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Tag: Teamwork

  • Do Your Clients Know You, or Just What You’ve Reminded Them Of Recently?

    Do Your Clients Know You, or Just What You’ve Reminded Them Of Recently?

    Service businesses are funny things sometimes. Clients tend to pigeonhole your service firm based on what service you first performed for them. They rarely actually read the literature you leave behind, especially if it’s a referral, and they usually don’t go back and search it when another type of job arises, no matter how closely related to the first. So your first impression, your first engagement and your referrals tend to shape your brand for you in the customer’s mind, unless you steer it, expand it and broaden it on an almost continual basis.

    It’s an easy trap to fall into, especially for smaller firms, who may appear more limited than they are. I’m no exception to this unfortunately, although I try and avoid it if I can. I have one customer who only thinks of me in connection with trade show displays, because that was the first part of a multi-faceted strategy we recommended for them when entering into a new vertical market. Not that she doesn’t KNOW we offer a full range of marketing services, from strategic planning out to campaign execution and executive guidance, it’s just that I don’t reside in that part of her brain and I’m not connected to her other needs in a way that immediately comes to mind when they arise – I have to make a concerted effort to “remind” her that we are a full-service firm, so that we get connected in that way.

    How many of your customers or internal clients only think of you when they need or have a question about a very narrow range of elements, the one you did for them last, or first? It’s something you might want to explore, and you can test it pretty easily: Call them up and ask “Do you know that we also offer . . .” and see what the response is. Call under the auspices of keeping in touch, a good thing regardless, but hunt for that specific piece of data during the conversation. You might be surprised by the result.

    It may seem strange, but that’s just how the brain works – humans learned to survive by recognizing and remembering patterns, and noticing anything that breaks the pattern, like sensing movement in the brush created by a prey animal. Once a pattern is established, ala your firm performing a certain service, that pattern is retained and it’s difficult to change that perception.

    Here’s the fix: broaden your marketing efforts. Don’t go against brand, in fact if you’re a multi-service firm, this will strengthen that tenet of your brand. But highlight a different angle, a different aspect or subgroup of your offerings in a series of marketing launches – it’s like baiting a fishing line with different baits at different parts of the line – you increase the odds of catching something from the same pond. Even if you think you only offer one thing, and one of your brand characteristics is that you do one thing and do it the best of anyone, there are still different angles and facets of that “one thing” that you can use to “bait the hook” with. Try it, see if you don’t get the phone ringing with new business from old clients who “Didn’t know you offered that”.

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  • Sometimes Business Growth Doesn’t Mean More Customers

    Sometimes Business Growth Doesn’t Mean More Customers

    In our daily consulting practice, we see the inside of businesses all over the country, and can make some fairly educated observations about how they run. Small businesses especially are having a tough time running smoothly, in a couple of aspects, operationally and financially.

    Smaller businesses, especially service businesses like landscapers, technology companies, contractors painters and other building trades, are having trouble securing loans from local banks to use for working capital or expansion, new equipment, bigger crews, more workers. This type of business often has ebbs and flows in cash availability, either due to seasonality of their business or the size and nature of their work and their customers. Occasionally they need some extra capitol on a short term basis to make payroll and keep good people on the employee rolls until they are needed for the next big job. If they can’t get that extra money, they are forced to cut other staff, benefits or worse, close down temporarily. This up and down cycle, when not mitigated by some cash flow injections, can eventually destroy a small business, even one that is well managed.

    1)  Qualified Staff Shortage. Operationally, this cash flow issue changes the dynamic among the core of employees, and causes the other problem this type of business faces: scarcity of qualified staff and an employee pool too shallow. If the threat of being laid off comes repeatedly to the rank and file, word spreads in the industrial community and you will have a hard time recruiting good employees. The stress caused by the impending downsize can negatively affect productivity, loyalty and other critical areas of performance.

    2)  Reduced Risk Profile Stifles Growth. That lack of cash flow can also have a negative effect on management decisions as well. If you’re not sure you can fill that cash gap, but have receivables out there and the next big job is in the pipeline, management will still be reluctant to hire additional employees even when they’re needed. This reduces risk-taking, limits growth and expansion, and slows movement among the employees. Mentoring behavior slows or stops, training dries up, and the whole works can come to a virtual standstill, largely out of fear of that “big job gap”.

    3)  Know When To Let Go.  The third but highly overlooked issue for small businesses these days is making the transition from founder-lead, to goal-driven enterprise. Usually smaller businesses are started by a single individual, who has a skill or a talent. They are successful using those skills and the business grows. They hire some semi-skilled workers to help in specific areas, but the founder still acts as president, chief cook and bottle washer, wearing a huge number of hats on the managerial and administrative side, and still doing the principal work at the same time. If they get caught in this loop for very long, performance suffers, crucial but routine admin work often gets missed or lies fallow for long periods, customer service suffers and eventually work quality will suffer.

    The way to break the cycle is for the owner to know when it’s time to find a trusted team to run the jobs and they move over to take a more strategic role. Its a different skill set, but one that can be learned. Finding that team is becoming increasingly difficult, and this is one of the biggest single issues facing small businesses and impeding their growth. Advice for job-seekers out there – look at your skills and experiences and frame them in such a way as to make you attractive to someone seeking a clone of themselves – make yourself appear trustworthy and indispensable, and you’ll get hired in a second.

    Growth from within, building a team, creating a chain of command, putting in place a management structure and policies that foster growth, innovation, initiative and empowerment are just as valuable as building up the customer list, and are a form of growth on their own.

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  • Teamwork Pays Off

    Teamwork Pays Off

    After one of our recent brutal winters, including over 4′ of snow, we paid the price for them by replacing the 28-year-old roof on our house. We talked to roofers and selected one with a large number of crews and manpower to draw from, and after checking out some of their work, set up a contract based on an agreed-to price, and waited for the crew to arrive. A week or so later, the project manager called and said we’d be receiving a delivery of our shingles the next day, and that the job would be done in one day. We were amazed, as the roof is rather large and complicated as roofs go, lots of valleys and it’s a hip roof, so there’s lots of guttering and ridge cap and such – a big job for most crews.

    The day came, and at an early hour, four trucks pulled into the driveway and disgorged over a dozen workers, including a huge flatbed delivery truck with a remote operated hydraulic crane. The proceeded to unload their gear, get their materials in place and set to work, with very little conversation or communication of any kind. Like a well-oiled machine, they each knew their role and carried it out at the right time in the right order, and low and behold, within 30 hours of their starting time, the job was completed, just a few moments shy of a thunderstorm.

    Think how effective your marketing team is when faced with a challenge of this magnitude, how they are given direction, how they work together, how much they accomplish in a compressed time frame. To most office-based teams, the level of teamwork and coordination evidenced by these roofers is not only impossible, but alien to their nature. Not one of these workers told the others, “no, it’s your job, I’ll only handle this” or “I’m on a break, you do it” or pointed any fingers at the others when there was a discrepancy – they just worked quietly and competently along side one another, and got the job done, so they could go home. They were quiet, respectful of not only us and our property but of each other. And these were not highly paid, well-read educated executives, they were hourly laborers.

    There is great value in knowing your job thoroughly, understanding your role in the organization, taking responsibility for yourself and your actions, and doing a job well. Working in a team that functions smoothly involves all of this and more. Some of the responsibility for the team’s success falls to the leader, or manager, of the team. Clearly this team had been trained, and supervised carefully until they worked together well, but that wasn’t all of it. Part of their success lies in believing in a common purpose – “us against the mountain” mentality, rising to the occasion to meet a common challenge. The sense of personal accomplishment is shared by all, and they can retire at the end of the day knowing they accomplished a job well done. In return, they received a stable stream of work, a reasonable pay, and the admiration of their customers and colleagues alike for a tough task accomplished.

    If only some of our leaders and top execs in the financial community took some of those values to heart, we’d all be in a better place right now. The leaders failed the team and the public in those cases, and education or compensation for the job didn’t have anything to do with it.

    Next time you’re going to initiate a new marketing campaign, pull your team together for a kick-off meeting and try and instill those same values those roofers showed in your team. It’s tougher than it sounds . . .

    Tell me about your most rewarding teamwork experience, no matter what the industry . . .

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