SecTrainer
06-09-2008, 02:11 PM
Positive Uncertainty: It sounds like a paradox, but it's a refreshing way to turn uncertainty upside down. Creative Decision-Making Using Positive Uncertainty (http://www.amazon.com/Creative-Decision-Making-Positive-Uncertainty/dp/1560526904/ref=si3_rdr_bb_product) presents a valuable shift in how you think about the future.
Speed. Business is about customers, and it's about speed...by which I mean effective, deliberate speed, of course. I'm not talking about "haste". In fact, I'll soon be focusing on this subject, which I plan to make my business specialty, in a blog called "deLightspeed" - (delighting your customers at lightspeed, get it? nudge-nudge)...that is, if I can ever get up to speed! :D
Business is also about other things, like trust and value, but you'll find that the main byproduct of trust is speed, and that speed is a core component of value.
Every organization seems to have a characteristic "tempo", doesn't it? You walk into one hardware store and both the customers and the employees seem to be wading through hip-deep molasses...poking along...musing for several hours over the screwdriver bin, taking forever to ring people up, s-l-o-w-l-y bagging their purchases, and engaging in utterly time-wasting conversation about the relative merits of the slimmigrak versus the froogestoppen. The lighting is dim, the merchandise is crammed together and if there's any organizational scheme it can't be discerned. And look over there....is that employee sleeping standing up, or what?! It's really just sort of a hobby for the owner, it seems, and a place that men go to hide from their wives. When they finally leave, they buy a couple of light bulbs just to give themselves an alibi and so they won't look like they were mooching space. Sort of like a cover charge for the entertainment of visiting this quaint little store. You were half expecting to find a pickle barrel and a blacksmith shop out back, now weren't you?
Another hardware store is humming along. You have a feeling of "crispness" and "expertise" in execution, both in the organization of the merchandise and in the activity of the employees. Customers distinctly sense that this place is serious about hardware. It's not a hobby and it's not a hidey-hole. Answers to questions are given courteously, accurately and clearly but without a bunch of blather. People move through the checkout line as if someone in this place understands that they have better things to do than stand on one leg waiting for a price check because products haven't been priced. Sale items aren't accidentally rung up at the regular price. In short, the business is a system, and whether you deal with Bob or Frank or Henry you can count on predictable high-level uniformity in their service.
Businesses do not tend to operate at "battle speed" of their own accord, especially if they are not highly systematized, and one day you look up and realize that your employees are sleep-walking through their duties as if today was just a dress rehearsal for tomorrow. In every "nonoptimized" business, there is a significant (and sometimes shocking) amount of wasted time in every phase of the business, and this almost always translates into a higher cost of doing business that comes right straight off the bottom line, and in less than optimal service to your customers.
The job will expand to fill the (perceived) available time. If you don't really need a bookkeeper on the clock 40 hours a week if she's working efficiently, then cut her hours to 36 or whatever you really need her for. Or, if you need to speed up your receivable turnover, redeem those extra hours by having her call your foot-dragging customers on day 31 instead of sending an apologetic "we're sorry you owe us money" letter on day 60. It's not hard to explain to habitual procrastinators that you're not a bank. Figure out if there's value to you and your customer in offering "net-10" type discounts for prompt payment. Speed has to be carved out of the rock; it will never spring to life spontaneously.
Competitiveness is about getting "inside" the decision cycle of your customers and the decision cycle of your competitors. An example of the former is getting early notice that the feds are imposing new regulations on a customer, figuring out what problems this is going to cause him and having a solution AT LEAST already on the drawing board BEFORE your customer brings it up. It means YOU'RE CALLING HIM and expressing your knowledge about this BEFORE he even thinks to pick up the phone to call you. (You think about intelligence on government regs only in terms of your OWN industry? Nope, you should be gathering intelligence in this area in terms of your CUSTOMER'S industries! There are ways to do this more easily than you might imagine.)
An example of getting inside your competitor's decision cycle is spotting their help wanted ad for a crime analyst. Soon, they'll be able to crow that they're the only private security firm in the region with a dedicated crime analyst on staff...unless you get inside their decision cycle (which you can do without hiring a crime analyst yourself...and faster) to mitigate this potential competitive advantage.
So...you need speed in all of these broad areas:
obtaining relevant customer-centric information
evaluating the information for meaning
formulating a customer-centric strategy
systematizing the strategy to translate it into predictable value for customers within the tactical space
evaluating and modifying tactics
evaluating and modifying strategy
A word of explanation. Strategy is never about competitors. It is about customers, customers, customers. The only reason you gather other information about the environment (competitors, regulators, economy, etc.) is to determine how you can give the customer more value than anyone else does.
Brand: Your brand is also about speed (speed of new customer acquisition). If I mentioned the name of your company to a dozen prospective executives in your specific market space, chosen at random, would they instantly recognize it and associate it with your unique position (your unique value proposition), or would I have to spend a lot of time explaining who you are, what you do and why you do it better? If potential prospects don't know who and what you are, you don't have a brand. You're just an eenie-meenie-miney-moe in the Yellow Pages or a "me-too" on some list of consultants somewhere.
Get some marketing going. Marketing should be one of the main things you do, every single day. Actually, you are marketing every day, all the time...the question is, what's the message you're broadcasting? "We have no imagination"? "We do what everyone else does"? "We don't understand you either"? "We wish we'd thought of the name AAAAAAA Security Whutzits so we would be first in the Yellow Pages"? "We're cheap!"? "We can't think ahead and won't carry the investment to have replacement parts on hand or know how to get them quickly for you"? "We're totally clueless about the bad image our cheesy uniforms convey for your business as well as ourselves"? "We don't keep our appointments"? "Our phone system will wear your index finger to a nub punching buttons before it finally hangs up on you"? What's your message?
You're always marketing. Your value proposition and your execution are always saying something about you.
Speed. Business is about customers, and it's about speed...by which I mean effective, deliberate speed, of course. I'm not talking about "haste". In fact, I'll soon be focusing on this subject, which I plan to make my business specialty, in a blog called "deLightspeed" - (delighting your customers at lightspeed, get it? nudge-nudge)...that is, if I can ever get up to speed! :D
Business is also about other things, like trust and value, but you'll find that the main byproduct of trust is speed, and that speed is a core component of value.
Every organization seems to have a characteristic "tempo", doesn't it? You walk into one hardware store and both the customers and the employees seem to be wading through hip-deep molasses...poking along...musing for several hours over the screwdriver bin, taking forever to ring people up, s-l-o-w-l-y bagging their purchases, and engaging in utterly time-wasting conversation about the relative merits of the slimmigrak versus the froogestoppen. The lighting is dim, the merchandise is crammed together and if there's any organizational scheme it can't be discerned. And look over there....is that employee sleeping standing up, or what?! It's really just sort of a hobby for the owner, it seems, and a place that men go to hide from their wives. When they finally leave, they buy a couple of light bulbs just to give themselves an alibi and so they won't look like they were mooching space. Sort of like a cover charge for the entertainment of visiting this quaint little store. You were half expecting to find a pickle barrel and a blacksmith shop out back, now weren't you?
Another hardware store is humming along. You have a feeling of "crispness" and "expertise" in execution, both in the organization of the merchandise and in the activity of the employees. Customers distinctly sense that this place is serious about hardware. It's not a hobby and it's not a hidey-hole. Answers to questions are given courteously, accurately and clearly but without a bunch of blather. People move through the checkout line as if someone in this place understands that they have better things to do than stand on one leg waiting for a price check because products haven't been priced. Sale items aren't accidentally rung up at the regular price. In short, the business is a system, and whether you deal with Bob or Frank or Henry you can count on predictable high-level uniformity in their service.
Businesses do not tend to operate at "battle speed" of their own accord, especially if they are not highly systematized, and one day you look up and realize that your employees are sleep-walking through their duties as if today was just a dress rehearsal for tomorrow. In every "nonoptimized" business, there is a significant (and sometimes shocking) amount of wasted time in every phase of the business, and this almost always translates into a higher cost of doing business that comes right straight off the bottom line, and in less than optimal service to your customers.
The job will expand to fill the (perceived) available time. If you don't really need a bookkeeper on the clock 40 hours a week if she's working efficiently, then cut her hours to 36 or whatever you really need her for. Or, if you need to speed up your receivable turnover, redeem those extra hours by having her call your foot-dragging customers on day 31 instead of sending an apologetic "we're sorry you owe us money" letter on day 60. It's not hard to explain to habitual procrastinators that you're not a bank. Figure out if there's value to you and your customer in offering "net-10" type discounts for prompt payment. Speed has to be carved out of the rock; it will never spring to life spontaneously.
Competitiveness is about getting "inside" the decision cycle of your customers and the decision cycle of your competitors. An example of the former is getting early notice that the feds are imposing new regulations on a customer, figuring out what problems this is going to cause him and having a solution AT LEAST already on the drawing board BEFORE your customer brings it up. It means YOU'RE CALLING HIM and expressing your knowledge about this BEFORE he even thinks to pick up the phone to call you. (You think about intelligence on government regs only in terms of your OWN industry? Nope, you should be gathering intelligence in this area in terms of your CUSTOMER'S industries! There are ways to do this more easily than you might imagine.)
An example of getting inside your competitor's decision cycle is spotting their help wanted ad for a crime analyst. Soon, they'll be able to crow that they're the only private security firm in the region with a dedicated crime analyst on staff...unless you get inside their decision cycle (which you can do without hiring a crime analyst yourself...and faster) to mitigate this potential competitive advantage.
So...you need speed in all of these broad areas:
obtaining relevant customer-centric information
evaluating the information for meaning
formulating a customer-centric strategy
systematizing the strategy to translate it into predictable value for customers within the tactical space
evaluating and modifying tactics
evaluating and modifying strategy
A word of explanation. Strategy is never about competitors. It is about customers, customers, customers. The only reason you gather other information about the environment (competitors, regulators, economy, etc.) is to determine how you can give the customer more value than anyone else does.
Brand: Your brand is also about speed (speed of new customer acquisition). If I mentioned the name of your company to a dozen prospective executives in your specific market space, chosen at random, would they instantly recognize it and associate it with your unique position (your unique value proposition), or would I have to spend a lot of time explaining who you are, what you do and why you do it better? If potential prospects don't know who and what you are, you don't have a brand. You're just an eenie-meenie-miney-moe in the Yellow Pages or a "me-too" on some list of consultants somewhere.
Get some marketing going. Marketing should be one of the main things you do, every single day. Actually, you are marketing every day, all the time...the question is, what's the message you're broadcasting? "We have no imagination"? "We do what everyone else does"? "We don't understand you either"? "We wish we'd thought of the name AAAAAAA Security Whutzits so we would be first in the Yellow Pages"? "We're cheap!"? "We can't think ahead and won't carry the investment to have replacement parts on hand or know how to get them quickly for you"? "We're totally clueless about the bad image our cheesy uniforms convey for your business as well as ourselves"? "We don't keep our appointments"? "Our phone system will wear your index finger to a nub punching buttons before it finally hangs up on you"? What's your message?
You're always marketing. Your value proposition and your execution are always saying something about you.