How to Lead Your Way to Customer Loyalty

/3 Comments/in , , , /by

Business in Blue JeansToday’s post is by Susan Baroncini-Moe, author of Business in Blue Jeans: How to Have a Successful Business on Your Own terms, in Your Own Style (CLICK HERE to get your copy).

There’s no disputing that retaining customers is far more cost-effective to a business than recruiting new ones. But it’s getting harder and harder to develop customer loyalty. On the flip side, some companies seem to be able to get it right from the start. What does it take to create loyalty so strong that your customers keep coming back for more?

The Three E’s

1. Empowered Employees

Your first loyalty is to your employees. Why do they come first? Because your employees are on the front lines. They’re the ones serving your clients and customers directly and they’re the face of your business, representing your brand every single day. If you want your customers to be happy, you’d better make sure your employees are happy. How do you create a happy work force?

Hire Well. You start by hiring well. Hire people who fit into the corporate culture and who will be team players. It’s not just their skill set that matters—skills can be learned. What you can’t teach or train so easily is the soft skills—people skills—and the way people think. Focus on hiring for culture and personality and put people in the right positions where they can succeed, then worry about any additional skills training.

Compensate Well. Make sure your compensation structure is competitive. The first, best way to retain top talent is to offer generous salaries and compensation packages, because employees who aren’t paid well tend to look at their jobs as “just a way to pay the bills,” rather than being truly invested in how well they do their jobs. When employees are paid well, compensated in a variety of ways, and shown appreciation for their efforts, they tend to perform well in their jobs and to care about the results they get for their customers and for their company.

Read more

10 Uncommon Annual Planning Actions that Drive Customer and Employee Growth

/3 Comments/in , , , /by

Chief Customer OfficerToday’s post is by Jeanne Bliss, author of Chief Customer Officer and I Love You More than My Dog (CLICK HERE to get your copies).

Annual planning is the Achilles heel of driving a united customer culture. Every silo or department determines how much money they have to spend, then each creates their individual plans and correlating score cards. Activities frequently focus only on the money – not on the behavior of the organization and what they want to stand for and show up as in the marketplace – based on their decisions and actions.

As you begin your annual planning cycle, here are 10 actions that business leaders and their organizations should focus on first – before the financial planning cycle – to increase customer loyalty and drive profitable business growth.

1. Believe in the integrity of your customers. The majority of business policies and rules are created to protect business from the minority of customers. Be bold, like Connecticut Griffin Hospital, which began sharing hospital records with patients and saw claims against the hospital drop by more than 43 percent. Take a leap of faith and believe that trust is reciprocated by customers when they feel that you trust them.

2. Invest in employee trust. Show your employees that you believe in them. Beloved company Wegmans invests in its employees by training them in the skills that remove rules, regulations, policies, and procedures that pen employees in. This enables Wegmans to throw away the rule book and live by this one edict: “No customer goes away unhappy.” As a result, its margins are higher and profitability more steady because the grocer’s turnover is only 7 percent of employees versus the 19 percent average in its industry.

3. Practice democratic decision making. Give good ideas a chance to prosper no matter where they come from in your organizational chart. Innovation and marketplace differentiation come when employees are respected as part of achieving a mission greater than their set of tasks. W.L. Gore has become a $2.7 billion dollar company, and earned a place on Fortune magazine’s best companies to work for list since its inception, because of how the company unleashes its employees’ spirit and ideas.

Read more

How Being Relevant Creates Competitive Advantage

/3 Comments/in , , /by

It's Already Inside Book CoverToday, Robert Murray, author of It’s Already Inside (CLICK HERE to get your copy) shares thoughts on how your organization can build a competitive advantage.

Lots gets said and written about leadership and strategy. Complex theories and models abound. Leaders (usually the ones with some sort of inferiority complex) use really big words and acronyms that only confuse things even more. No wonder most businesses today languish in a constant state of mediocrity.

I once worked with a PhD from one of the finest business schools in the world that would often say; “We’re not doing that. It’s too simple.” The results were a culture that was reduced to a toxic tar pit and a customer base that slipped 17% in one year – eroding $200MM in shareholder value.

Here’s the secret sauce (so to speak) though – be relevant. Be relevant to your people, partners and your customers. It is the competitive advantage that will set you apart from the crowd.

What does “being relevant” mean?

When business leaders get complicated with their models and convoluted mumbo jumbo, it always comes from what they teach in business schools and it is all left brain thinking.

People, on the other hand, make all their decisions from an emotionally based perception of their own reality, which is all right brain thinking. It is different for each individual – there is no one size fits all.

Read more

What Zappos Can Teach You About Competing and Winning

/2 Comments/in , , , , , /by

Dr. Joseph MichelliIt’s an honor and a privilege to bring you some thoughts from bestselling author Dr. Joseph Michelli (author of The Zappos Experience and The Starbucks Experience) on how to reduce the risk of becoming a commodity. Enough of me… here’s Joseph.

Every business is at risk of becoming a commodity. So how is it that some travel agents still thrive after the advent of Priceline and Travelocity? Why do some companies maintain premium pricing while similar businesses have to resort to discounting to attract price sensitive consumers? And the most important question of all, how can YOU assure that YOUR business doesn’t fall into the commodization trap?

The Zappos ExperienceThe recent recession has only reinforced the economic truth that brands that “wow” customers – thrive and survive! Conversely, brands that simply satisfy consumers are at the risk of extinction! While the lessons, I’m sharing here could’ve just as easily been drawn from my books about Starbucks, Ritz-Carlton, the Pike Place Fish Market, or the UCLA Health System, I’ll offer insights and tools courtesy of Zappos (The Zappos Experience: 5 Principles to Inspire, Engage and WOW).

Zappos is an online retailer who defied the odds and built an Internet empire, initially as a virtual shoe store and now expanding its inventory well beyond shoes alone. Zappos has always charged top dollar for its products and has succeeded primarily because they innovated an experience that consistently exceeds the expectations of customers, vendors, and people who simply encounter the brand.

To help you appreciate how Zappos might serve as a provocative benchmark for your customer experience, let me cover the 5 principles outlined in The Zappos Experience:

Read more

Business Ethics Ain’t Rocket Science

/7 Comments/in , , /by

Rocket Science Diagrams on ChalkboardToday’s post is by Allen Laudenslager and Bryan Neva Sr.  You can learn more about them at the end of the post.

The famous U.S. Army General H. Norman Schwarzkopf once said, “The truth of the matter is that you always know the right thing to do… the hard part is doing it!”  Likewise, the answer to most business problems is usually obvious as well.

Consider this – when was the last time you were really stumped for a solution to a problem?  In most cases, the hardest things about solving the problem were the obstacles of personalities, politics, or cost.  Taken together, these obstacles usually make the obvious solution very hard if not impossible to implement.  These are failures of an organization’s values, guiding principles, and ethics.

Twenty years ago, my elderly mother came to live with me due to her declining health.  She sold her home and hired a moving company to move her furniture and transport her car via trailer from New England to Virginia (primarily to minimize the mileage).  When the moving van and car arrived, it was obvious that the car had not been transported but driven instead.  When questioned, the driver admitted that they had driven the car and not transported it as they had been contracted to do.

When I called the moving company’s main office to complain, the representative asked what I wanted them to do about it.  My only reply was “What would you expect someone to do if it was your mother!” Shortly thereafter, the driver came back to tell us that they were refunding the cost of transporting the car.

When a customer calls about a problem with your product or service. You generally know right off hand what the right thing to do is: either fix it, replace it, or refund their money.  But company management may complain that “if we fix every problem for every customer then how are we supposed to make a profit?”  Well, if your company’s product or service has so many customer problems that fixing them impacts profits, then fix the product or service!  It ain’t rocket science!

Read more

A Simple Formula for Business Success

/5 Comments/in , , , /by

Awesomely Simple by John SpenceToday’s post is by John Spence – author of Awesomely Simple – Essential Business Strategies for Turning Ideas into Action.  He’s going to take hundreds of thousands of pages of information and boil it down into a simple formula for business success.  Seriously.  Here’s John…

As global markets become increasingly more competitive and financial turmoil worldwide continues to put pressure on nearly every type of business, I have had more and more organizations approach me to assist them in finding ways to be more competitive and successful in today’s economy. Although there is absolutely no “one size fits all” solution, to me the absolute most powerful strategy is to make sure that the core elements of your business are running so incredibly well that your customers absolutely love doing business with you and are eager to tell their friends, family and colleagues about your products and services. All the marketing tricks, ads and social media efforts in the world simply cannot overcome poor quality or lackluster customer service.

That is why for the past 19 years my career has focused exclusively on studying the fundamental elements of business success. Traveling worldwide at upwards of 200 days a year, I have worked shoulder to shoulder with some of the best (and worst) business leaders of our generation. I’ve also maintained a strict regimen of reading a minimum of 100 business books a year since 1989.

In preparation for writing my book Awesomely Simple, I compiled all of my research and reading down to a single page that I called my “Strategy Map.” This single piece of paper represented more than 175,000 pages of reading on business excellence and an additional 5,000 pages of interview notes and survey results from my work as a consultant and trainer. I then took all of that information and tried to uncover the pattern… the formula for business success. Well, here is what I came up with:

 (T+C+ECF) x DE = Business Success

Let me take you step-by-step through the elements of this equation.

Read more

Best of thoughtLEADERS 2011: The Awesomest Posts Ever

/0 Comments/in , , , , , , , , , , , , , , /by

Mike Figliuolo TrophyThis year is almost over so it’s time for the year in review list of the BEST posts we’ve published in 2011.  It’s time for the 2011 edition of The Figgies (here are the 2010 and 2009 editions).

This is an annual event here at the thoughtLEADERS Blog.  Here’s how it goes: this list is comprised of our most viewed, most forwarded, quirkiest, most provocative work as judged by you the readers. There’s also a kicker bonus post on the list just for good measure (it’s a “wayback” – and speaking of wayback, check out the photo on the trophy… yes… that’s me ’80’s style baby!).

Enjoy. Share. We’ve loved writing them. We hope you’ve enjoyed reading them. I don’t ask a lot of you folks so I have two small requests as your holiday gift to me (you are getting me something, right?):

1. Invite all your coworkers, friends, and family to come check out the blog and become readers. The only way we get better is by raising everyone’s game. I’m not asking a lot here.  If you found this blog helpful at all this year, here’s your chance to return the favor for all our hard work. Just email folks and tell ’em to come take a look.

2. Pick up a copy of One Piece of Paper: The Simple Approach to Powerful Personal Leadership.  Yes – I know I talk a lot about the book but it’s not for the money (I would have made more money if I worked in a sweat shop in Asia making sneakers).  I talk a lot about it because I’m evangelical about the topic.  Buy it.  Read it.  In the words of Roland Smith (CEO of Wendy’s) “It could change your life.”

Thanks for your incredible support in ’11 and best wishes for ’12! We hope to be a part of your future success!

Enough preamble. Here’s the best stuff we’ve written all year:

Read more

BBQ, Planes, and Coffee – Keys to Customer Loyalty

/1 Comment/in , /by

I’m fortunate enough to travel to some great places to serve my clients. During those travels I can’t help but have many customer service interactions from which to draw lessons. Today I’ll share how BBQ, airplanes, and coffee can teach you a few things to do (or not do) to create a better experience for your customers.

Coffee

Last week I was in Chicago and Memphis. In Chicago, I showed up early for a breakfast meeting. I got there 15 minutes before the client team arrived. The restaurant was still setting up the private room for breakfast. The wait staff was running around doing last minute preparations. I decided to stay out of their way and await the arrival of the client.

The hostess was helping set up the room (apparently the team was a little short-staffed that morning). When I arrived, she stopped what she was doing and asked if I would like some coffee. When I eagerly said “Yes!” she set down what she was working on, went and got me a cup of coffee, went back into the kitchen and made a second trip to my table to bring some cream and sugar. Her actions sent a clear message – even though she was busy, her customer was more important than what she was working on in that moment.

How often do your team members stop what they’re working on to help a customer? Do they treat the customer’s arrival as something special and important? Have you created a culture where your team is encouraged to behave that way? Consider doing so. It makes a difference.

Read more

3 Lessons on Using Social Media for Your Business, Courtesy of Your Local Mechanic

/7 Comments/in , , /by

Mechanic Using WrenchToday’s guest blogger is Tanveer Naseer. You can read about him at the bottom of this post. If you haven’t read his blog yet, you should go read it and subscribe to it by clicking here. Enjoy!

The start of a new year often fosters discussions over what will be the key events to occur over the next 12 months. So far, many pundits are pointing out how 2011 will be the year of mass adoption by businesses of social media platforms as part of their marketing, management, and employee retention efforts. Given the fact that Facebook has surpassed Google as the most visited site on the internet in 2010, as well as the deepening integration of social media platforms into people’s everyday lives, there’s no question that businesses will have to adapt and incorporate social media into their various processes.

Granted, there are many businesses which are already fairly active on the various social media sites. Of course, while some of them have been shining examples of how businesses should use social media, most are still struggling in large part because they haven’t quite understood how they should be using social media to benefit their organization.

So why are some companies able to join in the social media scene and within a short period, reap the benefits while others were better off before they made the jump into these online social spheres? To help answer this question, I’d like to first start off by sharing this example of an interaction between a small business owner and a customer from the ‘real world.’

Read more

My Top 5 Tips for Entrepreneurs

/4 Comments/in , , /by

Baby Saying If Only I Had ListenedEntrepreneurs have it hard enough as it is. Why make it even harder on yourself with self-defeating behaviors? I know you are saying you would hate to do that but I see these kinds of behaviors all the time. You should know if you are demonstrating them.

If you’re an entrepreneur you pour your heart and soul into your business. You need every edge you can get. The first edge available to you is not doing stupid stuff. In the past month I have spent a lot of time with other entrepreneurs and I have seen a bunch of good things and a bunch of bad things. Today I’ll share some of those observations with the hope you find it helpful and use these perspectives to strengthen your business.

In the past I have covered some other challenges entrepreneurs face and I hereby declare them required reading. So here they are:
– Two traps that destroy entrepreneurs – CLICK HERE TO READ
– Two more traps that destroy entrepreneurs – CLICK HERE TO READ
– Entrepreneurs need to bootstrap to WIN – CLICK HERE TO READ

After you’re done reading them, continue with this post. And I’ll know if you didn’t read them because I can see your clickstream. Not really. But maybe…

The following tips are in no particular order nor are there broad categories they belong to. It’s simply a list of things I have seen go wrong recently and some thoughts on how to avoid those behaviors. Here goes:

Read more

4 Surefire Ways to Destroy Your Brand

/7 Comments/in , , , /by

Branding IronBrands. Some are worth billions of dollars. We revere them. Coca-Cola. Nike. Apple. thoughtLEADERS (hey, a guy can dream, can’t he?). They seem monolithic and untouchable. The dirty little secret is they’re as fragile as a porcelain doll.

A brand is nothing more than a promise. It sets an expectation with a consumer or customer. They know what to expect when they interact with your brand. And I don’t care how big or small your brand is, it promises something to your customers. The operative key to all of this brand building is that point of interaction. That is where your brand is at its most vulnerable.

For example, if you get a can of Coke that’s filthy and the soda in it is flat, the brand is diminished. You tell 10 friends about it and it’s diminished more. You get an iPad that doesn’t work. Same thing. You run into a rude associate at Best Buy and the brand is tarnished. A brand becomes the summation of all those small touch points with your customers. The risk is you’re likely doing some things every day that are putting your own brand at risk.

From where I sit, I’ve seen four major points of failure that destroy brands:

Read more

Valet Park, Self Park or South Park – What’s Your Brand?

/1 Comment/in , , , /by

I’m again happy to bring you AmyK Hutchens as today’s guest blogger (last time she was here she talked about reducing stress). No, that’s not her to the left.  That’s Kenny from South Park.  Here she is:

Stephen J. Cloobeck, Chairman and CEO of Diamond Resorts International, a company with 150+ branded and affiliated resorts in 26 countries, shared that if you want “to bring value to a busted brand, you start with the details.” For Cloobeck, this means a direct access email address available to every customer and a winning smile with the word “yes” at the tip of his tongue. With these details, and a few others, Cloobeck has built one of the largest vacation ownership companies in the world in an era when the words “time share” can leave a bitter taste in your mouth.

Brand Overhaul

How did Cloobeck sustain success despite turbulent times? He started with a brand overhaul, beginning with the classic time share sales pitch. “It was too aggressive,” stated Cloobeck. “We needed to soften the customer experience. We had to bring the value back to a busted brand.” So they shifted the pitch to a connect, and Cloobeck went straight to the consumer’s children to start. When he heard they had a menu kids refused, they added mac n cheese and other child-friendly foods. When he heard the kids were bored, he changed “baby-sitting” hours to outdoor adventure sessions and opportunities for physical and mental activities, and… he added an adult beverage to the “meet & greet” for parents, so they too could have a little more fun. Diamond’s new mantra? We’re listening!

You too can stimulate and reinvent your brand. How do you know if your brand is successful? It creates and retains customers. Successful branding is actually that simple. Ask yourself two questions: What are you promising? How can you best deliver that promise?

Read more

Our Course Offerings

Leadership Skills

Creating Your Leadership Maxims
Leading Inside the Box
Leading With Influence
Leading Through Change
Structured Problem Solving
Deliberate Decision Making
High Performing Teams
Simplified Strategic Planning
Strategic Business Planning
Coaching for Impact: Foundations
Coaching for Impact: Applications
Building Leadership Resilience
Engagement Management
Project Management Reality

Communication Skills

Communications: Foundations
Communications: Applications
Principles of Chart Design
Strategic Client Engagement
Storytelling for Leaders
Storytelling for Salespeople
Compelling Executive Presence
Advanced Facilitation Skills

Individual Skills

Conflict Resolution
Everything is Negotiable
thoughtLEADERSHIP: Innovation
Building Personal Resilience
Time Management Mastery

Coaching & Consulting