January 29, 2012
Ever run into the situation where you screwed up, and created an issue for a customer? Well, maybe you never have, but others certainly have, including yours truly. What to do? Should you act like it never happened, and hope that time heals and forgets? Or should you bring it out in the open, risking it getting bigger than you want it to?
The answer is, it depends, but it’s somewhere in the middle of those two extremes. In any case, you shouldn’t act like it never happened, because if you caused it, the customer is bound to point that out to you sometime. And if you didn’t take care of it first, he could think you’re trying to cover it up. That customer will start telling other folks, who might have been thinking of becoming your customers, too, until they heard from the unhappy one.
So if you’re in the (unlikely) event where you caused a mess for a customer, here are 3 things to do, in the form of 3 “A’s”.
- Acknowledge it. A simple statement will do, like “I realize I misspoke during our last conversation, and didn’t mean to say what I did.”
- Apologize for it. Again, keeping it simple, as in “I regret that, and apologize for being out of line.”
- Ask what you can do. “I hope I didn’t cause any undue harm. What can I do to rectify this?”
Then just do it, assuming it’s a reasonable request. Make it right, then move on. Don’t pine over what happened, or seek forgiveness. Even the best and most successful people make mistakes. A professional apology quickly delivered can help both of you move on and let time help the healing.
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January 12, 2012
I hope the holidays and the ringing in of the New Year were good to you. I also hope you are off to a good start, for what you need to do to start the year. To be sure you’re off and running, look at what you need to do, or were planning to do, and do something. Not sure which of the 3 or 4 things you’re considering to start with? Just pick one — any one.
You could always change course if you need to. Just get rolling. More people miss their goals, not because they take the wrong action, but because they take no action.
As Teddy Roosevelt once said, “In any moment of decision the best thing you can do is the right thing, the next best thing is the wrong thing, and the worst thing you can do is nothing.”
Posted in Entrepreneurship, Gary Lim, Motivation, Perseverance, Taking Action |
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December 6, 2011
No one likes to make mistakes, but as it turns out, you learn more from your mistakes than you do from your successes. Why? They cause more pain, and in general we remember pain a lot longer than we remember pleasure. A mistake also generally causes us to make some kind of change. It should, anyway, because if we don’t change from a mistake, we didn’t learn from it.
According to John Caddell in an article on the99percent.com site (I don’t think this has anything to do with the recent “Occupy” movement), when you make a mistake, one of the most important things to do is to own up to it — take responsibility. Don’t look for others to blame. Look in the mirror and see what you can do to fix it.
Caddell outlines five other things you should do after your mistake: fix it, apologize, reflect/learn, change things, share the knowledge. Remember, if nothing changes after you’ve made a mistake, you didn’t learn anything. If you’re going to make a mistake, you might as well make it worthwhile.
Posted in Entrepreneurship, Gary Lim, Perseverance, Taking Action |
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November 30, 2011
In a recent article on CBS Moneywatch by blogger Penelope Trunk, she discusses her secrets of financial success. Her #4 secret: invest in yourself. Trunk writes that she once paid her remaining cash to hire a career coach, when she most needed it. That coach helped her solve major issues that she was grappling with at the time, and allowed her to change things that led to breakthroughs in her career.
And so you, too, should consider well-placed investments in yourself. You don’t necessarily have to hire me as your coach (though if you’re wondering, you can hear more about how I can help you here). Hire somebody — just please don’t ask your mom, dad, neighbor, aunt, uncle, former co-worker, spouse, boyfriend or girlfriend. That is, unless they have the right type of experience to help you with your challenges.
You need someone who can get you to see from different perspectives, so you can see your way to the possible solutions to your problems, and doors to opportunities.
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November 16, 2011
Like it or not, we all pitch. I don’t mean a baseball, I mean pitching to convince someone of your particular point of view. Whether it’s pitching them to accept your suggestion, buy your product, bring you in for an interview, or extend an offer of a job, at some point you pitch. But whose pitch is it? Yours?
Nope. It’s theirs. The pitch has to make sense to them. It has to make them realize that it’s about them — what they can gain from what you’re pitching. If you want them to offer you a job, they need to know how they benefit from you taking that job. Or, if you want them to buy your product, they need to visualize how your product makes their life easier/better/cheaper/whatever.
They’re thinking in terms of the famous FM radio station that too many people forget: WIIFM, or what’s in it for me. When you think of what’s in it for them, you stand a greater chance of them coming to the conclusion that whatever you’re pitching is right for them.
Even though you’re giving the pitch, it’s all about them. Remember that.
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November 9, 2011
It’s getting to be more and more common, especially with all the “networking” events that go on … people saying things like “Let’s get together sometime”, or “Call me, let’s get together”, or “I’ll call you next week to set a time”, or “Shoot me an email, and we’ll have a cup of coffee”. Then what happens? Nothing. No call, no reply to your voicemail, no response to your email.
So why do these folks say things like that? I think in today’s culture, people subconsciously think those phrases I just mentioned above are another way of saying “Nice meeting you.” Well, if they meant “nice meeting you”, they should say “nice meeting you.”
Don’t fall into this trap. If you meet someone new, and realize that you have no interest in ever seeing this person again, don’t say “Let’s get together sometime.” It doesn’t mean you have to say, “Have a nice life”, either. Just be honest. Something like “Nice talking with you — good luck!” will work just fine.
Say what you mean. And mean what you say.
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October 13, 2011
Earlier this week, Netflix reversed a decision it made just 3 weeks before, when it said that its traditional DVD-based movie rental service would be spun off into an entity called Qwikster. Customers who were previously renting movies either through streaming or DVD delivery would have to create separate accounts on 2 different websites, Netflix and Qwikster.
What a mess. This was at the same time they announced a price increase, which in any economy, is never met with enthusiasm. But making it more complicated for their customers to do business with them was the real kicker. Separate accounts where there had only been one before? That’s as if I were to order a Value Meal at McDonald’s and then told to go next door to pay for the soda.
Keep things simple, and make it easier for customers to work with you, not harder. You never hear a customer say to a business owner, “It’s too simple to do business with you. I need somebody more confusing.”
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July 24, 2011
I recently had a new kitchen floor put in. The floor covering company through which I made this purchase is a local small business, one that’s been around for years. Their prices are a magnitude lower than their larger competitors, probably because the competitors have much larger showrooms and more employees. Since the appearance of the floor covering in my home is more important than the appearance of the showroom where I bought it, I enjoy doing business with this local company.
This firm has a small showroom, but other than that uses a virtual company model, with a minimum of permanent “W2” employees and use of outside contractors who are essentially self-employed. Clearly this helps keep costs to a minimum as well, and the owner passes the benefit along to his customers in the form of lower prices than the competition.
While the installer was at my house doing his thing, I had a chance to chat with him while he worked. Not too much — I didn’t want to distract or delay him — but enough to hear some of his perspectives. One of the things he mentioned was that he could work for other, higher-priced competitors, and probably make more per job. But he recognized right away that those higher-yielding jobs would be far fewer in number.
With the “Great Recession” a couple of years ago, and now the stubborn recovery, those higher-priced jobs became very scarce, as floor covering is typically a discretionary expense. The installer has worked with the floor covering firm for years, and stays loyal to the owner, because while he knows that he doesn’t make as much per job, he continues to get a steady stream of them.
And in his view, he’d rather have a steady stream of quarters than an occasional trickle of dollars. So, even the floor guy knows.
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May 5, 2011
Interesting article that appeared recently on CNNMoney.com, about an interview by Dinah Eng with the founder of Cheesecake Factory, David Overton. He took the wholesale business that his parents started in the 1970’s and turned it into the billion-dollar chain that it is today.
Overton’s 3 main points:
- Focus on people — you have to give your people the tools to excel, including investing in training for your team.
- You can’t try to control everything yourself. He focused on the things that would make them successful.
- Make the formula hard to copy — their restaurant menu is very broad and deep, making it hard for other restaurants to try doing the same thing.
A great article — give it a quick read! I think today being Cinco de Mayo, made me think about food…
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April 24, 2011
And finally, the “L” in IDEAL stands for “loyalty”. This is the element that makes your business model tick; the ability for you to create a customer or client experience that keeps them coming back for more. Even more importantly, their customer experience with you is so awesome, they want other people they know to experience it too, so they refer you.
I like to say that this “L” results in two “R’s” — repeats and referrals. Repeat business is very valuable for you to have, because it doesn’t cost you very much to continue receiving this. And referrals are valuable too, because they drastically lower your cost of acquiring a new customer.
So keep the elements of my IDEAL business model in mind. It could lead you to fulfillment and prosperity in your business. It certainly has for me, for past and present businesses that I’ve owned.
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