One of the best things you can do to make your business work better is to decide who you are for. It’s also one of the hardest.
When we start a business, the need to bring money in means we put off even thinking about this, and because it’s hard, we perhaps never get to think about it.
That’s a mistake. Even when you offer a universal product or service, you are not for everyone. One because you can’t possibly reach everyone, two because you have your own unique way of doing things that won’t appeal to everyone.
So it’s a good idea to think about who you are for as early as possible. How do you do that?
Well, start by thinking about who you are. What makes you tick? What are your personal values? How do you like to behave? What’s your watchword? The people you will enjoy working with, and who will be attracted to work with you are the people who share your values, behaviours and the things that make you tick.
Next think about what kind of people you want to work with. By this I don’t mean what shape or colour or age, I mean character. If that’s too hard, think about who you never want to work with – flipping these negatives tells you something about the positives.
Capturing this information about yourself and the people you wish to serve, tells you what kind of people you want to work with, it tells you how you can talk to them in their language, and how they might want to be served.
Next, get clear about what you are really offering. What’s the transformation people are able to make once they’ve bought from you?
Finally, identify where you are most likely to come across the kind of people you want to work with, who are also looking for the transformation you can offer them. This is where you look at things like age, location, industry, income. Is there a particular group of people in need of what you offer? Can you easily identify this group? Is it big enough? Can you easily find them? How can they find you?
This becomes your target market. And once you know what it is, its much easier to take aim. And that makes it more likely you’ll make a hit.
By convention, everyone inside a business tracks the boss. Orders come down from on high, performance data is sent back up the line to the top. Orders are adjusted and sent back down again. New performance data is sent back up the line. And so on.
Who does the boss track? In a public company, it’s often the share price. The opinion of the financial markets, of potential traders in those shares – not investors, they rarely hold shares long enough to be truly investors.
What if everyone in the business tracked the people they serve instead?
They’d be powered by a completely renewable energy that’s also sustainable and efficient.
Like many large organisations, the NHS has a Director of Customer Experience.
As if Customer Experience is somehow separate from Service Delivery. As if they aren’t two sides of the same coin.
Now, I might be wrong, but this feels like a bit of a bolt-on. Like the customer might actually the last person to be thought of in the whole mechanism.
In any business, what the customer experiences is your Service Delivery. Design that intentionally around what will truly serve and delight your customer. Then make sure it happens consistently and you can’t go far wrong.
That way you won’t need an expensive Director to convince people you are doing it.
A bridge only works when everything is properly lined up. We don’t expect anyone to be able to build a … Read More “Lining up”
In an earlier post, I asked why it’s deemed important to report on the FTSE 100 index at every news on the radio, and what relevance that index has for most ordinary people.
There are alternative things to measure, that matter more to most people, and I think Kate Raworth’s doughnut pretty much captures them all.
What if instead of the FTSE, we had a daily snapshot of our impact as a nation on overshooting the ecological ceiling, or undershooting the social foundation? What if we could see every day how well we are doing at keeping within “the safe and just space for humanity”.
Like the FTSE and other indices, this snapshot would be made up of data from millions of enterprises large and small across the country, and that means that each enterprise would need to measure it’s own impact too.
That’s completely doable, if we set our mind to it, with the help and support of our accountants.
Why wait? Let’s start now.
For the last 260 years or so we’ve behaved as if we live in a world of infinite physical resources. We don’t, obviously.
But that doesn’t necessarily mean a ‘no-growth’ future. It just means finding a different, less damaging kind of growth.
If the things people really want, beyond food, shelter and family are agency, mastery, autonomy, purpose and community – personal growth and development – then we will never run out of opportunities to grow these things, just as we will never run out of opportunities to ensure everyone is fed, sheltered and cared for properly.
Plenty of scope for human ingenuity I would have thought.
Wikipedia tells me that “an externality is a cost or benefit that affects a third party who did not choose to incur that cost or benefit.”
If I have a flu jab, to protect myself from flu. I decrease the chances of the people around me catching flu. That’s a benefit.
If I go to work full of cold, I increase the chances of my colleagues getting a cold, that’s a cost. If I stay at home, that’s a benefit.
The point about externalities is that they aren’t measured. They are literally not accounted for in a business. We metaphorically shrug our shoulders and say “Not my problem. I’m just trying to make a profit.”
Yet the consequences don’t go away, just because we ignore them. If I go to work with a cold, and my colleagues catch it, everyone’s productivity is lowered.
We live in a series of systems, and ultimately a closed system – planet Earth, and sooner or later the consequences will come back to bite us.
Time then to take responsibility for all the results of our actions, not just those we choose to see.
One reason why we can feel overwhelmed at work, is that we don’t use triage enough.
Simple triage for unexpected client phone calls and emails:
Every customer has top priority. That needs managing.
Every day, every news programme reports the level of the FTSE 100. Here’s a question (actually three): What does the … Read More “Measuring what matters”
Aversion to new kinds of food is an instinct that kicks in for humans at around 2 years old. It’s a safety mechanism, evolved to protect the species. Just when they start toddling about, beyond the immediate reach of adults, children become extremely wary of whatever goes into their mouth.
As all parents know, this causes huge problems, when you’re just trying to get them all fed properly. This wariness can fossilise into a refusal to try anything new, leading to a choice between becoming what my mum used to call ‘A Marks and Spencer cafeteria’, or turning mealtimes into battles.
A non-stressful way to handle this wariness, is to give it its due attention, and give children time to overcome it themselves. Instead of putting new foods in front of them and expecting them to try them immediately, you introduce new foods as part of play.
Playing with carrots, broccoli, blueberries, with no expectation of having to eat them seems to release a child’s natural curiosity, and from painting with beetroot, it’s a small step to tasting it. Before you know it, your children are happy to try new things, mealtimes are enjoyable again, and you’re cooking the same meal for everyone.
Once you understand why children get fussy about what they eat and take it seriously, the right approach becomes obvious.
As I was watching this on TV, I wondered whether a similar approach might work with adults and work. Perhaps, if we can find ways of letting people play with changes, with no obligation to make them, we might unleash their natural curiosity and creativity and so not only end up with happier people, but better changes too.