Are you Jumping into the New Customer Frenzy?

Everyone is talking about it…  The buzz is all about aggressively acquiring new customers!

• Newly created positions in New Business development
• Advertisements seeking Hunters rather than Farmers
• Newly minted commission plans increasing rewards for new business

Without a doubt the focus is on acquiring new customers.  Its dynamic, it’s exciting and when you land one its exhilarating.  A new customer, new market share, great rewards and the beginning of a new exciting relationship!

Be Very Careful…

The big mistake is forgetting about your current, stable, long-term, loyal customers.  You need to keep supporting the customers that have supported you for years – through the good and the bad.  The customers that built your business, that grew with you and stuck with you when you let them down.

In fact, the real growth opportunity lies in making an effort to put a renewed focus on your strong loyal base of current customers.  Don’t spend all your time trying to impress the customers you don’t have – spend a little more time trying to impress the customers that chose to work with you.  Focus on improving their experience and thank them for working with you.  I bet that you can grow profitable sales faster by asking for new business from current customers than acquiring new accounts from your competitors.

One Last Word

The business world is moving at such a breakneck pace these days we seldom take the time to pause and say thank you to the customers and employees that support our business every day.  With all the internet and email clutter, how can anyone effectively say thank you? 

Let me reintroduce two very effective ways to say ‘ thank you’ to your customers.

1. Pick up the telephone (land line preferable) and say… thank you.
2. Take the time to write, stamp and mail a personal thank you note as often as possible.

You will be amazed how many customers will actually thank you for making the effort to thank them for their business.

Years ago, when I was in Marketing for a major Canadian manufacturer, part of my job was to organize and manage company trade shows.  The biggest show of the year was coming up and I needed some fresh ideas to draw customers into the booth. 

To help me find creative idea’s I had four different promotional companies pitch ideas for the big show.    All of them offered a unique perspective but the company that ultimately won the business presented a full service package that included a way to get customers into the booth, engage them by leading them through a contest and present them with a prize upon completion.  As simple as it sounds the idea addressed a pain point and allowed us to naturally engage with our customers at the show.

I realized later that the account manager that won the business didn’t win it by chance.  He won it by understanding what his customer needed.  Before pitching anything, he made a special effort to meet and discuss our previous trade show successes and failures.  He asked questions about our company, our culture, our objectives and what we liked and didn’t like about trade shows.  He did his research and was able to come back prepared to address our major issues.

The story gets more interesting.  The account manager met me the day before the trade show to present me with the 1200 promotional give away items that I would hand out at the booth the next day.  When we opened the cartons (that were shipped the week before) we were shocked to find that every single item had a flaw that made them defective and unusable!

With potential disaster looming the account manager jumped in his car, got on the phone and drove six hours to the factory.  He convinced them to re-manufacture the items and he personally quality checked the new product while he waited.  With a full car load he started his journey back to the trade show at midnight and arrived one hour before the opening of the show the next morning. 

Wow – Above and Beyond!  He made a silk purse out of a sow’s ear.  He averted potential disaster and he behaved as if my company was the only customer on earth.  And all for a $2000 order!  Worth it?

That single act of customer service and integrity turned into a decade of business loyalty.

Lessons Learned

1. Take the time to research your customers business
2. Clearly understand their objectives and their pain points
3. Don’t try and sell them anything – provide a solution to their problem
4. Provide exceptional customer service – go the extra mile
5. When face with a problem jump in with two feet & take care of it personally

* A special thank you to Ken Dumond of Genumark for outstanding customer service and integrity.

Most companies have taken action through this bad economy to trim the fat and right size their operations.  It had to happen, and the companies that cut early and cut deep ensured their survival.  Restructuring, headcount reduction, cutting expenses, continuous improvement, you name it, 2009 will go down in history as the year that  less was more.  

While corporate leaders were doing all the right things by restructuring and cutting costs on the inside, many are now looking up and wondering where all their customers went when they weren’t looking.  Operations have been streamlined and are leaner than ever.  Now it’s time to bring the customers back! 

Whether you lost customers to competitors, to the economy or because they just stopped buying – it’s now time to get them back.  Let’s revisit Sales 101, review the fundamentals and get back to the basics. 

The Three Pillars of Selling

Knowledge – Take the time to understand your customers.  If you don’t, they will quickly see that you are trying to sell them something rather than provide them a solution.  No one wants to be sold anything.  People and companies want to buy a product they need.  Know your customers.

Self Awareness – Look in the mirror and figure out who you are, how you project and how others perceive you.  Now look at your company and the product or service that you represent.  Figure out how to align all three of  these images to truly create a competitive advantage.  In a world where trust, relationships, and honesty will win the day - who are you and what do you represent?

Discipline – The best sales reps in the world are the ones that understand that they run their own business. Their degree of success directly correlates to their volume of effort.  Distractions are everywhere, make sure you are maximizing your time towards the goal of bringing in the order.

By now your company, division or department is ready to Evolve, to enjoy the fruits of your labour and to make sure the change sticks.   Remember, Evolve isn’t the finish line, it is simply the results of your most recent efforts.  Let’s quickly review our accomplishments so that we get to the key elements of Evolve.

Embrace - The Planning & Communication Phase     

• You Built a Rock Solid Credible Plan,               
• Communicated a Clear and Measureable Vision,
• Instilled a Sense of Urgency throughout the Organization,
• Set Lofty but achievable Goals & Objectives, and
• Made sure that your Senior Leaders were Ready for the Battle

Execute – Where the Rubber Hits the Road

• You, put the Right People in the Right Places and Weeded out the Resistors,
• Provided the Time, the Training and the Resources,
• Measured and Tracked your Progress along the way,
• Rolled up your Sleeves and Led By Example

Evolve - Celebrate Success and Build Sustainability

Celebrate Even your Smallest Successes

It’s more difficult than you think…  What were your top ten successes last year?  Most of us have dozens of successes, yet it’s very difficult to name more than two or three.   At the pace that business is moving – today’s achievement is just tomorrow’s base line, in fact, many of us are relieved when an achievement is finished and out of the way so we can move to the next item on our priority list. 

The trick here is to make sure that we take the time to acknowledge ‘other people’s success.  Recognizing and celebrating the success of an employee, the achievement of a team or even the rapid progress towards a goal can make a material difference in the mind of the person that is making the effort to change.  Reach out and recognize people that make a positive contribution and you will reinforce the type of behaviours that your company needs to be successful.

Reward Employees to Encourage and Reinforce the New Habits

By the end of the Execution stage, certain employees and certain teams will stand out, they will glow like a bright light and everyone will  turn to take notice.  These individuals are your ‘Process Stars’.  They heard your message, they made it their own and they created success that everyone can see.   Their behaviour models the change you need to reinforce to everyone.  Their determination, alignment to company objectives and their drive to succeed must be recognized.  

Strike while the iron is hot!  Whether it’s is a reward, a promotion or a new opportunity,  the  ’Process Stars” need to be held up as the example for others to follow.  Create strong role models, reward their success and the positive cycle of change and continuous improvement will begin to replicate itself.

Raise the Bar Before your Employees Settle into their New Normal

After the success of a long, difficult project, its human nature to pause, take a breath and try to settle into the New Normal.  Don’t let it happen!  As the leader you need to celebrate the achievement and quickly raise the bar.   Make it clear to everyone that the new world record is meant to be broken!  It’s the new baseline and anything less does not meet the new standard.  Communicate a new urgency, set new objectives, provide the tools and let people use their new skills to move to a higher level of Continuous Improvement.

By the time you are ready for the Execution stage of the turnaround you have already laid the ground work for success.

• You have delivered a clear and measurable vision from the top
• You have built a rock solid, credible plan and
• You have engaged your senior leaders to live and breathe the process

It’s now time for the rubber to hit the road!  To get real results fast, make sure you ask yourself a few important questions up front.

Do I Have the Right People and are they Doing the Right Things?

Adapting to change is similar to adapting to new technology, there are always early adopters or leaders that ‘get it’ quickly and jump in to lead the change movement.   At the other end of the spectrum you have the ‘resistors’ or the employees that refuse to change no matter what you do to convince them.  In the middle are the majority, the folks that need processing time, convincing or actual proof that this change will work for them.   

Of course, the trick here is to work with the early adopters to gain the success and momentum required to move the middle towards the change goal.  Recognize the early leaders, put them in charge, invest in their success and shout it from the rooftops.  You will quickly notice which employees are standing on the sideline waiting for direction. Reach out, take them by the hand and get them engaged in the process. It is critical at this point to make sure that managers and supervisors roll up their sleeves to set the example and live the change.

Finally, you need to work with the ‘resistors’.  If this group becomes too influential they will destroy the momentum and the positive change that is happening around them.   They need to be addressed directly and respectfully.  Do your best to get them on board, but be clear – if they are not willing to get involved in the process and they are a negative influence to a positive outcome they will need to be removed.

What Tools do People Need to be Successful?

Companies fail at change because they don’t provide the time or resources to train and develop the change leaders.  Imagine letting your teenager take your car out on a Friday night without spending time to train him how to drive it.  Have you ever sent a new supervisor out to the night shift after a two hour training course on frontline leadership?  Make sure your process leaders have the soft skills required to work with teams of employees to make change.  These managers and supervisors represent the success or failure of the overall effort!

How do employees know if they had a productive day?  Making sure that a solid measurement system is in place is critical to the outcome of your turnaround. Measuring the change will motivate the team and convince the undecided to get on board.  There is nothing better than crystal clear baseline measurements, well communicated goals and visible daily progress reports.  Everyone needs to be part of the process and making the goals visible will encourage everyone to move in the same direction.  Almost like magic, the team will rally around the common goal. 

 To inspire confidence and to continue the positive team momentum make sure that successes are recognized, celebrated and communicated far and wide.  The achievement could be meeting the weekly goal for the first time or it could be breaking an efficiency record on a piece of equipment.  Take the time to smell the roses.  The turnaround process is difficult and happens over many months or possibly years.  To keep people motivated, and interested they need to know that their efforts are appreciated and are critical to the overall success of the change.

As you may have noticed, the Business Turnaround is a combination of both Art and  Science.  As I  write each installment of Embrace, Execute & Evolve it  becomes clear that ‘The Art of the Business Turnaround’ is very focused around the human side of change.  Stay tuned to celebrate as we progress towards  Evolution as the final phase of the turnaround process.

There is one simple critical element that has determined the outcome of every turnaround that I have led.  Commit it to memory… It’s all about the humans!   Business transformation requires engaged employee participation and buy in at every stage of the process.  As simple as it sounds, many executives leave people behind in the rush to get results. Big mistake!

As leaders, it is sometimes faster and easier to fall into the trap of ordering or directing people to make change.  This may work temporarily, but without a true understanding of why change is needed, you will be building a dangerous house of cards.  In fact, failing to effectively communicate and involve key groups of employees at the beginning of the process will ensure failure and make the next attempt at change even more difficult.

All of us have seen expensive and embarrassing examples of companies that jumped head first into the execution stage of Six Sigma or Lean manufacturing and failed miserably.  Most often the failure was in the lack of planning, training, leadership or communication. It all comes back to the humans! Technically competent project managers will get eaten alive by supervisors or front line employees if they don’t have the soft skills required to lead teams of people through change.

Critical Principals of the Embrace Phase:

1.  Deliver A Clear and Measurable Vision from the Top.

Educate the workforce on the need for change and the benefits of the change, by delivering a compelling story that creates a mental picture that supports how all the pieces of the complex change puzzle will fit together.  The need to change must be urgent, rational and well understood.  At the same time, it needs to connect directly to the vision of success at the end of the process. 

The message needs to be simple and the aspirations need to be high.  Ask directly for employee support and stress that everyone needs to believe and participate to make the effort successful.  This is your single biggest opportunity to inspire, mobilize, create ownership and sign up the troops for the tough battle ahead.  If the initial communication is clear, measurable, well understood and logical it will drive the company towards the common goal of positive change and improved results.

My rule of thumb for effective and wide sweeping communication is, try to tell a story that the frontline employee can take home and effectively tell his family at the kitchen table. If an employee can explain the plan to his family, he understands the plan.

2.  Build a Rock Solid, Credible Plan

The speech from the throne is not enough to sustain the energy to run the transformation marathon.  A rock solid plan requires input from every level of the organization. Recognize their contribution and spread the word that volunteers at every level participated in shaping the plan. The change buzz needs to be at the ground level before the formal communication begins.  Broad participation will build credibility into the plan, and increase the chances of success in the Execution phase of the turnaround process.

Base your plan on measurable data that exists within the current organization. If the historical measurements are not in place, be sure to record new benchmarks as a guide to your success. Every employee must be able to relate to aggressive but attainable goals that will improve the performance in their own department.  Touch and engage every employee.

3.  Ensure that Senior Leaders Live and Breathe the Process 

I have seen too many local managers parrot their bosses’ wishes around the boardroom table without understanding or embracing the meaning or the urgency to change.   To be effective every senior leader needs to understand the importance of the message, feel it, be passionate about it and transfer the message as if they owned it. Once the message is transferred the managers need to roll up their sleeves and live it every day. 

These days, employees are “battle fatigued” and have the scars to prove it.  Most of them have gone through some form of Total Quality Management (TQM), Kaizen, 5S, Six Sigma, Lean, Process Mapping, Cost Cutting, Rationalization or Restructuring.  What you are asking them to do next will  be considered the ‘flavour of the month’ unless the leadership team and the front line managers are prepared to get deeply involved, set examples and be part of the team.

 In the next blog post I will cover the second phase or the Execution phase of the process. During Execution the ‘rubber hits the road’ – you will learn where to make quick but important decisions on the fly and it will become clear who and what is blocking the process on the pathway to positive change.

Well, let me fast forward 16 years and 600 war wounds later, to share what I wish I knew back then about change.  These are the lessons that have helped me work with companies to introduce change and get results fast.  

There are three distinct stages in the change or turnaround process – Embrace, Execute & Evolve. Each stage is critical and each stage is dependent on the other for overall success.

Embrace is simply the first phase that requires research, facing reality, planning and communicating. You need to develop a road map or plan that is rock solid and credible before moving on to the all important communication stage.  Do your homework and prepare to tell a compelling story of why radical change is needed in your business.  Remember – by this point you are convinced beyond a shadow of a doubt that change is required but the people around you will be hearing the message for the first time

Execute is all about teams making the change happen at the ground level.  By the beginning of this stage, your change message is probably 80% clear to 80% of the people.  That may sound good but the risk is that 20 percent of your employees will work against the change by chipping away at the majority.  The trick now is making sure the leadership team and front line management roll up their sleeves and set the example for others to follow.  If people don’t see and feel the passion and commitment to change they will stand on the sidelines, watch the game and wait for this new effort to pass. Now is the time to make some tough decisions about the employees that are on the sidelines or derailing the process.

Evolve is what happens when Embrace and Execute have been implemented correctly.  The word itself implies an evolution to the next level. From my experience this is the stage of the process that is most overlooked.  Usually the team is so busy executing and getting things done that they don’t notice how much has changed and improved. In a super charged environment the team actually evolves and continues to dig deeper to find more and more wins.  This is the point where good leadership means pausing to smell the roses and celebrate the successes.

I have been involved in over a dozen turnarounds in one form or another.  There is never an end to positive change and process improvement, but at the end of each project there is a great sense of satisfaction from seeing teams of executives, middle managers and front line workers come together to succeed at turning a company around.

In the next few blog posts I will expand on the three phases of change and build some detail and perspective around the concepts of Embrace, Execute & Evolve.