People who desperately need to lose weight are often asked by a nutritionist or physician to keep a food diary. Daily they write down everything they put in their mouth. It’s a powerful tool to show them the truth about how many calories they’re consuming. Most overweight people don’t realize how many calories they’re eating. The diary shows them the reality of where they are. It becomes a tool to show them how they can improve.
Your work-flow – your schedule – is a problem. Efficiency is never operating at full-strength in our lives. We can always do better.
Today, I want to encourage you to keep a work-flow diary so we can tackle the speed bumps that get in your way. Success is elusive enough when we’re chasing it with focused intensity. It’s impossible to find if we’re not taking the proper actions, and if we’re neglecting to take meaningful action consistently over time.
The pic many clients found funny
Consider how good it always feel when you look back at something you accomplished. Wouldn’t you love to have that feeling more? There’s no better time to start increasing the frequency of that feeling. Let’s do it now. Let’s start today!
Knowledge makes everything simpler. That doesn’t mean it makes things easy.
Some years ago I’m visiting with a business owner. The topic? Finding other streams of revenue. It’s more than a brainstorming session. It’s strategic based on the current revenue sources.
A few ideas leap to my mind and I toss them out for consideration. The beauty of these sessions is they’re unfiltered. This is no time for bashful behavior. These are the times where uncorking can pay off.
One particular idea sparks a response from the owner. His answer formed the title for today’s podcast.
“We’re not smart enough about that yet.”
I was instantly impressed. Not at his company’s ignorance, but at his admission. True confessions are difficult for lots of entrepreneurs. Anybody who can be that candid during a session like this is probably my kind of people.
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“We just don’t know enough about that technology right now to do it properly,” he said. “But we’re working on it.”
He proceeded to tell me the investments he was making in trying to get up to speed – and get his people up to speed. It was high-technology and the target learning was moving fast. He talked of “catching up.” And I could tell he was pretty committed to the effort.
“But the operative word seems to be YET,” I said.
“Yes, we’re going to get there. We’re just not ready to tackle it right now,” he responded.
“But you’ve got some target in mind or you wouldn’t be making the investment to catch up,” I replied.
Sure enough. He knew some opportunities were tied to making sure his team got up to speed on some technology that was currently outside the scope of their base knowledge. We talked about the capital and time investment they were making. We ironed out a timeline, with some mile markers of things they could do to traverse this unchartered water they were entering. They were going to be poised to launch a test within less than 90 days. A prototype product could be in beta testing within 6 months. And the opportunity could be game changing providing more revenue than all other products combined. It was an exciting adventure and I could tell most of the team was thrilled with the prospect.
If we conclude that we’re not smart enough about something (anything) yet, then it’s time to get smart!
How smart do you have to be to get started? Well, I suppose that depends on the endeavor.
The challenge is two-fold:
a. Knowing what you don’t know b. Knowing what you know
That second one is much easier to quantify. But with it can come an arrogance that can hamper progress and innovation.
The other day I was talking with somebody about the differences in small business people 30 years ago versus the ones today. It was a conversation about the difference in the generations. I’m old enough to have a perspective. My observations might not be empirically correct, but anecdotally they are.
Thirty years or more ago, many small business owners I knew had a confidence most saw as necessary. “You’ve got to believe in your idea,” was the battle cry of the 1970’s when I began my career. The problem I quickly observed were business owners who would fall in love with an idea – usually their own – and they wouldn’t move off of it, or away from it. Stubbornness can be a good thing. Or a bad thing.
Resilience, determination and tenacity are great traits. But put them in a different context where a business or organizational leader refuses to budge off something that isn’t working — and they’ve got deadly potential. More than I can count I’ve seen leaders refuse to lose, in spite of the fact that their organization is getting their brains beat out. “Nope, we’re going to keep pushing forward,” says the ignorant leader who refuses to acknowledge what he or she doesn’t know. Namely, they don’t know that their idea ain’t working!
Knowing what you know can sometimes deceive us into thinking we know enough, or that we know it all. That’s why you see new comers enter spaces and disrupt it with new, bold ideas. They’re not encumbered with past industry knowledge.
New comers have an ability – and a thirst – to figure things out. Part of that comes in asking the biggest question any of us can ask.
Why?
They also tend to be speed freaks, which I find very appealing. Today’s entrepreneurs find out fast, and they find out if they’re failing even faster. They morph, adapt and change. The favorite word is, PIVOT. They abandon what isn’t working in favor of something that will work better. My generation didn’t tend to do that so much, but it was a different time with a different time element. No Internet. No cell phones. No computers. It was much harder back in “the old days” to figure out if you’d given something a strong enough effort to know if it would make it or not. So adapting, changing and morphing took a lot longer back in the 70’s than it does today.
My experience is one reason why I am so fond of the premise of the book, The Knowing-Doing Gap. It’s about knowing what you know and doing what you know!
If you’re not going to move forward, then any excuse will do, but don’t let a lack of know-how spoil your hope of success. There are way too many resources readily available to help us prepare to take action – just taking that first step might be all we need to make success a reality. Refusing to take the first step is a surefire way to fail. Don’t get hung up thinking you’ve got to have complete knowledge.
I love today’s pace and the resources we have. Beats the snot out of by gone years! Today, you just need to know enough to take the next step. The very next step. Figure that out, then do it. And do it fast! Then figure out the next step. And the next. Keep moving as fast as you can, making adjustments along the way.
Today, you don’t need to know all the steps before taking your first one. So many people fail to start because they can’t see all the details of the finish. Forget that. Head in that direction and start.
The technology company didn’t know where this new found knowledge would take them. They had an idea of what they wanted to build based on this new knowledge, but they knew they needed to get going. They needed to start learning. Fast. So they dove in.
When boots hit the ground, the battle plan changes. We don’t want to put boots on the ground foolishly, but we don’t want to assume we know exactly what the boots are going to experience either. There’s no way we can know until we’re there.
Enter something leaders may not always consider, CONFIDENCE. Organizations and people need confidence in order to win. Weekly I encounter people who are depressed, losing morale and lamenting the future because they’ve no confidence in leadership’s ability to change. In the face of challenges, people want to see a response. They want to see the game plan adjusted.
I’m a hockey guy and we’re right now in the latter part of the conference finals to see which two teams will play for the Stanley Cup. Some of these games are close, but some are blowouts. The other night I’m watching Chicago give up 3 goals in the first period to the Anaheim Ducks. I wasn’t in that locker room between the first and second period, but I guarantee the coaching staff was giving the team some hard instructions. They were correcting things. And every player in that room was expecting that. Chicago ended up driving the game to overtime after 3 periods, so the adjustments worked. The players had to execute those adjustments.
The point is – if those coaches hadn’t made any changes the players would have lost confidence in the coaches and in themselves. They knew they weren’t playing well. What they needed from the coaches were answers to the question, WHY?
We’ve all heard a coach after a loss tell the press that there’s nothing to be learned from a loss, but that’s a lie! Every good coach knows a loss teaches far more than a win. It teaches us what DOESN’T WORK. That helps us figure out what does work. In professional hockey, it’s very common for a team to make it deep into the playoffs one year or two, before finally figuring out how to make it further. Teams will bring in veteran players who have been there before. They’ll work on team chemistry. They’ll put together pieces that may have been missing in prior years. Teams have to learn how to win! That takes some losing, but it takes the proper response to losing.
Confidence comes from learning. Speed matters. The faster you get going, the faster you get smart.
Some time ago I’m talking with a young man about an endeavor. He’s wrestling with what to do. I tell him to build it in his head first. Embrace this trait we have as humans. To project into the future. To see things as they might become. To create the future mentally.
I wanted him to do that so he could see the end before he began. But I urged him to realize that he was going to have to change once he got going. “Just figure out your next step,” I told him. “Don’t delay.”
Do what you know to do while you’re learning what you don’t know. Don’t let the “resistance” get in the way. Fend off the challenges. Learn fast. Start faster. And if there aren’t any signs of success, then stop and rethink what you’re doing.
Don’t stall. If you realize that you’re not smart enough to get started, then get smart enough to just start. The faster you get started the faster you’ll get up that learning curve. You’ll also speed up your wisdom, not to mention the cumulative effect of getting in the habit of taking action.
Pictured is a Civil War era surgical kit. It includes the implements used for amputation. Soldiers with horrible wounds often lost limbs in order to save their life. Sometimes we have to cut off things that would otherwise kill us.
My consulting and coaching has always involved helping organizations (mostly businesses) morph and adapt. I started seeing a trend about 8 years ago. An increasing need. I also saw increased resistance to solutions.
• Amputation of a poor performing segment of our business is difficult.
• Eliminating poor performing people from our organization is hard.
• Identifying and eliminating what isn’t working isn’t nearly as easy as you might think.
It’s the necessary elimination of products and services, people and processes. You can’t neglect the art of cutting.
I regularly encounter resistance when I talk with a business about the prospect of jettisoning a portion of their revenue stream in order to save and grow other areas of the business. We fall in love with our business. We become attached to our business model. Sometimes we even have pet products or services.
Business people can be notoriously loyal to what launched their career. The CEO who came up from the sales ranks will most certainly have a hard time giving any serious consideration to out sourcing sales. Even if it’s more cost effective and efficient, he’ll likely be too attached to having it in house to consider any other option. He’s got a viewpoint that may be impossible to alter.
How we generate income often matters more than we care to admit. It may not seem rational, but to us – it’s our business and it’s perfectly sensible. It made us wealthy. It made our enterprise successful. Our victories in the market were created because what we did and how we did it WORKED.
With empirical evidence staring us in the face, business owners can still refuse to see a category or process as a major source of sickness for our business. It’s our leg. It’s our arm. You try cutting off your own arm or leg and see how attached you are to your body parts.
Apply the same idea to people and their performance. Organizations of all kinds can get mired down, unable to accurately see what (and who) is working and what (or who) isn’t.
On Trial For Its Life
Back in the fall of 1999, while running an organization, I crafted what I called, A Quantum Leap. We were about to embark on a new decade, a new millennia. Lots of people were expecting a technology crash prompted by a year that began with 20 instead of 19. Debit cards would stop working. Credit cards, too. Bank accounts would freeze. The world would stop turning because all the computers on the planet had been programmed for a year beginning with 19. I wasn’t terribly concerned. And it wasn’t because I was smart in the ways of computer programming. It was because I was occupied with other ideas. Taking business to a completely new level by using a pivotal moment in history to rally the troops to achieve things never before thought possible.
It was during those fall planning sessions I found myself repeating the phrase, “on trial for its life.” I had risen in the ranks of leadership early in my career by doing just that. One over arching ambition trumped all others — How can we do better? That’s at the heart of putting things, and people, on trial for their life. No, I’ve never put people on trial for their literal life, but I have put their performance on trial for their occupational life in the organization.
Initially some people think it’s harsh. Mostly, they’re the poor performers. Or the people who don’t want the pressure of high performance. I never much cared what those people thought. Pandering to poor or average performance is not a good business model for high achievement.
These decisions shouldn’t be handled flippantly or casually. If a surgeon wanted to remove an arm or leg, I’d most certainly give him a vigorous emotional argument. I’d balk. I’d fight him to exhaustion until he fully convinced me I had no other choice.
I’ve spent dozens of hours examining critical data on a single product or service before concluding it needs to be considered for amputation. Then, dozens hours more making the final call, and figuring out the best course of action. It requires more than a casual glance. You need to take a deep, hard look at anything – or anybody – who is on trial.
And I suggest you put EVERYTHING on trial on for its life!
I don’t blame any leader for their reaction to the necessary amputation of the things that are killing their organization. I simply want to help you through the decision with the best possible solution so you can put yourself in the best position for success. I want to contribute to help more leaders succeed. Too many organizations are suffering. America doesn’t need to lose more small businesses. We don’t need to foster any more inefficient, poorly run organizations.
We need growth. Engagement. Health. Prosperity. Tenacity. Remedies. Solutions. Profits.
Additionally, I’ll end today’s show with a brief discussion about the benefits of a lower noise floor. Remember, focus is more about elimination of unimportant things than merely trying to concentrate more on what is important.
Gentry (not his real name) was complaining to me how he hated his business life. It was ruining his personal life. He hadn’t considered how we really just have one life, intertwined into a variety of roles. Marci Alboher calls them “slashes” – as in those slashes behind our name.
He started his business about 30 years ago. Those initial years were hard, but he put in the necessary work to build a business that put over eight figures on his net worth. Now he’s lamenting about all the people who have let him down through the years. The conversation drones on and on. I remain silent, knowing that it’s part of the process to let him fully express every frustration he’s got. Besides, what he says will be used against him later. For his own good.
Gentry has hired one manager after another. None have survived much longer than a couple of years. He’s never terminated any of them. They’ve simply taken advantage of his good graces, then moved on. Thankless scoundrels! Well, that’s how Gentry sees it. The reality is he’s impossible to work for – or with.
Through the years he’s been quick to hire people based on the stuff he’d rather not be stuck doing. He’s neglected to properly vet candidates to hire the one most capable of helping him build his business. Like a guy looking for a specific kind of girl, Gentry has always gone searching for the most compliant person. The person he could manipulate the easiest. They didn’t at first see it for what it was, but in time – they figured it out. That’s when they’d quit. Sometimes without notice. Just walk away…so they could escape Gentry. Every time he saw it as the absolute lowest form of loyalty and a gross betrayal.
Rinse and repeat. It’s how Gentry’s entire career went, as a manager or leader of people.
The tenacity and pigheadedness necessary to build a successful business had more often than not bit him in the butt when it came to creating a thriving organization. He often complained that people were his biggest headache.
I did my homework. I knew the history of Gentry’s business. I dug into the details. It was not easy. People were quite reluctant to talk or discuss Gentry’s leadership. Fear ran rampant throughout the company. Stories began to unfold of a man who would quickly and openly “dress people down.” But it wasn’t too hard to piece together what was happening.
People were intimidated and manipulated. All who were willing to talk expressed it in one way or another. Some were more vocal about it than others, but you could sense the despair in each of them.
Two different groups. Both miserable. For their own reasons. And I was left to wonder why people behave as they do, and why they tolerate the behavior they do.
Conclusion? Until people get fed up, nothing changes. For Gentry, or his employees. Both groups were miserable. Both were miserable because of the conduct of one man. Gentry’s misery was the result of his own poor management skills. His people were miserable because he was a terrible leader.
Day after day they all remained exactly where they were because they were not yet fed up with their situation. When employees got fed up, they simply walked away without notice. It was the safest course of action to avoid confrontation with Gentry. When Gentry got fed up he blew up, cussed a blue streak and humiliated somebody – or made the entire staff pay with extra work, added hours to a schedule or some other exercise of control over their lives.
Everybody resented how things were. It was quite clear to me that this was not a situation I could change. Only one man had that ability. Gentry. And I was not convinced he would. I certainly wasn’t confident that anything I’d say would overcome years of autocratic behavior.
I had nothing to lose by shelling it down. I just had to be careful so there’d be no dead bodies when I left. I had to protect the employees from Gentry’s wrath.
The message was simple, but complex. “Until you’re fed up with how things are, things will continue as they always have,” I told Gentry. “You’ve created the business you want. I have to conclude that it works for you – at some level.”
Yes, there was lots of prior conversation. Consulting is like being a bad reporter. You have to sometimes bury the lead. Otherwise you risk failure. Possibly a bloody nose.
Gentry bristled. “I’m here to help,” I told him. “The world is full of people who will tell you what you want to hear. You’ve managed to surround yourself with those people. If that worked, you wouldn’t need somebody like me. But unlike all these other people who have to consider their own welfare – and how things will go with you, their boss – I don’t have that burden. I’m here to help you get better results. That’s all I care about.”
I took out my white towel and began to wave it after a few sessions of straight-talk and a few glimmers of hope that Gentry would “see the light.” It’s a white hand towel I use to wipe clean whiteboards. At last, I’d had enough.
“I surrender to your determination that you’ve created exactly the life you want – which is why you’re never going to experience anything other than what you’ve got.”
“So, you’re gonna quit, too?” asked Gentry.
“No, I’m not quitting, you are. There’s simply nothing left here for me to do. You’re determined to have things your way. Nobody can help you. Until you’re fed up with how things are, things will continue as they have. You’ll keep feeling like you invest in people. People will continue to disappoint you. You’ll never build an organization that can work effectively because you micro-manage everything. And I rather suspect that’s exactly how you want it. You love being the dictator of your business. But it comes with a high price tag. So you moan and groan about how the minions are letting you down, but you’re all powerful around here. Only you have the power to change things.”
“I don’t agree with that at all. I’ve done everything I can to help these people. I’m into everything because these idiots can’t seem to do it right unless I’m involved. That’s exactly what I want to get away from. I just want competent people who will do the job right.”
You can’t fight delusion. You simply hope to help people see things clearly so they can find their way out of the maze. Sadly, the fact was, this business owner was not yet fed up with how things were – and didn’t seem likely to get fed up any time soon. I firmly, but respectfully worked hard to teach him that the things most needed in his company would likely only happen when he reached a point where he simply couldn’t stand it anymore. A point where he was fed up with how things were. A point where he would finally assume some responsibility that HE was the problem.
He wasn’t there yet. His current employees weren’t there yet. They would likely get their before he would. And they’d walk. Leaving him behind to feel reinforced in his sad belief that “these people” were ungrateful and full of betrayal. Everybody would eventually let him down. Nobody could be trusted to do good work unless he was breathing down their neck, threatening them openly in front of their co-workers and reminding them of his supreme authority.
Graham (not his real name) is a mid-level manager in a production outfit that produces and warehouses paper products. It’s a high volume enterprise with lots of blue collar workers, including some shift supervisors. Graham has been in the company for a long time, far longer than any of the shift supervisors who report to him. That seems important because Graham wears that fact proudly. His longevity is an indicator of his superiority over his direct reports. They’re reminded of it constantly.
Like Gentry, he’s an obsessed micro manager who can’t or won’t delegate without lots of interference. But his most endearing quality is a trigger temper. He’ll rail on people with very little provocation. Mostly, anybody who challenges him, no matter how respectful they are. He demands complete and utter subordination. When he doesn’t get it, he views it as a personal affront. Direct reports will endure a public brow beating if they so much as ask a question he feels should not be asked.
At first blush, Graham is super sensitive about his position and authority. But after some visits with his staff – and with him – it’s clear he’s a man living under the cloud of daily threats. Everything seems to threaten him. If it weren’t for my experience, I’d think he might have a drug problem because he has a Jekyll and Hyde personality that can turn on a dime…and he’s very paranoid. His direct reports are out to get him. He’s fairly convinced they intentionally do their best to make him look bad.
The supervisors seems quite dedicated. They keep their head down and go about their business with little or no fanfare. It’s rather obvious they’re constantly aware of Graham’s prying eyes and listening ears. They do their best to not catch his wrath. Like the student in class fearful of being called on, they prefer to not make eye contact – or any other kind – if they can help it. But it doesn’t work. Graham is always prowling for people to blame, problems to be pointed out and people who need to ripped. I can’t help but think, “At least he’s soaring with his strengths.” It’s just sad that his strengths are those of a world-class jerk.
My first sign of trouble is Graham’s lack of introspection. I ask for an overview of the challenges in his daily work. “I know every job here better than anybody else. If these people would just do what I say, then things would be so much nicer.”
Graham, like many autocratic managers, has multiple leadership challenges. I don’t go in guns ablaze trying to “fix” people. You can’t fix people, but you can help people. That’s my intention with Graham, just like any client. But Graham’s situation is different because he didn’t hire me. In the coaching world, it’s often called a “sponsor.” That’s just a polite way of saying, a boss or superior. Sometimes a boss will see such value in a person they want to do something to help that person elevate their performance, or find solutions to poor behaviors. Graham’s boss wants to see if Graham can be saved.
Graham is in trouble, but he has no clue. He’s a kick-butt-take-names kind of manager. That’s worked for him for over 15 years. It’s all he knows. But the boss isn’t happy because he’s grown tired of hearing Graham blame his supervisors and others for every single problem. Some months ago the boss had an epiphany. Maybe Graham has outlived his usefulness. It’s time to do things differently. My task is to help Graham figure it out.
The elephant in the room is that Graham isn’t self-reflective. He doesn’t see himself as he truly is. When I ask him what he thinks on the way home from a day’s work, he nonchalantly says in our first meeting, “I don’t think anything. I just go home.” I probe a bit asking him if he ever replays how he handled things, or does he ever wonder if he might have been able to handle something better. “No, not really,” he says. Graham is doomed.
As badly as I’d like to be hero and save Graham, I’m not that good. Nobody is. Graham just does what he does because it’s worked for him for 15 years. When the ax falls – and it will – he’s going to be blindsided. He’ll never understand what happened. The behavior that got him there isn’t going to take him any further. Like a bus ride that only goes to Phoenix when you want to get to L.A. — Graham is at the end of the line. It’s time to board another bus that can take him further, but he’ll end up sitting alone on a bus parked in Phoenix bewildered why it’s no longer moving.
I won’t tell you how Graham’s story ends, but I’ll tell you that with his boss’ permission I was candid with Graham. I uttered a phrase I’ve said far too often in my career when trying to help a manager who is at risk.
“You’re in trouble.”
By this point I had realized without such candor Graham was never going to comprehend the urgency of his situation. The boss was happy to let me do the dirty work. I was happy to do it because I felt it gave Graham the best chance to see his circumstance more clearly.
I’d love to tell you that Graham responded positively. That he opened up and displayed a high level of willingness to do the work necessary to become a spectacular leader. But that didn’t happen.
Instead, he was puzzled. Bewildered. And he lacked the ability to examine himself accurately. Or to listen to staff who were capable and willing to help him better understand what he was doing wrong. Supervisors reported how often they had tried to express how he made them feel, but it always ended poorly. Each time they regretted saying anything. Overtime, each was conditioned to shut up, endure it as long as you can, and work feverishly to find a better job where leadership wasn’t abusive.
Graham never saw it as abusive. He saw it as “hard charging.” He used words and phrases like “demanding” and “high expectation.” It’s common for me to ask staff about their leader, “Is he a hindrance or a catalyst for high performance?” I don’t care how low level the employee may be, they will always quickly respond with one or the other (of course, only after I’ve earned their trust). Without hesitation we all know if our leaders are serving us well, or not. Graham’s direct reports were no different. Graham was THE problem. Graham was stifling higher human performance. To a man, they were convinced, that if Graham were gone, they’d all be able to do more, do better and have more fun in the process.
I had a few more sessions with Graham after the “you’re in trouble” conversation. My goal was to rattle him enough to cause some self-reflection. I had hoped to help him tire of his miserable existence where his staff were constantly creating issues for him. I told him, “Your success is my success. Don’t you understand that if I can help you, then it makes me look good. I’m completely invested in YOU. In helping you.”
I thought he believed me. And I think he did. Sorta. As much as he could. His boss has concluded – before ever engaging me – that Graham had likely just gone as far as he could go. He hoped he was wrong, but I could see in his eyes when we first met to discuss this “intervention” that I was going to be Graham’s last hope.
I shook his hand after our final session – some months after it all began – and wished him well. All along he had been a very reluctant “client.” He never called. He never texted me. He never emailed me. He only responded when I reached out first. Those are barometers for me of how interested clients are in my help. The good ones – most of them are good – are so interested in elevating their performance they can’t wait to get on with the next step in the process. Ideas are flooding their minds. That never happened with Graham because he never got fed up with himself or with what he might do better. Instead, he devoted himself to being fed up with all the people surrounding him. Never considering that they all had one thing in common – he was their boss.
Question: Are you fed up enough to make the changes necessary so your success can reach the next level?
When are you going to get so sick and tired of it that you actually do something about it?
Nat King Cole sang about it, but you have to practice every day in your organization.
People stop buying from you for the following reasons:
a) They had a poor experience the last time they bought from you, so they don’t come back.
b) They don’t need your products or services any more.
c) They moved.
d) They shop price and have gone to a new lower priced provider.
e) They died.
f) They forgot about you.
It’s that last one that I want to talk about. “How can they forget about us? We’ve been in business since 1938,” said the business owner. The store was located in a market of about 200,000 people. The owner assumed everybody knew all about his business. Because his store had been a fixture in the market for over 70 years he wrongfully concluded that nobody could forget about him. He was wrong.
A casual meeting with the staff revealed that frequent comments were made by shoppers, “You guys are still here? My parents used to shop here. We didn’t know you guys were still around.” In these cases, another generation of shoppers had emerged who simply didn’t think of this store.
Markets, like businesses, are alive. Organic. They’re fluid and always moving.
We can’t assume our business will thrive today just because it’s been around for 70 years. Like people, businesses can grow old and die. Some die of natural causes. Some die due to neglect and abuse. Others are murdered by competition. The job of the business owner is to protect the business – maintain the heath of the company. Part of that job is making sure the market doesn’t forget about the business.
One way to do that is by using sequential communication. Sequential simply means regular, consistent and one after another consistently. Communication can take on many different forms. It could be in traditional advertising such as newspaper advertising, radio or TV spots – or maybe direct mail. It could be in other communications that you don’t think of very often. For instance, it could be the way your phones are answered, the way your employees greet shoppers and all the various scripts that might exist to convey information to your prospects, shoppers and customers. Communication includes how your business cards look, and the message they convey. It includes the message or music used when you put callers on hold. It includes the messages that appear on your sales invoices. The cleanliness and order in your business also conveys important messages to the people who visit your business. Frankly, every interaction with prospects, shoppers and customers screams a message about your business.
Some businesses make the mistake of failing to have congruent messages. That is, they say one thing, but do something else. They may say they’re the lowest price, but shoppers may find it’s just a slogan. They may say they’re fast, but buyers may find their execution is slow. Make sure your business is making good on whatever promises are made by your marketing efforts. Talk is cheap. Your actions must be in step with your marketing promises.
Consistency is a key component in the battle against being forgotten. Part of the challenge of consistency is finding something that works. Businesses tend to chase the quick fix. An owner tries a marketing strategy – let’s say, a direct mail campaign – and it fails. Immediately, he’s looking for a different strategy. However, it could be that the offer wasn’t compelling. It’s the classic case of blaming the messenger for the message. Direct mail is still an effective marketing tool, but the very best list in the world can’t convert if the offer is poor.
Sequential communication, as I’m using it here, is an old concept. It simply means that we don’t just communicate with our prospects once, then hope for the best. It means we plan a series (a sequence) of communications all designed to generate business. The objective is to generate buying customers!
As old as this idea is I’m finding more and more business owners who have never heard it. Trust me. This is not an original idea. My career only goes back to the early 70’s, but it seems I’ve known of this strategy forever. We’ve got some advanced tools today to help us execute it better, but the idea is relatively unchanged.
Here’s the recipe:
1. Contact your list with an offer. This offer can be made via direct mail or via email. It should be made directly to the prospect though. Make the offer as compelling as possible. Spend some time on the offer so it’s unique and not some “me-too” campaign. Build in a way to track the response. You want to know who responds and who does not.
2. Plan a second communication only to the people who failed to respond to the first offer. This is where some business owners fail to see the logic of sequential communication. Many of them see it as a wasted effort. No, it really makes sense if you’ll stop to think about how people behave.
Have you ever asked somebody for something, or invited somebody to something – and they were non-responsive? Sure, it’s happened to all of us. Sometimes they just don’t want to do whatever we’re asking. But other times, they’re doing what we all do. They’re neglectful, forgetful and they procrastinate. Why do you suppose your dentist sends you a postcard reminding you of an appointment you made months ago to have your teeth cleaned? Why do you suppose that same dentist will have somebody call you the day before? Man, they already sent me the postcard. That phone call following the postcard is sequential communication. It’s what brings you back to the same dentist time and again. They’re continuing to make contact and keeping you in the fold of their business. You are their customer and the sequential communication is a crucial part of their strategy to protect their most prized asset – their customer base.
That’s exactly what you want to do for your business. Some people will neglect your first offer. Regardless of the offer, they’ll just fail to act. Maybe they’ll think of accepting your offer when they first see it, but life will take over and they’ll forget. Timing is everything. Sometimes our offer just arrives at the wrong time. You can’t catch everybody at the right time.
When you send your follow-up communication you’re reminding them that you’re still standing ready to serve them. You’re refusing to let them forget about you.
I’m not talking about two different offers. This is the same offer. In fact, it’s important that your second communication remind the prospect that you’ve offered them this before. I suggest that you keep the second communication within 2 weeks of the first one. I have heard of a few businesses that have successfully followed up with a reminder communication beyond 2 weeks, but I think it’s dangerous. Why? Because when 2 weeks have passed the prospect will see it as a brand new offer instead of a reminder of the offer you made earlier. You lose the value of sequential communication when you wait too long. The objective is to make the communication a reminder, not a completely new offer.
Give prospects a reason for the reminder. You have to answer the “why?” question for the prospect. When we get the phone call from our dentist, after we’ve already been sent the postcard – we know exactly why they’re calling us. Apply that same logic in your sequential communication. Help prospects see the clear logic of the second communication.
Let me interject here that I know businesses who have successfully used a series of communications – either direct mail or email – to increase their conversions. Instead of sending one follow-up message, they send more. In some cases, quite a few more.
One of the most discussed topics in marketing is how much communication is too much. You’ll have to judge that for yourself. My thought is, if your offer is compelling enough then it’s hard to over do it. If your best friend was neglecting to take advantage of some offer that you thought was really valuable – would you bug them until they finally told you, “I’m not interested” or would you just let them neglect to take advantage of the deal? Most of us would bug them by telling them how crazy they are if they don’t jump on it. Make sure your offer is compelling, then give prospects every possible consideration to accept it.
Think about how often you reach out and touch prospects. Pay attention. Remember, your first offer will likely hit some people at the wrong time. It may not mean they’re uninterested. It may mean they’re just distracted. Give yourself the best chance to be memorable. Refuse to let people forget about you.
By the way, if you’re operating an organization in a space that doesn’t involve selling something for money, sequential marketing is still highly valuable. Establishing ongoing, profitable communication with the people you serve is crucial in order to be top-of-mind with them.
When I was still a teenager I learned a valuable lesson about selling hi-fi gear. It was quite by accident, but it proved invaluable to me through the years.
At the time mail order houses were the bane of the local retail hi-fi store. People would shop at a local store, listen to the gear they were thinking of buying, then call an 800 number in New York City to get a deep discount on the exact same item. We were used to these things, but knew if we did our job well then we’d likely be able to influence shoppers to buy from us based on a variety of things we could do that the New York mail order houses wouldn’t. For starters, if there was a problem, the shopper knew they could return the item. But that wasn’t the lesson I learned. I learned something far simpler and more powerful.
If I educated the shopper about a feature that meant quite a lot to them I got the credit for that feature. Let’s suppose you cared nothing about the tuner section of a receiver – that is, the radio part of it. I could drone on and on about that and it wouldn’t resonate with you. But if I found out you were really into the preamp section of the unit because records were your thing, then I might mention how a particular unit was known for having a superior preamp section. You’d perk up and pay closer attention. I had already learned the power of asking questions and listening in order to find out what mattered most to shoppers. But now I was learning that if I told you about a feature or benefit that was critical to you, then you’d give me credit for that. It was as though I had personally engineered that feature or benefit into the gear just for you.
Here was the magical thing about it. You could go find that unit cheaper in the back of a stereo magazine and buy it from somebody you’d never met in New York City. Or you could come see me, a guy who had sat with you in a sound room listening with you to your favorite records, and buy from a person who had told you about a specific thing that really mattered to you. By getting credit for the most valuable feature or benefit, you remembered me. And hopefully, it resulted in you becoming my customer.
So it’s not always about being a purple cow. And it’s not about doing something insanely out of the ordinary. Putting the people you serve at the forefront of your efforts is the key. Making it about them, not you. You’ll be remarkable and unforgettable by focusing on helping others in the most selfless way possible. Why? Because it’s rare. It’s unique. And it always will be.
Reach out to serve. Yes, it’s marketing, but it’s because you’ve got something others need and want. Don’t deny them the opportunity to experience what you can do for them. Get in touch. Stay in touch. And don’t stop until they opt out or tell you to quit. Those who opt out or tell you to quit weren’t going to let you serve them anyway so don’t fret about what you fear you may have lost. You’ve lost nothing. You’ve gained tighter focus on those who are most interested in what you have to offer.
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Knowledge makes everything simpler. That doesn’t mean it makes things easy.
