Leaders Who Listen

There are so many things that can trip you up as a leader, or make it much harder for you to be the leader that you could be. One of the decisions leaders face is accepting the fact that there’s no way you personally can know everything that’s going on in your business. You can’t be everywhere at once, can’t do everything every day, and can’t be every person at every level of your organization. Even if you’re a solopreneur or running your own business, it’s been a very long time since one person has done it all or knew it all (hundreds of years maybe even). So if you look at most businesses, the leaders who are able to say they really have their finger on the pulse of the business are those who have a team that keeps them updated on the information they need to know, including information that may have either slipped by them or they don’t even know to ask about but is really important to know.

If you’re following along with the many holidays throughout the year you may know that Purim is on Sunday. It’s the remembrance of when Queen Esther chose to be courageous to speak uninvited with King Xerxes I in order to save the Jewish people, her people, from destruction at the command of an official named Haman (it’s a story that also appears in the Bible). Whether you’re leader of just a few people or enough people to fill a nation, most leaders would not want to lose a significant percentage of their people essentially overnight. So whether the King didn’t understand what the edict he had signed meant (the context) or just didn’t read it, it took Esther’s speaking up to get him to understand the consequences of such a law and save the Jews, and as a result there’s now a celebration each year of this event.

At the center of all of this is trust. King Xerxes I trusted the wrong person and as a result almost got the Jews killed, but fortunately it’s not usually that dire for the rest of us as leaders. That said, we do need to be smart about building relationships with and putting trust in people who can help us get the information we need to know with the appropriate context. Maybe that looks like a daily/weekly/monthly email from each of your managers or top leaders or whomever is in a position to get a lot of information and be involved in different day-to-day aspects of the business. Maybe it’s a subscription to a few newsletters that help you stay on top of what’s changing in industries that affect your business including marketing and legal from experts that you trust. Maybe it’s monthly meeting with certain stakeholders to make sure that you haven’t missed anything they deem super important or noteworthy or go over things they see to be potential or current issues that may or may not be being addressed.

Most of all, don’t forget to listen and hear what your people have to say. If you’ve entrusted them to take a leadership role in some aspect of your business and then asked them to keep you in the loop, don’t be dismissive or ignorant towards the invaluable information they send your way. Maybe you’ll have to work with them a bit initially to establish how much detail you need on various reports or updates, but that little effort is worth it to get the information you need to make the big decisions and be prepared for how things may be changing or may need to change. How do you stay updated about everything going on in your business and the business world?

Fall Back in Love with Your Business

Do you remember back when you started your business? Maybe you did start it because you lost your job or something serious changed at home, but it wouldn’t have been the option you chose in the first place if you didn’t have an interest in it or a belief that you have something unique/special to offer people. But there’s a lot more to running a business than just the parts you love, and even if you do have the blessing of being able to choose the clients you work with it’s not always enjoyable and you don’t always love them. So now days may be filled with more tedious activities and things you don’t love as much as when you started the business.

With Valentine’s Day this week it’s a perfect opportunity though to recommit to your business and make any changes that are necessary to get you back to doing something you love every day in your business. Maybe that means hiring someone to do more of the behind-the-scenes work so you can get back to baking, gardening, walking dogs, creating garments, working the summer fairs, running the cash register, or whatever it is that you love most about your business. Or maybe what you love is the behind-the-scenes work and you need to hire more people to do other aspects. I believe that it’s worth it to hire those other people for those things, especially if you hire people who are passionate about those aspects of your business like you’re passionate about what you love. And even if you aren’t able to hire someone full time to fill in for the many things you do but aren’t in love with, chances are good you can hire someone for a few hours a week which will give you at least some opportunities to do more of what you love.

I believe the only way that small businesses can thrive and be what we have always believed about them is if we, as the leader, are able to spend time doing what we love. It’s not enough usually to curate or oversee other people doing what we love and bringing all that awesomeness to the customer, we need to be involved in it too because we’re the heart of the business and what keeps the passion and focus alive. So as we celebrate all things love this week I encourage you to make what might be hard decisions so that you can get back to doing more of what you love in your business. What do you love most about your business?

Honesty in Business

A simple business lesson for you today that is one of the biggest reasons you’ll fail or succeed: do as you say. If you’re selling your customers shirts, make sure the shirts are all that you promised they would be. If you’re a grocery store, make sure you’ve got all the foods your customers expect on a regular basis. If you say that you’ll offer a special discount to an individual customer, follow through on it. If you can give specifics for how long a deal lasts (as opposed to “a few days”), do that. If you tell customers you offer customer support, actually provide support that helps resolve issues and supports customers in successfully using your products or services.

Why does it matter so much? For one, it’s a matter of trust. If you’re doing as you say you will, if your products and services are what you say, then customers will know that the trust they placed in you was worth it. Every time you do as you say you add to the trusting relationship that is being built between you and your customer and the more trust they have in you, the more they buy from you and refer people to you. Second, it feels good! I don’t know about you, but it feels good, it feels right to be able to know that you’re meeting your expectations and living up to the standards you set for yourself and your business. I want to be proud of what I put into the world through my business, so obviously if I can’t practice what I preach or do as I say I won’t be proud I’ll be ashamed or disappointed in myself.

No one is perfect, that’s not what this is about at all, if it were I wouldn’t have mentioned the importance of customer service. It follows more along the lines of under-promising and over-delivering, but it’s really about knowing what you offer and being honest about it and delivering on that. Sure customers like to be wowed, but most of them are just happy to get what they want without any extras or shine. So what are you delivering? How can you do a better job with lining up what you offer with what you say you offer?

Celebrate Your Team this Christmas

What’s one of the things that can really make your work day and your business succeed or fail? That’s right, the people. I’m working on a project that’s got a lot of moving parts, has had over a year of stops and starts, and I’m more than a bit concerned that we’re just not ready now that the next stage is finally here. The thing I keep trying to remind myself is that the key people involved in the next step are very capable, smart, practical, trustworthy, competent people and the only reason that it might succeed without being a complete dumpster fire and day I don’t want to look back on, is because of them.

When you hire someone to work for your business there will always be upsides and costs, but I’ve yet to find a situation where the cost of keeping a truly skilled, capable, smart, and/or customer service oriented person employed isn’t worth the cost. Yes, it may be harder to find them and you have to do more interviews and search longer. Yes, they may command a higher salary. Yes, they may need more flexibility with their schedule because of their health or kids. But the value that they add to your business because of how dependable, strategic, caring, focused, helpful, friendly, creative and/or knowledgeable they are is always far and above the cost you pay to find and keep them.

So this holiday season take time to honor and celebrate your team. Everyone should be appreciated for working through the challenges that naturally come with the holiday season, but make sure to show the people who are invaluable to your success your appreciation and let them know that you recognize what they add to the team, how important they are to the success of your business, and how much you appreciate that they care for your customers. Who on your team could you not do without?

Do You Know Your Customers?

Did you know that October 19 is ‘get to know your customers’ day? I know some people only pay attention to the federal holidays or those recognized by the world at large, but other people really enjoy Star Wars Day, apple turnover day and roller coaster day, not to mention coffee or donut day (which makes lots of free coffee or donuts available!). Whether you follow all the esoteric holidays or not, when I saw that today was all about customers, I knew we needed to talk about it because without customers we wouldn’t have a business.

First, can I say that if you only spend one day each year really getting to know your customers you’re probably going to be out of business soon? It’s one thing to have one customer appreciation day each year, but to not be conducting research and learning about your customers throughout the whole year means you’re missing out on a lot of information. Even if you aren’t really impacted or guided by trends there are still a ton of changes that anyone goes through throughout the year and you could be missing out on opportunities to meet those changing needs if you’re not hearing from your customers on a regular basis.

Second, I wish business owners saw it as an opportunity and not a chore or another thing to add to their never ending to-do list. Most business owners start or buy a business because they love something about it, and know that there are customers out there who share that love. Maybe we just get bogged down by the details and the weight of responsibility and we forget how awesome it is to be interacting with customers and getting excited about our industry. So not only can you get first hand insights into what is and isn’t working or what can be improved when you leave your office and spend a little time on the sales floor (whatever that might look like) or phone lines, but you also get the opportunity to interact with the customers, the people who share the same passion as you do.

Finally, how do you get to know your customers? There are tons of ways! You can have actual conversations with them, you can check out the sales/social/return/review data, you can poll your customer service representatives for their feedback, you can look at the questions that are sent in and repeatedly asked, and of course you can send polls and surveys from time to time to ask for their thoughts on specific topics.

So what do you love most about your customers and what’s one thing you’ve done to better integrate what you learn from your customers on a regular basis?

Let’s Celebrate Business Successes

Every business has areas that aren’t so awesome to think about or look at. Every business makes mistakes and has customers who would not shop with them even if they were the last remining business on earth. No business is perfect and no people are ever perfect, and honestly we do ourselves and the many customers who do love us a big disservice when we let our focus be on trying for perfection. Each piece of a business is important, from the customer service to the leadership to the actual product/service to the marketing, but so often what I hear from other business owners in all industries is about what they can’t do. “I can’t go viral on social media.” “I can’t come up with ideas for my newsletter.” “I can’t get customers to share reviews.” “I can’t get employees to stay.” “I can’t come up with a product/service that everyone loves.” “My employees don’t seem to care about the customers.” I’m sure you can add some more ‘can’ts’ to that list that you’ve either said or heard.

And I get that. I’m sure most of us could go on for quite the time period about all the issues we have. And to an extent we should because we should recognize the issues or failures we have and work to improve them so that we hopefully can avoid those issues in the future, or at least not let them get worse than they might already be. And the negative reviews help us better target our marketing, and help our potential customers know if a product or service is right for them before they buy and then have to get a refund or choose to leave a nasty review. But what if instead we focused on the good?

What if instead we shared about/focused on the cool marketing group we found or how many pages we wrote or a positive review about a product we’ve had forever but found a new fan or the interesting article that taught us something new or the new partnership we’re doing with another local business or the employee who has made a measurable difference in our business or the (anonymous/redacted) progress that a client has made? So instead of letting the bad or difficult overwhelm us, what if we did better about paying attention to the progress, the good, the exciting, the breakthroughs, however small they might be? I’ve seen that when we focus on, celebrate even, the good, the progress, the advancements more tend to show up and we’re able to make better progress than we do when we’re fighting the failure battle. What good things have happened in your business recently and how can you and your team do a better job of focusing on and highlight the good in your business?

Are You Committed to Your Customers?

Sometimes I think we don’t give businesses enough credit for how difficult their job can be. It’s not easy to manage all the products, know everyone’s status, an be on top of all the issues. It’s not easy to work at 100% all the time, and to expect that there won’t ever be downtime or issues with your products/services/people. It’s hard to accept that products and structures come to an end of their life and have to be replaced, especially if it should have lasted longer or usually does. Of course yes, each business owner knows that they’re taking on a lot of work if they’re going to be in business and serve more than 10 people, but that doesn’t change the fact that knowledge and reality don’t always line up which is why some businesses fail, every business has issues from time to time and no business has 100% happy customers.

But there’s this one grocery store I sometimes have to go to that has a very confusing design/layout. I always joke that I certainly get my steps when I go there because I walk the whole store at least 3 times to find all the things on my list. Between my organizing brain and my customer brain I believe there is a better way for the store to be structured so that it’s not so confusing and doesn’t make people dread or avoid shopping there. Because honestly if I don’t have enough time to circle the store again and again I won’t get everything on the list, and they lose out on the sales. There’s another (online) store that many people shop through and I’ve been hearing more and more from people that the store is making it very difficult for people to find what they’re looking for on the website and that pre-orders are being cancelled. Let’s say that I’ve got a network of 200 people that I’m conversing with about this store, and I’ve heard about issues from more than 30% of them, which, even with the incredible number of transactions this company does, doesn’t say good things about the company.

All of this brings us back to the customer: is the customer willing to put in a lot of effort to find what they’re looking for? How many times will a customer order or pre-order something and not get what they’re trying to buy before they stop buying it or buying from that company? Is a customer willing to put up with standing in line to check out for the same amount of time they were in the store (more than 15 minutes)? Is the customer willing to put up with being told lies about what the issues are (“these things just happen” “it’s a signal issue”)? How willing is a customer to shop with a company they know has terrible or difficult-to-find/access customer service?

Yes, of course the business owner wants to end up on top, wants to end up with a profit at the end of the day, wants to stay in business for as long as possible with as few costs and sacrifices on their end. But if you have customers who shop with you as a last resort, don’t take advantage of sales when you have them as often as they probably should, or get more than a few complaints about quality control issues, I think the question has to be asked how seriously you’re taking being in business, and how serious you are about the commitment you made to your customers when you decided to start your business. Because a business that intentionally makes it hard for a customer to find things or buy things isn’t a business that’s really got their priorities straight. Are you working for or against your customers?

Unhappy Customers: Whose Fault Is It?

What’s one of the most important things to make sure happens when you’re running your business? That your customers are happy. But sometimes a customer’s unhappiness or unwillingness to shop with you again has nothing to do with you technically. During the recent Black Friday I made a purchase from a well known company and had an issue with some of the shipping because of the company they used to ship the items (not one of the big 3). I made a purchase the other day from a different company and was eagerly anticipating the “your order has shipped” email and when I got it and went to track my package I discovered that they chose to ship with the same shipping company I had mixed experiences with back in November. So immediately, from being 100% excited about getting my package, I went to significantly less excited because now I’m concerned that I’m not going to get what I ordered.

While it’s not the fault of the company that/if I don’t get my items technically, it’s the fault of the shipper for botching my package so that it’s damaged and unshippable, the trust I have in both companies is damaged by the negative experience. Big companies like the two I ordered from can’t be successful if they don’t choose to work with partners who are competent, so maybe my experience is one of the few issues this shipping company has experienced. The good news is, things turned out OK this time and my package arrived in one piece, but that doesn’t mean that I’m not hesitant about ordering from these companies again, because as you know, it takes a lot more than one good experience to rebuild trust after a bad experience.

This is just another example of how important it is to do your homework about the people and companies you choose to do business with because their competence can impact the experience your customers have with you even if they don’t know it’s not your fault but the other company’s. No, you can never fully remove the risk of being in business even when you do your due diligence on these companies because sometimes the issues aren’t always obvious and sometimes the issues don’t start until after you start working with them. Which is why it’s important to do what you can to build up the relationship you have with your customers so that if/when something not so good does happen you’ve got a better chance of making things right with the customer and you don’t lose them completely. What are the things you look for in partnerships and what are red flags to you?

The Story of Your Business

I love a good story, do you? I started a new book the other day from an author I’ve read before in a series of theirs that I’ve read before and it never ceases to amaze me how authors can create a world and weave a fascinating story. Some books take place over the course of weeks, months or years, while others are the story of what happens in just a few days or week or two. It got me thinking about the stories in our business as well as what has been a recurring theme in my life and growth right now: time.

Few businesses have an overnight success story, most of our stories are those that develop over the course of many years. We have high points and low points, some years that contribute more to the story and some years that are really unremarkable and don’t get added to the information we share about where we came from and what helped us get to this point of success. But none of those years, either the interesting ones or the “normal” ones, would have happened if we didn’t do our best each and every day to care for our customers and build a business that we knew we would be proud of years later.

At the end of the day you want your customers to be able to go home or talk with their friends and share the story of the positive shopping experience they had with you, or the story of how they found exactly what they were looking for with your company. At the end of the day you want your team and employees to go home and be able to smile about the customers they helped find what they were looking for or the peace and satisfaction they delivered with a service well done. At the end of the day you want to build a world, a place, and a story that you are proud to have started and contributed to with blood, sweat and tears, one that’s making a difference in people’s lives including your own.

But that story only gets written, only gets shared, when you put thousands of little details together. It doesn’t happen by magic and rarely does it happen by luck. You have to find the passion, build the foundation, gather all the resources, share with people, show up every day, support your team, care for your customers, stay up on trends and important topics, craft a final result that you’re proud of from the packaging to the delivery, and develop a memorable-in-a-good-way experience that adds to the story and doesn’t ruin it. So what story are you crafting in your business, what story does your business share with the world, and what story do you want your business to be remembered thorough?

Putting All the [Business] Pieces Together

Are you aware of the bigger picture in your business? I was talking with a client the other day about this topic. She had attended some seminars recently on some aspects of the financial world and instead of just talking about strategies, they also talked about the basics of getting started. We chatted at length about how great it is to hear all the strategies, but unless you know how to implement them you’re missing a big piece of the puzzle. This applies to so many industries. Yes, it’s great to love animals and get your vet license, but you have to also have a business education if you want to be successful. Yes, it’s great to learn all the latest trends and strategies for marketing, but if you aren’t set up right or doing the basics, you won’t get very far. Yes, it’s great to have a really cool product that all your beta testers loved, but if you don’t know how to run a business or market the product, you won’t succeed.

This is where the question of the bigger picture comes in. In some ways it’s like a puzzle. You remember those from when you were a kid (or maybe you still enjoy them now, which is great), they came in boxes and were comprised of little wooden or pressed paper pieces cut in shapes and you had to put those shapes together to form the picture. If you’re an expert puzzler you don’t use the cover image to help you nor do you make the outside “frame” first, you just put piece together with piece until it all came together. But most of us need the help of the “frame” and the box cover to be able to put it together so that we have an idea of context and don’t get frustrated and miss out on the fun. And if you lost a piece or it accidentally fell under the couch and you didn’t notice, you were in big trouble!

Business is the same way: it’s much easier to be successful (and more likely) if you have all the pieces, know you have all the pieces and know how they all fit together. It’s why it’s so important as a leader to spend time talking with your people in real, honest conversations (both employees and customers), why it’s important to ask questions, and why it’s important to learn from a diverse group of mentors and other leaders. This isn’t about micromanaging, but about learning and making sure that you know what connections there are and what connections need to be made so that your employees can do the best they can, your customers are happy, and your business keeps growing. What missing pieces have you learned that you needed to add over the years?