Discipline makes Daring possible.

Exhausted

Exhausted

I spent the weekend looking for a cooker hood.   I don’t like them, I’ve never had one, and I’d rather not have one now.   But I am obliged to put one in my new kitchen, so have one I must.

Finally, after hours of searching online, I find one I can live with.   It’s available all over the internet, under different brand names and SKU codes, from at least a dozen retailers, some of whom are clearly using the same database and software to present their goods.   Every one of them is the same price.   Competition here is clearly an illusion.

But what is really infuriating is that not one of those dozen retailers sells the associated carbon filter I will need to make the thing actually work.  Nor do they give the manufacturer’s model number that would enable me to find the correct filter elsewhere.

More hours of detective work follow, to track down the ‘manufacturer’ (actually just a ‘brand’) and therefore find the model number I need to find a filter that will fit.  Spares sites tend to be independent, and restrict what they ‘stock’.

Finally, I manage it, and get both things safely ordered.   All in all, it’s cost me a day and a half to buy a simple cooker hood and carbon filter online.

But what else should I expect, when this is how most companies see ‘the buying process’?

 

High streets are struggling, we are told.   IMHO , all they need to do is offer a truly helpful, rather than a merely ‘convenient’ service,  even if only as a front end for an internet purchase – imagine Argos with expert human beings and the best possible product database.

After all, it’s the front end that really matters.

Systems

Systems

Of course I had to share this from Seth.   A bonus post to make up for missing yesterday’s:

https://seths.blog/2020/09/when-can-we-talk-about-your-system/

 

 

It’s your attention

It’s your attention

Today, I’m sharing this video from the RSA – from someone who used to work at Google:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PSaybP1UivQ

For me, the most shocking thing in it is this:

“Steve Jobs did not let his children use the i-Pad.”

We know, marketers better than anyone, what people really want:

  • Agency – to make our own ‘me-shaped’ dent in the universe.
  • Mastery – to learn and master new skills.
  • Autonomy – to be free to choose how I make my dent.
  • Purpose – to do this for something bigger than myself, that has meaning beyond the sale.
  • Community – to do all this with ‘people like us’.
  • Status – to know where I stand in that community.

Consumerism exploits our need for these things, converting our impulses towards autonomy, agency, community and status into the purchase of unsatisfying stuff, or the squander of our attention and energies into fruitless activities.

Our purchasing power is just about the only power truly left us, but it is powerful.   If we can be more picky, more discriminate, more intentional;  reserving our attention – the only truly scarce resource right now – for what really matters, and for people delivering what really matters, we can create a world where everything flourishes.

Over to you

Over to you

This is my 473rd blog post.

Thank you for receiving them all (so far).

To celebrate I’d like to ask you something.

What would you like me to write more about?

Getting started

Getting started

How do you start building an archive and library of ordinary peoples’ diaries?   By taking in one box of diaries.

How do you start a hot-air balloon festival?  By getting two hot-air balloons together.

How do you start a sail-cargo business?  With one hold of cargo.

How do you start writing your Customer Experience Score?   By writing down one business process.

By starting.  Small.   By not worrying about what will be needed to make the big thing a success.   Most of all, by moving from “Someone really ought to do something about this.”  to “I’d better do something about this.”

Once you start, other people will join in.

Hat tip to Irving Finkel for inspiring this one.

The givens

The givens

Axioms are the foundations of ‘grammars’.  They are the givens, things we don’t have to question, that we can take for granted, that are (at least to us) self-evident.  Otherwise it would be nigh-on impossible to get anything done.  Imagine a whole orchestra having to agree what ‘C’ means before they start playing, or having to define exactly what you mean by a ‘metre’ on every page of a set of building drawings.

For a business it’s different.   Remember,  “When you make a business, you get to make a little universe where you control all the laws.  This is your utopia”(Derek Sivers).

That means you define your own business axioms – how many times it’s acceptable to let the phone ring before you answer it, who is most important, the boss or the customer, how much it’s legitimate to care about the environment in relation to how your busines makes money.

If the grammar of your business can be written down as what I call a Customer Experience Score, the axioms that govern what that score looks, sounds and feels like are what I call your Promise of Value.

Both are unique to your business.   Together, explicit or otherwise, they are the reason your best clients buy from you, stay loyal to you, and tell their friends about you.  Both are worth writing down.

Empathy, empathy

Empathy, empathy

My friend Julian Donnelly recommended this book to me.  I’m very glad he did.

I recommend it.   Don’t be fooled by the action-hero cover, what kept going through my head as I was reading it was ‘This is Dale Carnegie. This is all about empathy, and understanding motivation.”

If you’ve ever done a Dale Carnegie ‘Winning with Relationship Selling” course, you’ll recognise a lot in this book, but you’ll see it from a new angle.   If you haven’t yet, this is great preparation.

Software error

Software error

It turns out that yesterday’s AWOL veg box wasn’t down to a new driver, but to a problem with the navigation software.

The driver did a great job of sorting things out.   He bought a new phone, double-checked his route and corrected the mistakes.   He took responsibility and did what needed to be done to really keep us happy.

Meanwhile head office was offering refunds.

Technology is brilliant, but you need a systematic way of identifying when it’s broken, as quickly as possible.   Analogue visual indicators work well for this e.g.the address label on the box, a line marked on a bottle that used every day.

You also need a fall-back manual process for when the software breaks.   That way, things may take a little longer, but nobody is taken by surprise, and nobody is let down.   And you don’t have to compensate unnecessarily.

Do you check your phones are working every morning?  Do you have backup phones?  Do you keep an up-to-date back-up (maybe even hard copy) of your contacts?  Do you have a process for learning from mistakes and accidents?

I’d be surprised if you do.

New driver

New driver

My veg box supplier has been growing really fast.  I’m not suprised, it’s a great scheme.

Today’s veg box has gone AWOL.  It’s been delivered to someone else by mistake.

I’d bet an artichoke that there’s a new driver.

And no Customer Experience Score.

Interference

Interference

Last Friday, the materials for our new roof were delivered.  Tiles, ridge tiles, clips, battens, everything the roofers would need to start the job the following day.

Except, I spotted, the membrane that goes between joists and tiles.   Without that the job couldn’t even start.   To be honest, we’re relaxed about the schedule, but I knew our building company prides itself on being ahead, rather than behind, and our choice of tiles had taken time to source, so they were only just ‘on track’.

I could see the delivery driver had a pallet-load of it on his truck, so I asked the question, just in case.   It wasn’t on his delivery sheet, so he called the office.  They didn’t have it in the order either.

“Well I’ve got a pallet load here, so I’ll take a roll off and we can sort out the order with our client back in the office.  That saves me coming back later if it is missing.”

When I told our project manager, she said that’s why they always use that building supply company, because they focus first on foremost on taking care of their clients and end-users, rather than sticking rigidly to procedure.

I’d interfered in the process wrongly, as it happened.    The membrane wasn’t missing.   When the roofers turned up next day, they brought a big roll of it with them, and put it back in their van once they saw it wasn’t needed.

Obviously what was really missing was a clear understanding of who’s responsible for what, apart from inside the project manager’s head.  Does it always work this way?  Or does that depend on the roofer?   If everyone (including the client?) knows it’s always the supplier’s job to supply everything, this sort of mix-up wouldn’t happen.

What could remedy that?   A Customer Experience Score.

Not a procedures manual to consult every five minutes and follow slavishly.  Rather, a high-level picture of ‘what happens when’ that can be quickly and easily learnt by each new person or business that comes on board.  Something that says “This is how we do things, so if you join us, you need to understand this too”.  That way everyone is empowered to make sure things happen as they should, even if they don’t actually work for you.

In this case the mix-up happened the right way round.   The roofers finished at 10pm on Sunday, having worked their socks off for two days.   Our build is back on schedule, and I’m happy to recommend our building company to anyone.

But I’m also going to suggest a little composition.