emails.  Or imagine if they are sufficiently important to you to warrant a different research tool, e.g., face-to-face conversations as opposed to an online survey.

 

So an online survey might be entirely appropriate.  Or it might be only a partial solution.  Or it might be the entirely wrong research tool to use.

 

Looking at the overall context will light the way!  And that requires clearly identifying what the ultimate goal is.  All else follows from that.

 

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I typically tell you a story in these posts.

 

The recent feedback has been interesting.  To give you a flavour:

 

• Seán said he had noticed a distinct lack of so-called “calls to action”.
• Mary wondered what I was selling as she thought what I was writing was, though interesting, rhetorical “social commentary”.
• Jimmy says the posts are very good – but don’t relate to what I sell.

 

So I’ve been making a mistake.  I’ve been guilty of telling and not selling.  So today let me do something a little different and describe something I sell.

 

A quick bit of background: You’re probably doing a decent job on holding down costs.  So if you want to start making a profit – or make a bigger profit – you need to grow the top-line – your revenue.

 

One of the “things” I sell is to help businesses grow their revenue.

 

That’s an obvious benefit to you.  But it’s also a bit vague.  There’s probably a gazillion people out there telling you they can increase your revenue.  So let me get more specific.

 

I help you increase your revenue by helping you to make your customers more satisfied with you.

 

This increases your revenue because, like I said yesterday in an email to my list:

 

The higher the satisfaction level your customers feel, the more they’ll buy from you, the more they’ll refer others to you, and the more they’ll recommend you.

 

How do I do this?

 

There are two stages.

 

First, I find out for you:

 

• What to do more of
• What to do less of
• What to stop doing
• What to change

 

So that’s the diagnosis.  But diagnosis without action is useless.  You then need to make the changes!

 

Second : If you wish, I can then also work with you to ensure you implement the changes.  Implementation is key!

 

So here’s the call to action :

 

• I’ll give upwards of an hour of my time free to the first 5 of you who contact me about this particular service.  You need to do this by 5pm (Irish time) this Friday 18th.
• During that hour you can ask me anything you want to help you decide if you want to work with me to make your customers more satisfied.
• And, if you decide by Friday April 25th to do business, I’ll give you an early-bird discount of 20%.

 

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I was at a networking meeting last week.

 

One of the elements of the meeting was that we were split into small groups at different tables to brainstorm on how we could improve the network.

 

Each small group spent 20 minutes brainstorming.

 

Then each table in sequence, through their spokesperson, summarised their findings.

 

We were the last table.

 

When it came to us, our spokesperson Ana said (truthfully) that all our ideas had been covered by the other tables.  She was right to not trot out the same stuff other people had said.  That saved time and prevented boredom.

 

Ok – she did add one idea that she and I had discussed while the other tables’ spokespeople were talking.  But you get the picture – everything we at our table had discussed had already been covered.

 

This was a predictable outcome.  It reflects the 80:20 rule at work.

 

Sometimes called the 80:20 principle.

 

Sometimes called the Pareto Principle (after an Italian economist).

 

Simply put : 80% of the results come from 20% of the causes.

 

If you’re familiar with the 80:20 concept then that’s a start.  If you leverage its power in your business then that’s better.

 

If you’re not familiar with it – then, in general terms, I can think of nothing I’d recommend more for you in your business than to become familiar with it and then leverage it.

 

So – how can the 80:20 rule be leveraged in a context like last night?

 

Note that this is very much a glass more than half full question.  A lot of good ideas were generated.  The network will improve if we implement those ideas.

 

Simple.

 

Split the room into 5 groups.  Each group then has 20% of the participants in it.

 

80% of what the groups come up with will be the same.

 

So have them consider different questions or different angles.

 

The result?  You’ll harness 80% of ideas about 5 different issues rather than, max, 100% of the ideas about 1 issue.

 

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How about this for a depressing description of a career:

 

“There was comfort in filing divorces and personal bankruptcies and doing an occasional will or deed. Little in the way of fees, but he and most of the other lawyers in Clanton could eke out a living while avoiding almost all risk.”

 

Imagine it.

 

Boring.

 

Indistinguishable from your competitors.

 

Probably competing purely on price.

 

Thankfully the above is fictional.  It’s a description of a character (Mack Stafford) in a John Grisham short story I just finished – “Fish Files“.

 

But in the real world it’s not uncommon.

 

Contrast Mack with Grisham himself – also a qualified attorney.  In the mid 1980s Grisham spent 3 years writing “A Time To Kill” (my favourite of his) and then managed to get it published after being rejected by 28 publishers.

 

Attitude is fundamental.  Having the right attitude is no guarantee of real success – but it sure is necessary.

 

So – Mack’s attitude or Grisham’s?  Take your pick.  It’s your choice.

 

Note : Till now these blog posts have also been going to my list of email subscribers.  Beginning next week I’m changing that.  From now on only a small minority of emails will appear here as posts.  So, if you like what you read, you might want to sign up in the box below!

 

 

I often find that a sports event provides fodder for my posts.

 

Today is a little different.

 

This is not a soccer story.  But it is a story about a soccer person – Uli Hoeness – and what he can teach us.

 

I first came across him when I was 9 – way back in 1975.  He played on a Bayern Munich team that controversially beat my beloved Leeds in the European Cup Final.

 

More recently he was the president of the same Bayern Munich club.

 

He was recently charged with evading €3.5 million in taxes – a substantial amount you might say!

 

However, when his trial began, he admitted to having actually evaded €18.5m – yep – over 5 times the original amount!

 

So you’ve got someone voluntarily admitting to a more severe crime than that he was charged with.  Rare eh?

 

It didn’t end there!  After a tax inspector testified, the actual figure rose further to €27.2m – a figure not disputed by the defence team.

 

Hoeness was given a prison sentence.  And has announced that he will not appeal it.

 

And what underpins this (sadly rare) recognition of what he had done?

 

The man’s own words captured it best when he said “This befits my understanding of decency, dignity and personal responsibility.“

 

At a fundamental level he has recognised that he is responsible for his choices and decisions.

 

We all are.  In your business you are responsible for how you perform, the choices you make, the decisions you make.  It is you who is responsible, whether you’re planning, executing, reacting, etc.

 

You can’t control external events.  You may have some influence over other.  But the only person in the world whose actions you can directly control are your own.

 

Uli Hoeness has done us all a favour by reminding us of this.

 

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“The price of freedom is eternal vigilance.”

 

“Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty.”

 

Two variations on a theme you may have come across.  It’s usually attributed, probably incorrectly, to Thomas Jefferson, 3rd President of the US and one of its Founding Fathers.

 

Whatever its source, it’s understood to be an exhortation to small d democrats to be wary of state intrusions on their freedom.

 

You could though easily substitute other words for “freedom” or “liberty”.  How about “the price of getting the right things done is eternal vigilance”?

 

One day last week my main task had been to do some specific follow-up work on my sales funnel.  On the day in question I began work by tying up a number of loose ends.

 

Big mistake!

 

Why?

 

Well firstly the “loose ends” took longer to tidy up than I expected.  And I also ended up having to take a good chunk of the day off  for an unanticipated reason and – you guessed it – the main task never got done.

 

I’m normally disciplined enough to get the main task done early in the day.  But that day I let things slip.  I worked on the tasks in the wrong sequence.  I should of course have done the sales funnel work before working on the loose ends.

 

So here’s me – who regularly tell clients to identify the main thing in advance and to then concentrate on it early in the day.  And I didn’t follow my own advice and you see what happened.

 

The sequencing of tasks in the correct order needs persistent discipline.   It needs “eternal vigilance“.  Yep – you simply have to concentrate on it day-by-day.  There is no easy substitute.

 

That sensation of looking back on a day and wondering where it went – it’s not a nice feeling.  You don’t want that sense of vague unease, that sense of disappointment.  And your businesses sure can’t afford for you to make a habit of it.

 

 

 

My good wife was off in Berlin this past weekend with her sister on a well-earned 4-day break.  So things were a bit hectic for yours truly – what with 2 young kids each involved in a gazillion activities and a mother-in-law to be taken care of too.  Thankfully our eldest was around to help out.

 

Now some of you might think I was earning serious brownie points.

 

But others among you – including perhaps the working mothers – might be wondering what the big deal is – you have that sort of routine all the time!

 

But joking aside, the few days did give me an insight into how much my other half does get accomplished.  When we’re both around I help out a bit.  But it’s definitely just that – me helping out.  She does the majority.  And I’ve a better understanding now of what that majority entails.

 

The best way for me to gain that understanding was to walk in her shoes.  Not view it.  Not be academically aware of it.  Not be nagged about it.  But to DO it.

 

Sometimes the best way to understand someone else’s perspective might be to walk in their shoes and experience what they experience – whether that other person is a customer, employee or colleague.

 

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