Category: Blog

Have you any interest in history?

Whether you do or not, you probably didn’t escape from school without giving at least some passing consideration to the 1917 Russian Revolution.

And you wouldn’t be alone if you found it confusing.  The Tsar, then Lenin, Trotsky, & Stalin.

I well remember my own initial confusion.  Until I read a certain novel.  And then it all fell magically into place.

The book was George Orwell’s Animal Farm.  At face value it was about animals overthrowing a cruel farmer and what then transpired when the animals were in charge of themselves.  But the book was actually a skilful allegory that captured events in Russia beautifully.

One of the quotes I remember from it is that “All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others”.  The romantic, idealised view of communism was that all people should be treated fairly, workers owning the means of production, the withering away of the state, etc.  However, Orwell with the above quote captured the reality of things – that those in charge of communist states don’t think we’re all equal.

What has this got to do with your business?

Just substitute “customer” for “animal”!  Many businesses, by and large, treat their customers the same.

Huge mistake.

Imagine you’ve two customers.  One delivers you a profit.  The other delivers you a loss.

Now also imagine that the one delivering you the loss is of no strategic or long-term value.  So you’ve no factor other than P&L to consider in whether or not to retain them.

What happens if you fire that customer?

Two great things happen:

Firstly you increase your profit.

Secondly, you do less work.

Business heaven I’d call that!  It may sound too good to be true but it’s simple maths!

And that heaven is eminently possible because some customers are more equal than others!

How do you currently treat your customers?  All the same?  Or maybe you’re a ‘squeakiest wheel’ supplier as my friend James calls some people, i.e., he who shouts loudest gets your attention?

Or perhaps you treat them more systematically in a manner that reflects their relative importance to you?  In a way that will have the best impact on your bottom line?

Your decisions regarding treatment of customers can have a huge impact on your business.  Such decisions should be based on data.  Better data will produce better decisions.

Gathering that type of data is something I can help with.  You’ve to take the first step though.

And that first step?

Book a free 15-minute call with me here and let’s talk.  We’ll quickly find out if you’ve a need that I can potentially help with.

Do you belong to a public library?

In our house we all do – and a couple of times a month I bring the kids to it.  It’s a wonderful haven – thanks to the philanthropy of Andrew Carnegie and others.  It also saves us many hundreds of euros a year as our two boys are voracious readers with wide-ranging interests.

I got a book out for myself recently – a collection of new Irish Short Stories.

Superb stuff by and large.

One was about a boy’s interactions with the Devil – interactions that continued as he grew into adulthood.  The Devil fascinated him – particularly the Devil’s uncanny ability to know what was really going on in people’s heads and hearts.

Here’s how the writer put it himself: “It was as if he could jump at will into their heads, see through their eyes; he could intuit exactly what it was they wanted, the specific lacks and yearnings that gave them traction on the world, he could understand.”

Can you see the applicability of that to your business?

As I read it I thought it also had accidentally captured something crucial to us in business – to truly know the person we are delivering (or attempting to deliver) our products/services to.

Who’s your market?  Anyone with a pulse and a credit card?  Or have you defined a niche?  And how well do you know what’s going on in the minds and hearts of your prospects?  Of your customers?

And could more such knowledge allow you to better orientate what you do?  And help you better serve them?  And thereby make more money?

PS: If you fancy reading some great Irish Short Stories here’s the book.  Or you can perhaps get it in the library!  And the above extract is from “How I Beat The Devil” by Paul Murray.

You have customers that you are actively working with.

Or I hope you do!

And you have lapsed customers – the type that you did something for and things are just sitting there now – waiting till they come back to you or you approach them.

And you should kick yourself in the arse if you’re not doing anything to keep in touch with them.  But that’s a topic for another day.

Today I want to talk about something a little different.

I got the idea last week when I was scrolling through the <Customers> folder on my computer.  And I noticed there were some ex customers in there – people I’ll never do business with again.  Of course for archiving purposes I need to retain some project detail.  But I also wanted to reduce clutter.

So I moved them to a new folder – <ex_Customers>.

And what struck me were the innocent reasons why they’re ex-customers:

• One closed his restaurants and so doesn’t need any more customer satisfaction surveys.
• One graduated from college and didn’t need any more tutoring on research.
• One decided not to proceed with opening a pet crematorium – unique idea eh?
• One changed career to reduce stress and to create space to reconnect with his semi-estranged son.
• Another retired.
• Etc…

And what’s common to all the above is that none of their “departures” reflect on my performance.

I’m going to hypothesise that you too have such ex-customers – customers whom you can no longer sell to – through no fault of your own.

What has this got to do with your business?

It’s not enough to simply service your current customers well or even to find out how to make them even happier.  Neither can you passively rely on their goodwill to get you referrals.  You need new customers – if only to offset the type of benign attrition I mentioned above.

You need to actively sell & market whatever it is that you do!

And I’m the exact same.  My November is definitely not where I want it to be in terms of new sales.  Maybe it’s partially seasonal.  Maybe it’s partially because I’m extra busy with delivery and that’s reducing my business development bandwidth.

But that doesn’t matter.  Most businesses have cycles.  I’m just saying that you’re a fool – and I’m a fool – if we just rely on servicing existing customers.

 

You’ve undoubtedly been asked “Are you busy?” countless times.

 

There are the colleagues in your business asking you.  There are friends.  And then there are people in your business circle – suppliers, peers, clients, etc.

 

When it’s colleagues in your business they’re typically looking for your attention for something that’s on their agenda.

 

With others it’s often just making casual chat – like commenting on the weather the way Irish people do all the time.

 

Perhaps for some they’re actually wondering how your sales are.

 

But let’s just take the question at face value:

 

Are you busy?

 

Of course you are.  You’re working.  Or you should be :-).

 

Maybe one day you’ll reach the extraordinary heights of being able to work less than full-time while having a fulfilling and lucrative business.

 

But you’re not there yet.

 

So yes – for now you’re busy.

 

And you might even be productive – though beware confusing activity with achievement.  We all do it.  We all sometimes work and achieve nothing of importance.

 

So our goal should not be to be less busy.  Our goal should be to be relentlessly effective in how we deploy our limited resources.

 

There’ll always be too much that needs to be done.  Get used to that.  If you can’t handle that then perhaps you shouldn’t be in business.

 

The trick is to be comfortable with what you choose not to do.  And to get that comfort requires you to be aware of all that needs to be done.  Only with that awareness can you be at peace with what you’ve chosen to do – a peace that comes from you knowing that you’ve first eliminated all the unknown unknowns and secondly the known unknowns.  More on that in another post.

 

 

 

Today will see the Electoral College confirm Donald Trump as the new President of the US.

 

I predicted an Electoral College landslide for Clinton.

 

Boy was I wrong!  Why?

 

The vagaries of the Electoral College gave Trump a win even with him losing the popular vote by a significant margin.

 

Perhaps FBI Director Comey’s reopening of the email investigation was a factor.  Perhaps Russia was a factor.

 

The race narrowed as polling approached.  Was that Republicans “coming home”?  Who knows?  But the gap between them in many polls approaching Election Day did have Trump within the margin of error, i.e., his numbers were within that +/- 3% margin.

 

But I’m not alone in still wondering “Why?”

 

Maybe pollsters are too hung up on margins of error.  It’s no use having a small margin of error if your sample is unrepresentative.  E.g., if you’re a polling company that only phones landlines then you’re missing all those people who only have mobiles.  And perhaps people with only mobiles tend to be younger?

 

Having an unrepresentative sample can happen by accident or by design.  When it happens it’s often because of a sampling bias, e.g., only calling landlines.

 

Or let’s go back to the Presidential Election of 1936 in America – when telephones were a luxury.  The Literary Digest ran a poll that predicted Franklin D. Roosevelt would get 43% and that his opponent would get 57%.

 

The actual result?  Roosevelt got 62%.

 

Yep – the poll was off by 19%.

 

And one of the problems was that, even though they had a tiny margin of error, they used mainly telephone directories as well as club membership lists and magazine subscriber lists.

 

The effect?

 

Large swathes of the population were excluded from the sample.

 

A small but representative sample is better than a large but unrepresentative one!

 

Who did FDR beat?  Lost to history!  And when did the Literary Digest meet its demise?  Just 2 years later – 1938.  And who did correctly predict FDR’s win?  Using a much smaller sample?  Gallup – and they’re still going strong!

 

 

I had a coffee recently.

 

Nothing very surprising about that.  I love coffee and am probably addicted to it.

 

But there were two things different about this coffee:

 

1 : It was in a lovely location – Kilkenny’s Design Centre.

2 : It was face-to-face with a client.

 

He kindly agreed to sit down with me so that I could talk with – sorry “survey” him about a recent project that I carried out for him.

 

It proved to be a win:win situation – and that’s exactly what I was hoping for when I requested the meeting.

 

His perspective: He was motivated to share with me his thoughts – somewhat I believe out of kindness – but also I’m sure so that he can get a bigger return on investment if there is a next time.

 

My perspective: I’ve identified how I can do a better job for him if he uses me again in the future.  And I’ve also increased my chances of him using me again in the future.  And the type of work I did for him can be sold to others – so I’ve enhanced my service offering in general.

 

For help with how you too can enhance the satisfaction levels of your own customers, and benefit financially from that, go here.

 

If you’d like to receive posts like this as emails, just sign up in the box below.  I blog infrequently – whereas I email my list more frequently.  Sign up to avoid missing out!

 

 

 

There I was recently listening to the lunchtime news while enjoying a cheese, salami & coleslaw sandwich.  Probably hundreds of calories and utterly delicious.

 

Anyway, the news report was yet another report on obesity.  To be honest the topic typically bores me but this report did catch my attention.

 

They were criticising fat-shaming.  Now I’d have no issue with that – it’s normally ugly behaviour to deliberately try and shame another human being   But they went further. They said that obese people are not responsible for being obese.

 

Why?  They offered a few reasons:

 

• Some people’s genes pre-dispose them towards obesity.
• There are insufficient “walkways” to encourage walking.
• There is widespread availability of unhealthy snacks.

 

Ok – maybe I’m genetically predisposed towards being slightly heavier than the norm.  But I’d need to be 2 stone (13 kg) heavier than I am now in order to be obese.  There’s no way a genetic predisposition could account for that.

 

The only way that I can become obese is that if I consistently eat too much bad stuff and/or don’t exercise sufficiently.  And, in normal circumstances, whether or not that happens is 100% within my own control.

 

Do I have a second sandwich?  Do I steal one of my sons’ countless Easter eggs?  Do I say “no” to a football game with my mates out of pure laziness?  Do I plonk my arse on the couch tonight and have a few lovely ice-cold Heinekens?  These are all my choices.

 

And how does this affect your business?

 

Your circumstances can be tough.  You can even be consistently unlucky.  But you still have choices.  That’s what I love about business.  We always have choices that influence our own fortunes.

 

When you finish reading this blog will you go browse facebook?  Or will you actually go do something positive for your business?  Will you take care of a few easy and unimportant tasks or will you focus on progressing something important?

 

We always have choices!

 

If you’d like to receive posts like this as emails, just sign up in the box below.  I blog infrequently – whereas I email my list more frequently.  Sign up to avoid missing out!

 

 

Recently I did a survey on a primary school’s music programme.

 

Well it was actually 3 distinct questionnaires – one for the pupils, a second for the teachers and a third for the parents.

 

Now if you’re like most readers of my blog then you’re an entrepreneur – working to drive your business forward.  And you may be wondering how might a school survey be relevant to you.

 

Let me explain.

 

After all the answers had been collected and inputted into a spreadsheet, I was analysing the results.  And the answers from parents to one particular question caught my attention.

 

It was a question probing why some parents do not play any musical instruments themselves.  It was a “tick a box” type question – where parents could select options such as lack of time, lack of interest, etc.  But they could also specify other reasons.  And the word that kept cropping up was “opportunity” – more precisely – the lack thereof.

 

They were looking back at their childhood and pointing out how the opportunity to learn never presented itself.  Entirely understandable.  Entirely legitimate.  But also entirely historical.

 

But what about now?  The question they were asked was about why they do not play now.

 

Have you all the expertise you need to run your business as well as possible?  Delegating, outsourcing and recruiting can all help fill gaps in expertise.  But, notwithstanding that, is there stuff that you personally should learn?

 

If your answer is yes then I’ll ask you the question I felt like asking some of those parents: Why not now?  You’re not a prisoner of what happened (or didn’t happen) when you were a child.

 

By the way, Irish schools are required by our Government to assess themselves.  That’s where the impetus for that music survey came from.  Details on the service I provide to schools to help with this are School Self-Evaluation.

 

    If you’d like to receive posts like this as emails, just sign up in the box below.  I blog infrequently – whereas I email my list more frequently.  Sign up to avoid missing out!

 

 

So which came first – the chicken or the egg?

 

It’s a brilliant question – destined to cause creased foreheads and even headaches if someone tries to figure it out.  I’ve an answer for you.  But first I want to tell you about another chicken and egg scenario.

 

China recently announced that it’s reversing its 35 year-old one child policy.  The official line is that the policy was a success – by limiting the population and growing the economy’s output the per-capita income grew.

 

But maybe it’s not so simple.  Picture the one child policy as the chicken – and the income growth as the egg.  And now ask – which came first?

 

To try and answer that we should look beyond China to what happens in other countries that do not constrain the number of children people can have.  And, guess what?  Birth rates typically decrease with increasing income!

 

So remember the chicken and egg conundrum the next time someone claims, with respect to two things happening at the same time, that one thing caused the other.  Firstly, it may actually have been the reverse!  And, not to be cynical or anything, but you might also get closer to the truth if you probe to see if the people making the claim have a vested interest in the claim being true!

 

Of course if you’re a bright spark and/or if you’ve been reading my emails for any length of time you’ll know that there’s also the possibility that neither caused the other.  This is because correlation doesn’t imply causation.  Rest assured I’ll return to that topic in the future.

 

The moral of the story?  Simple.  If you’re ever having the results of research being analysed by someone, be sceptical when that someone claims that a change in one variable caused a change in another.  Challenge them.  Is the connection they’re drawing based on valid research measures?

 

And as to the big chicken & egg question?  The answer is that it’s the egg – here’s a wonderful explanatory video – less than 4 minutes long.

 

    If you’d like to receive posts like this as emails, just sign up in the box below.  I blog infrequently – whereas I email my list more frequently.  Sign up to avoid missing out!