January 14, 2019
I’m sorry
I wrote a blog for you on Friday, but it didn’t go out to you.
I’ve looked into it, and I’m hoping this one makes it.
Thank you for reading them.
Category: Promise of Value
January 10, 2019
Consistency
Whatever you’re promising your prospects, it isn’t just about the technicals of what you do, it’s also about how you do it, and that needs to be carried through into every experience
January 9, 2019
When less is really more
It is easy to assume that more choice is always better.
But:
More options means more work for your prospects, and more chances for them to get it wrong.
More options means more work for you, and more chances to get it wrong.
So it’s worth stepping back and asking: “What do my clients really want?”.
It may be that you can package options up to suit different categories of client. Or that you offer a standard product or service with a few optional extras. Or that you offer a single ‘take it or leave it’ choice.
Whatever you do, making it easier for your prospects to choose, makes it easier for them to choose you (or not) and that makes it easier, and more profitable, for you to give them what they really want.
January 6, 2019
Optimalism
It sometimes seems to me that the world is divided into two ways of dealing with uncertainty.
You can expect the worst, and try to protect yourself from that possibility by tightly specifying and controlling everything down to the last detail.
Or you can expect the best, and leave everything to chance.
Neither response is optimal. The first closes off opportunities to do better than expected. The second leads to drift.
A more constructive approach is to set direction, leaving latitude for serendipity, obliquity and creativity, measuring effects as you go.
That way, whatever your natural bias, the worst that happens is that things get better.
December 5, 2018
Oops!
I’ve been away for a coaching client, and I knew I wouldn’t get time to write each day, so before I left, I scheduled several ‘tip’ blogs to go out automatically.
I thought I had checked them all thoroughly and carefully – at least 3 times – before I left them to simply run.
But I set up today’s blog incorrectly, and didn’t spot it. So I’ve missed my usual slot.
Hmm, time to take my own medicine perhaps, and introduce a checklist…
I hope you noticed!
Thank you for being there.
PS the young man in the photo above slipped on a banana skin while working.
November 16, 2018
The Promise
Every great business is founded on a promise.
Not to shareholders.
Not to staff.
To prospects and customers.
The promise of a change that’s yearned for, that’s worth more than the money in my pocket.
A promise you do your utmost to keep.
All businesses have such a promise, it shows, but it isn’t always articulated explicitly.
Making it explicit, and sharing it with your team is the first step in building a framework that enables them to deliver it on your behalf.
The first (and last) rule of your enabling framework:
If in doubt, remember the promise, then do what it takes to deliver that.
July 2, 2018
Promise of Value Part 2 – The Kent Business Podcast – July 2nd 2018
The reveal!
In this episode Ben and I go through the Promise of Value I’ve put together for Maximum Media UK. I hope he likes it!
June 19, 2018
Work, beauty, self-expression
Spinning thread by hand in ancient Greece must have been one of the worst jobs ever.
Slow, never-ending, ache-inducing.
A chore. All the more so, because as ‘women’s work’ it was almost invisible and under-valued too.
That didn’t stop women wanting to make it personal and beautiful. So, potters made them these clay spindle-whorls. Every one different. Beautifully shaped to make spinning easier, beautifully decorated to make spinning a little more enjoyable.
Our work is what we make it. There can be humanity and beauty in the meanest of tasks, if we allow room for it.
What if we decided to reward it?
June 13, 2018
Promise of Value Part 1
In this episode of The Kent Business Podcast with Ben Abbott, we talk about our promise of value and how small business owners can begin to prepare for the future! Follow Ben on Twitter: Twitter.com/Maximum_MediaUK Use the #KBP to join the conversation!