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On July 4th, Independence Day in the world’s oldest republican democracy, it’s appropriate perhaps to have an American theme to the blog.

 

So – one of my favourite iPhone apps is NPR – America’s National Public Radio. And today I was listening to an NPR story discussing whether Hispanics can ever become supporters in large numbers of the Republican Party.

 

Opinions are split within the party. Some think it can never happen – and fear the long-term consequence for the Republicans in the state. One of those though who disagrees is Mike Gibson, chairman of the party in one of the state’s counties.

 

And how does he think the Republican Party can appeal more to Hispanics and other minority groups?

 

Simple : “What we have to do is go and reach them where they are — not make them come to us”.

 

What he is saying applies to business too.

 

Here are three yes/no questions for you :

 

Do you look at things from the perspective of your customers?

 

Do you know what they want or need?

 

Are you offering them what they want or need?

 

If you’ve answered “No” to any of those questions then do whatever you need to do to make the answers all “Yes”.

 

And if you need help I’m here to help.

 

Happy 4th of July!

 

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Recently I was doing some weeding in my mother’s garden – a garden where my brother-in-law is working on turning some of his fingers green.

 

Well it transpires I actually wasn’t weeding.  I found this out when my brother-in-law came running over to me telling me in extremely colourful language to leave his carrots alone – the carrots he had lovingly grown from seed!

 

Now he and I get along very well.  And I’m glad we do – partly because he’s 4 inches taller than me and about 25 lbs heavier!   We got over our little hiccup and had a good laugh about it.

 

How did we manage that?

 

Simple.  We’ve built a good relationship over more than 20 years and we know, like and trust each other.

 

Do you have relationships like that with your customers and suppliers?  Of course sometimes purchases or sales in business are purely transactional.  And sometimes the nature of the transaction is that it’s a one-off, e.g., engaging a funeral director.

 

But other times a sale can and should be viewed as the beginning of a relationship.  And such relationships can be nurtured.  Then, even if you pull up that customer’s carrots, you’ve a chance of recovering!

 

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When you make a mistake do you try and hide it?  Or maybe jump through hoops in an effort to explain?  Or perhaps offer a conditional apology?

 

Conditional apologies drive me nuts.

 

A recent example occurred last week when the Irish Minister for Justice, Alan Shatter, was speaking in the Dáil.  (The Dáil is the lower house of Ireland’s legislative branch.)

 

Minister Shatter said “If Deputy Wallace feels that I did him some personal wrong by mentioning it, then I have no problem in saying I am sorry.”

 

The deputy in question, Mick Wallace, had allegedly been cautioned by the Garda (Irish police) for use of a mobile phone while driving – and had been let go with just a caution.  Mick Wallace felt that the Minister shouldn’t have had that information and also shouldn’t have disclosed it in the Dáil.

 

In business if you’re not making some mistakes then you’re either doing nothing (of worth) or else you’re a liar!

 

We all make mistakes.  And if yours are not visible to you then ask your customers – they should be able to tell you about one or two!

 

And whenever you find out that you’ve messed up, admit it, apologise, fix whatever went wrong (if it’s fixable) and then move on.  And if the mess involves a customer or supplier then some sort of gesture might be in order.

 

And do this fast – that’ll minimise the damage done and will also show integrity.  And that might just be a sound business investment!

 

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On Monday I was in Dublin for meetings with existing and prospective customers.  When the work was finished I took a few minutes to enjoy the sunshine on a park bench in the wonderful St. Stephen’s Green.

 

I found myself looking at the pigeons.  And they were ALL fat.  (Excuse the poor resolution of the photo – hopefully there’ll be more megapixels on my next phone upgrade!)

 

But back to the pigeons…   Why were they fat?   It’s obvious – they know where to find food.

 

And where do they find the food?  Yep – right where they found it the last time.

 

Dubliners of all ages have fed the pigeons in St. Stephens’s Green for generations.  And hopefully they’ll still be doing it when I’m 6 feet under.  Those pigeons’ ancestors were probably fat too!

 

So who has fed your business recently?  And which of those feeders has fed you the best?  And are you keeping in touch with the best feeders?  And proactively thinking of how you can help them in their businesses?

 

Of course it’s prudent to source new feeders for the future.  But they should supplement the ones already feeding you well!

 

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My sons were sick yesterday so I took some time off to spend with them. They improved as the day wore on and we ended up outside playing football.

 

I was in goals and Aidan (6) took a shot which I managed to save. “Great save” I exclaimed. “Self praise is no praise” was his retort. We laughed. I’ve been trying to teach him humility and he had turned the tables.

 

The incident reminded me of the regularity with which companies and organisations blow their own trumpet – without any basis for so doing.

 

Have you ever experienced customer service of a lower quality than the provider says they provide?

 

If you’re like me the answer’s a resounding “yes”.

 

Where does this disconnect come from?

 

Well it can obviously be because the provider doesn’t actually ask their customers about the customer service they receive – the providers simply believe they’re doing a great job.

 

And, even if they do ask their customers, they may be asking the wrong questions or even asking the right questions in the wrong way!

 

In contrast, here’s an example of a business going about things the right way.

 

The lesson?  A good policy is to avoid saying something unless you know you can back it up.

 

And if you do want to use positive stories as part of your marketing – then perhaps let such positive stories come from your customers as opposed to from yourself!

 

If you don’t have such positive stories well then there’s an action for you – to either ask for them or to earn them!  Get in touch if you want help getting those stories!

 

Meanwhile, next time I’m playing with my sons, I’ll try and praise them rather than myself!

 

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Recently I was working with a client who sells a high-value product to consumers and we were reviewing the state of his business.  The review included a look at customer satisfaction – as he seemingly “got” the importance of satisfied customers.

 

When I probed this with him he told me proudly that it had been 2 years since they had received a complaint.  It wasn’t said smugly – just in a pleased and self-satisfied way.  He took it as an affirmation – and to a degree he was right.

 

But guess what?  When I probed some more it became apparent that, besides having a small amount of anecdotal feedback, he was unable to answer any of the following questions:

 

• What do his customers appreciate about what his company does?
• In the eyes of his customers, what distinguishes his company from its competitors?
• Why is he losing customers?
• What is he doing badly that he could improve upon?
• Is there anything he’s failing to offer his customers that they are looking for from him?
• Might his customers be interested in the other products and services that he offers?

 

So – why was he flying blind?  Simple.  He hadn’t asked the questions!  In the eyes of his customers he was actually guilty of perceived indifference!

 

And guess what that does?  Yep – it loses you customers!

 

So you know those customers of yours?  Avoid making them think you’re indifferent to them!  Get in touch if you feel you may need help in this area.

 

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In your business what do you do when you have a failure? Do you recognise it as such? Or do you make excuses?

 

If you do recognise it as such, do you diagnose what it is that you did wrong?

 

If you do diagnose what you did wrong do you plan to remedy whatever is within your control?

 

And do you follow through on those remedial plans?

 

All of us can and should be able to answer YES to those 4 questions.

 

We (Ireland) have our work cut out this evening to get a result in an important Soccer World Cup qualifier in Stockholm against Sweden – a Swedish team including Zlatan Ibrahimović – one of the world’s top strikers.

 

Are we the stronger team? No.

 

So – should we just roll over and surrender? No.

 

Can we win? Yes.

 

Should we aim to win? Absolutely.

 

One thing is sure – we have zero chance of winning unless our attitude is right. So I was disappointed this week to read one of our players – Sean St. Ledger – making excuses for why we were beaten in the Euros last summer by Spain. Ok – Spain are a wonderful team. But so what? Is that any consolation? It shouldn’t be. Particularly as we played badly against them. Our sharpness was lacking. We sat back too much and invited them on. Our marking was woeful – in particular for Cesc Fabregas’ 4th goal.

 

So – you may have significant challenges in your business – challenges that are intimidating and which you’re tempted to hide from. But you can face those challenges – and focus your efforts on those areas where you do have control – like maybe assigning someone to man-mark Zlatan like a leech for 90 minutes!

 

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For your business you’ll nearly always want to know why something is happening – not just that it is happening.

 

You don’t want to know why simply out of curiosity.  That’s useless.  You want to know why so that you can take action.

 

Imagine a customer satisfaction survey shows you that your customers are less happy than they were before.  Ok – that should set the alarm bells ringing – as you can expect a downturn in sales – and you could suffer reputational damage.  So you need to find out why they are less happy.  You need to know what’s going wrong so that your remedial action can be correctly targeted.

 

Or you’ve run an employee workshop and have learnt that your employees are more engaged than they were before.  Why?  What have you been doing to cause that?  If you can identify that then you can be sure to maintain it or maybe even do more of it.

 

One morning recently I was listening to the radio and a woman was being interviewed about a survey that showed a reduction in the number of women employed in Ireland in senior management positions.  I’m not sure whether she was involved directly in the research or if she was simply there to talk about the results.

 

In any case, the interviewer thankfully asked her what explanation she had for the observed downward trend.  She said she had none – but that they “surmise” that it was because of the recession.

 

Now before she went too much further I began to tune her out because of firstly her honesty over not having an explanation but also secondly because of her use of the word “surmise”.

 

I’ve always thought that “surmise” means the same thing as “guess”.  I checked www.dictionary.com and yep – the “guess” word is there – as is “conjecture”.  The site also says that to “surmise” is to “think or infer without certain or strong evidence”.

 

When I’m designing a questionnaire for a client, whether it’s to be used in an online survey, focus group or interview, I always use the “why” word to probe.

 

Try to never surmise.  Doing so might cause you to head off in a wrong direction and perhaps even take counterproductive action!

 

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