Posted by jpayne on February 3, 2009 under Business Growth | 
What Big Businesses Can Do Differently
10 Strategies for Business Growth
Strategy 3:
Short Sightedness
Let’s understand some basics about human nature in corporate culture.
By their very nature, short-sighted people are unable to see into the future and therefore must practice caution. Their lack of long-term thinking means they have more time to focus on immediate profits.
Short-term thinking about immediate profits is dangerous because it causes people to place less emphasis on the importance of customers and ignore the bigger picture of corporate longevity.
We all have ‘negative experience’ stories about wanting to return a product to a store only to get caught up in a battle of principles. Every shop has at one time or another lost future revenue due to their insistence of hanging onto a few present-day pennies.
This lack of long-term, big picture thinking is utter commercial suicide and it frequently spills over into other areas of business. Short-sightedness with regard to forming strategy, developing high performers, listening to differing opinions and opening channels to market are just a selection of what, I am sure, we have all experienced at some point in our career.
It’s important to remember that not everyone is good at seeing the bigger picture. If you can, start to try and encourage others to. It may be with small steps within your own department or function. When people see change occurring at grass roots level, it can quickly have an effect and open new avenues of thinking and ultimately, action.
Action:
Focus on long-term thinking. Eliminate short-sightedness. Remember the importance of the customer. Encourage others to see the bigger picture.
Julia Payne Associates provides consultancy and coaching to SME’s and FTSE 500 companies. Contact us to discuss solutions that make a clear difference.
Posted by jpayne on January 28, 2009 under Business Growth |
What Businesses Can Do Differently
Strategies for Business Growth
Strategy 2:
Build Strong Client Relationships
It has always been essential to develop strong client relationships, but in today’s economic climate it is vital and could prove to be the difference to survival.
What can you do to build relationships?
1. Understand your client’s perspective.
In order to do this successfully, you need to listen to your clients. That means listening and not hearing what you want to hear or even worse, putting spin on their words to fit your own needs. Work to their agenda and ask questions that are going to forward your client’s position and not your own.
2. Speak your client’s language.
It is a myth that clients want to be wowed by your corporate language. To be honest, they’re just not interested. Their bottom line is that they want to understand what’s in it for them and how you are going to help them, in simple plain English. The best sales people will know that instinctively and will present in a language that is familiar and comfortable to their client.
This may be far removed from the way their organisation talks about the same subject, but what is more important - the sale, or corporate-speak? Which one pays the bills?
3. Go that extra mile.
How often have you done something for your client just because? Everyone will bend over backwards to help a client if a sale is imminent, but what about building the relationship? Do you as an organisation know what your standard service is and do you know what your ‘extras’ are or should be? Do you know when you should be employing those extras?
Not knowing may allow your competitors an entry point. It is the responsibility of everyone within your organisation to be providing A1 client service. However, it is the responsibility of the management team to ensure that client service is part of the culture and not something that is wheeled out when a sale is on the horizon.
The words ‘corporate humility’ are becoming more familiar to organisations nowadays, especially larger organisations. We are all reliant on our clients, but it is time to start treating them as one of our most valuable resources.
Action:
Listen. Speak your client’s language. Go that extra mile. Value your clients
Julia Payne Associates provides consultancy and coaching to SME’s and FTSE 500 companies. Contact us to discuss solutions that make a clear difference.
Posted by jpayne on January 26, 2009 under Business Growth |
What Businesses Can Do Differently
Strategies for Business Growth
Strategy 1:
Build a Complimentary Team and Organisation
Look around your organisation. How many people are there from the same university, the same MBA class and at a senior executive level, the same club? Does this approach truly benefit your company or is it limiting the scope of growth and progression?
Adopting this more traditional approach is what I call the ‘chummy mentality’. Recruiting people in your own image, who evidence a similar educational background, hold a similar viewpoint and come from a similar background.
Whilst this approach may provide continuity and a pleasant working environment, is it really benefitting today’s leading companies?
Recent events would seem to suggest that a like-mindedness is not what is required. Consider the integrity of some of our largest corporations. Highly intelligent people at the helm, but also at the centre of every controversy. We must ask ourselves were those voicing a differing opinion listened to? Where was the challenge? Where was the compromise?
Fresh ideas and values, people not afraid to express their views and a new way of doing things are essential and to be encouraged if the creativity and objectivity of an organisation are not to be diluted. Diversity is to be celebrated not sidelined.
The prized ceos will surround themselves with people who compliment their skill set, not those who match it. They will seek to be challenged. There is a line of thinking which says that the ceo should be the stupidest person in the room. Whilst this may sound bizarre, in essence it is sound common sense. No one person can have all the ideas or be abreast of the latest thinking . A smart executive will recognise this and build a team that has an individual yet complimentary skill set.
Action:
Build a complimentary team. Look for different skill sets and fresh ideas. Embrace challenge.
Julia Payne Associates provides consultancy and coaching to SME’s and FTSE 500 companies. Contact us to discuss solutions that make a clear difference.