I have spoken a lot about creating your future and the only way to predict the future is to create it, but how do we create this future? For me, I think it starts with understanding that every business is a service business. The only way business prosper is by serving its customers well. It really does not matter whether you in manufacturing or designing a product. Serving the customer is what matters. I am not talking about internal customers or treating a department within your organization as a customer. I am talking about the external customer, the external customer who uses your product or service.
To really provide this customer with good service they need to feel that you care about them and their needs. Making CARING part of the service changes every business into a service business. Caring means going the extra mile and creating a competitive advantage through CARING. Getting every individual in the business to go the extra mile is not easy.
Let’s look at the 3 main roadblocks that prevent businesses from providing “Great Service”
1. If you are a public company (listed on a stock exchange) focussing ONLY on shareholder interest.
2. If you focus ONLY on product e.g. I have a great product to take to market and more time is spend on making the product great rather than a great product that satisfies the needs of the customer.
3. If you focus ONLY on the needs of the team and internal goals are more important than delivering to the customer.
To create the future and the business you want you need to move your business from good to great.
3 steps to Create Great Service
1. Set the intention that no matter what business you are in, you are a service business.
2. Identify actions that makes you great and encourage more of this behaviour.
3. Reward the team for offering great service. Do not ONLY reward in money.
Jim Collins in his book Good to Great explains that moving from Good to Great needs focus and tremendous effort. Knowing where you are going, how you are going to get there and who is going with you. In fact, leaders of companies that go from good to great start “who” not with “where”. They start by getting the right people in key positions and allowing “wrong” people to move on. You cannot motivate people; people have to motivate themselves. Then they stick with that discipline—first the people, then the direction—no matter how dire the circumstances.
The world stands aside and makes room for the person who knows where he is going and is on his way.
When somebody has a vision for what they want to achieve in life, not only will others stand aside and let them pass, but they will join them in their quest as well. They will instinctively recognize their enthusiasm and zest for living. When they speak of their passion in life, their major goal, others will see the intensity of their desire, and they will respond with encouragement and assistance or they will stand aside.
Be brutally honest by asking these 3 questions:
1. What can we be the best in the world at? (And equally important—what can we not be the best at?)
2. What is the economic denominator that best drives our economic engine (profit or cash flow per “x”)?
3. And what are our core people deeply passionate about?
Once you come up with the answers to these 3 questions you might have to make very difficult decisions, which involves looking at what you will not be do going forward.
Putting these plans into action is when the real work starts. This road is not easy, and it will take time, because Overnight Success does not exist. Time is dependent on the size of the business and the courage of the management to do what needs doing.
