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Articles filed in: Success
More Customers Vs. More For Customers
filed in Marketing, Strategy, Success
Every business begins with the founder’s intention about the outcome he or she wants to achieve. Every aspect of its development stems from that original intent.
As businesses owners, leaders and creators, we can adopt one of two strategies. We can build a business with the intention of getting more customers, or we can want more for our customers.
The outcome we want shapes the kind of business we build.
And the flip side, of course, is that when we want more for our customers, we end up being the kind of company more people want to do business with.
Image by Garry Knight
Why Didn’t It Work?
We’ve been learning by trial and error since we were six months old when we first noticed the effect of our actions on objects. As children we developed skills by learning from our mistakes, paying attention to what didn’t work as well as to what did.
As adults, we are not so keen to see our failures as an opportunity to learn. We might lament about the product launch that didn’t go to plan. The meeting that didn’t pay off. The idea that flopped. But often instead of asking why, we throw the baby out with the bathwater. And in that moment we overlook the opportunity to learn from our failures.
We didn’t learn to build a sandcastle or ride a bike by giving up and moving onto something new right away. We worked out what we needed to adjust, and we adjusted.
The path to success is progressive and iterative. We get there by being brave enough to ask the hard questions along the way.
Nurture Vs. Growth
filed in Storytelling, Strategy, Success
It’s virtually impossible to think of building a successful business (or life) without having the intention to grow. But sometimes growth for growth’s sake can be a trap. The idea that we have to make a particular metric go up at all costs can lead to unintended compromises. What if instead of thinking about growing our businesses, our expertise or our influence, we thought about how we could nurture them instead?
When we begin to think in terms of nurturing (protecting something while it grows), we are compelled to be more intentional about how we grow. And focusing on how makes all the difference.
Why does your business need to grow?
How does it need to grow?
What does sustainable growth look like for you?
What are you unwilling to compromise on to achieve growth?
What else should you consider before making your next move?
Every journey involves making two decisions. We happily get to where we’re going by figuring out where we want to end up and how we want to get there. Success comes in more than one flavour.
Image by Garry Knight
The Shorthand Trap
Everywhere we look in our digital world we increasingly see options to choose digital shorthand over a handcrafted, personal response. Gmail’s Smart Reply and Smart Compose features for responding to emails, and LinkedIn’s convenient Quick Replies will save us time today, but what might they cost us in the long run? Who do we become when we allow ourselves to communicate on auto-pilot instead of thoughtfully, with humanity?
Emoji are convenient and getting to inbox zero feels good. But if we don’t take time to find the words to say what we mean what do we sacrifice?
There is not shorthand for caring. No substitute for deep connection. There is no shortcut either.
We have to do the work of being the kind of people who make the effort to build the relationships we want if we are to create the future we want to see. What if we saw communicating longhand as an opportunity?
Image by Garry Knight
Adding Value By Subtraction
filed in Innovation, Strategy, Success
When we’re innovating a product or iterating a service, we tend to add value by introducing features and benefits. But more isn’t always better.
Sometimes improvements and progress are made by removing things that people wouldn’t miss.
What could you subtract or stop doing to improve your product or service?
Image by Garry Knight
Missed
filed in Storytelling, Success
If Jason suddenly stopped coaching at our local gym, we would miss how he tries to get the best from everyone, even when we don’t feel like getting the best from ourselves. Plenty of people would miss the energy James and his team create at KereKere cafe, their warm welcome and the intention behind everything they do.
Commutes would be a lot duller if Bruce stopped driving his tram tomorrow. We would miss being able to pop out to buy fresh organic vegetables on a Sunday if Maggie’s closed and the smell of baking bread every morning at Fatto A Mano if they stopped opening their doors.
No day would be the same without the wisdom of Seth’s blog. No week complete without the joy of Tina’s Friday linkpack. If the internet went down, I would miss the inspiration of the members of the Right Company and the readers of my blog, including you.
The world would be better for our being here if we started every day with the intention of being missed tomorrow.
Image by Garry Knight
One Of The Few
Few organisations look past the data to see the humanity of the client behind the numbers.
Few companies act as if it’s a privilege to serve their customers.
Few people take time to listen twice as much as they speak.
Few products are made with love.
In a world where we are doing our best to fit in, it’s easy to fall into the trap of emulating what most people are doing. We make our biggest contribution when we dare to do what only a handful will do. Being one of the few is underrated.
Image by Garry Knight
Just Because You Can
The role of the hotel concierge can be a challenging one. The concierge has to think on his feet. He must immediately earn each new guest’s trust, give people what they don’t always know they want and solve problems on the fly. Some people are better at this than others. The good concierge knows the answers to questions that could be found in a couple of Google searches. But those well-worn answers are not the ones that transform a good experience into a great one.
A gifted concierge will offer answers to the questions that the guest hadn’t thought to ask. He will empathise, anticipate and delight—going out of his way to be creative and do work he’s proud of—just because he can.
It’s possible in every job to learn your lines, stick to the script and offer the required solution. Nobody will question your competence if you show up on time, put in the hours and don’t make mistakes. But the work that’s most appreciated and valued now isn’t simply the compliant or the competent—it’s the creative work you do, not because it’s required, but because you can.
Image by Jane and Phil
Keep Your Eye On The Ball
It was hard not to get swept up by the Serena Williams, US Open final story this week. It was difficult to avoid joining the debate about how it could all have played out differently if only this had been said or that had been done.
That time spent thinking about what should have been done, meant we spent less time working on some of the important things we could have done. We took our eye off the ball for a second.
That’s what Serena did too.
Our progress in any arena depends on us taking the opportunity to fix the things we can control, instead of focusing on the one thing we can’t.
Image by Helsingborgs Dagblad
Ways To Win
filed in Success
We, the keepers of our culture, keep score. We like to measure our progress. Come out on top.
Be first. We like to win.
In our attempt to find a way to do that, we have learned to measure and value things in ways that are often disproportionate to their benefit to us. How we keep score changes the games we play, the businesses we build and the societies we are part of.
How we play changes us.
Winning is never only about coming first.
We are how we win, not that we came first or who we beat.
Image by Luna