Tag Archives: Consulting

December 18, 2019 · 9:38 am

Looking From The Inside

While you’re busy reading this, I just might be anesthetized. Today’s screed was actually written yesterday while I was preparing for today’s colonoscopy. For those of you under 50 who have yet to enjoy the ride on what my friends and I call “The Silver Stallion”, you’re really not missing much. Anyone who has ever had one will tell you that the prep is worse than the actual procedure. Then again, how could it not be since you’re mostly unconscious during the exam?

The prep involves a day of a liquid-only diet. Clear broth, coffee or tea (NO milk though), sports drinks (nothing red or orange). You get the idea. At some point, you drink some nasty stuff that evacuates your bowels. It’s basically the worst case of diarrhea you can have without a trip to some restaurant with a D health rating.

OK, you get it. So why am I bring this up on a business blog? Well, there are lots of other ways to screen for colon cancer but colonoscopy is by far the best. If you’re over 50 you need to get one and keep getting them every 5-10 years (your doc will tell you how often). The reason it’s so good at detecting a problem is that you’re being examined from the inside out. It’s not looking at symptoms, it’s not guessing. It is a first-hand observation of what’s going on.

That’s something more businesspeople need to keep in mind. Too often we don’t do the first-hand investigation or look directly at what’s going on, preferring to look at data. Sometimes you need to speak to the people who are producing what’s reflected in the data. You need to reach out to customers, partners, suppliers, and employees. You need to get inside the business.

The other thing that goes on during a colonoscopy is that the doctor will remove any polyps that are found. Most of them are benign but can become something that’s problematic. The scope can spot even tiny ones. That’s another advantage of getting inside the business – you can often spot small issues and address them before they become big problems.

Unlike a colonoscopy, getting inside your business isn’t something that can happen every 5-10 years. It needs to occur regularly, with quarterly mini-reviews and annual exams. Like the colonoscopy, prep for that review makes people uncomfortable and unhappy. The good news is that the prep is worse than the exam, and isn’t it nice to know that you’re in good health?

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October 23, 2019 · 11:18 am

Learning From Leads

Like many businesses, I purchase leads to drive revenue. Leads are everything in the business I’m in now and without them, you starve. When I went to our consultants’ convention last July, nearly every conversation I had with one of my peers eventually turned to the subject of where we were sourcing leads and how productive those sources were. As an aside I’m having Glengarry Glen Ross flashbacks as I’m writing this:

These are the new leads. These are the Glengarry leads. To you, these are gold; you do not get these. Because to give them to you would be throwing them away.

In any event, following the convention, I tried out a couple of new lead sources and one of them has proven to be quite good. The reason I’m writing about them today, however, isn’t so much the quality of their leads as it is the quality of their customer experience. They do some things that are instructive for any business that has customers (and find me one that doesn’t!). If you don’t think it’s important, remember that Oracle found that 86 percent of consumers will pay more for a better customer experience.

First, although they sell packages of a fixed number of leads, they let me put together my own package as a test case. They were flexible and focused on my needs rather than on “this is how we do things.”

Second, they are generous with “freebies.” Sometimes the leads are actually not real people – the phone number is bad and the email bounces. Sometimes someone is playing a prank on someone else by sending their information in without their knowledge. Not only have I never had an issue getting the company to refund a lead because of that but they will sometimes throw me an extra couple of leads because I had a less than optimal experience. Let’s face it – who doesn’t love something for nothing?

Third, they follow-up. I get asked regularly if I’m happy with what I’m getting and if they can improve my experience in any way. That’s big because I know they’re listening and that they care. Of course, it’s imperative that if the customer does come up with a suggestion that you communicate back to that customer how you’ve handled it (and just tossing it in a drawer isn’t acceptible!).

That leads to another thought. We should always go overboard when correcting mistakes. Yes, they happen, but if you’re transparent about it and more than makeup for the error, people can be quite forgiving and what was a negative can become a positive.

It’s really about being customer-centric and showing those customers some love, isn’t it?

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September 25, 2019 · 2:54 pm

Changes In Latitude

I did something today that I consider a bit of a milestone and I’d like to share it with you because it brings up a bigger point. One of the areas that I used to help clients with was Search Engine Optimization (SEO). While I never claimed to be an expert on the subject I knew enough to get clients started in improving their rankings, often to great effect. In order to stay current, I had 10 different feeds from blogs relating to SEO funneling into my feed reader. Each day I’d peruse the latest and great information, trying to stay current so my advice would be solid.

I also had half a dozen feeds from the advertising trades and six others that talked about analytics. Reading them throughout each day, along with the feeds on the sports business and many tech feeds, probably took a total of an hour or two each day, and when there were big developments, often longer.

I got that time back today because I deleted those feeds from my news stream. I’ve changed the focus of my business to franchise consulting and frankly, keeping current on tech, advertising, and media when I have very little practical reason to do so (other than to amuse you here on the screed) was an inefficient use of my time. While I am still subscribed to a number of feeds in those areas to maintain a knowledge base, I’m cutting the cord on most of them.

What’s been surprising as I hit the “delete” key is how long it has taken me to do this and that’s the point I think is relevant to each of us. It’s hard to let go. I still consider myself a TV guy even though I haven’t worked in the TV business for almost 20 years. Most of the people with whom I worked are on to other things or retired. I couldn’t let go though and was faithfully reading the trades I read when it was my daily life.

I’ve been at this new line of consulting for a year. I’m thoroughly enjoying it and business is good. Despite that, it’s a struggle not to look in the reaview mirror sometimes at the business life that was yesterday instead of spending that time focusing on what’s ahead. I’m hoping that deleting the feeds and freeing up some time will encourage me looking forward and I hope it’s something you’ll think about as well. As Jimmy Buffett says,

Its these changes in latitudes, changes in attitudes
Nothing remains quite the same

Make sense?

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