There is an easier way to think about what the CULTURE is in your organization...

There are three questions I would encourage every business leader to ask their customers if they truly want to know their perspectives on their company. None of these are technical questions. They are all questions your customers knows with complete accuracy and details. They are what I call my “KILLER QUESTIONS” because they are so critical helping a business DIFFERENTIATE themselves from their competitors.

And how you treat employees is how you act. It’s really hard for an employee to put on one face for the customer and then switch back to something else when just around employees. Sure, they might be able to do this occasionally, but not consistently. Ultimately, they default to treating the customer how they interact with each other.

I started off by saying that culture is easier than we make it. The reason this is the case is that we try to “dress up the pig” when talking about our culture. We know what “we would like” it to be, so we create lots of verbiage, slogans, and taglines in hopes others will believe it. THEY DON’T. What they believe is what they see, feel, and experience. This is their truth, not what we tell them.

Let’s approach this from a different perspective…we will end up at the same place. What is your “BRAND?” No, not your tagline, or logo, or cute saying you put on your trucks and on your business cards. I mean, what is your true brand? What is it PEOPLE SAY ABOUT YOU WHEN YOU AREN’T AROUND? This is your true brand! It’s actually what they tell others about you. Do you even know?

Check it out in your own organization. Walk around and ask a variety of people in your organization to tell you what your brand is from their perspective. Ask 50 people…you’ll probably have 50 different viewpoints of your brand. This, by the way, is what we call “brand confusion.” It is what happens when we don’t have a clear and concise brand that our employees know AND our customers understand. Customers need to understand your brand “intellectually” AND how it makes them “feel.” This is what makes up your actual and true brand. Without going into an entire discussion on brand, let me share with you how your culture and your brand are linked.

HINT: YOUR CULTURE IS YOUR BRAND.

Maybe you figured this out already. Maybe this is an entirely new way to think about culture. Either way, I would challenge you to define it (or both your brand and your culture, since they are essentially one in the same). What do you want it to be? What would the ideal brand be for your company…what you want your audience to say about you when you aren’t around? Do you want your employees to effectively communicate this to your audience through their actions? I know, that was another rhetorical question.

STOP getting hung up with making Culture more difficult...it doesn't have to be.

We start by asking ourselves, “What do we want to our customers to say about us to others (word-of-mouth).” This is an awesome place to start. Spend some time with this one. Get a facilitator to help you through this discussion. When I do this for companies, it can take us up to a day sometimes to ferret this out and really define what we want. How we want our customers to communicate this message clearly and concisely to others. We don’t want to leave it up to chance and “hope” they say the right things. We want to arm them with the right things.

WARNING: THIS IS NOT BUILDING MORE MARKETING SLOGANS. This isn’t about marketing…it is about how we interact and treat our customers. Our customers won’t ever be able to communicate all the technical stuff about our business, but they will (with 100% certainty) be able to talk about how we treated them and how we made them feel. This is a huge part of your brand!!

For example, if someone asked your customer why they work with you, what will they say? We can control this by the experience we give them. How would your business change if your customers said…

“They have great products and services that really help us do what we need to do. But above that, and even though theirs are a little more expensive than others, we really enjoy the way they treat us. They make us feel important and special and are truly invested in our success. We could get a cheaper price, but we really would miss all they help us with to make us successful. They really have our backs.”

Would your business improve? Would you potentially be more profitable? Would you have a higher CLV (Customer Lifetime Value)? Would you have higher loyalty and lower turnover (churn) of customers? Would your customers become your advocates? And, the Holy Grail of a customer, would they tell others about you and how they should work (buy) with you? Again, rhetorical questions…the answer to all of these is a resounding YES!!

If this happens, you have established an amazing and incredible brand in the market. One that is super supportive and one that a customer can easily share with others…consistently and concisely. They can do this because IT IS THEIR TRUTH, not yours. This becomes your BRAND. This also becomes your CULTURE.

Build the necessary experience and processes so your employees can easily deliver it to your customers. When you do this, it becomes WHO THEY ARE and WHAT YOU DO…it becomes YOUR CULTURE. When you think of CULTURE in this way, it becomes much easier for your employees to get their arms around and to know what to do. It becomes (as I like to call it) the DNA of your Organization. It is who you are and what you do. It is your identity.

Now, when I call up your customers and ask them to tell me about your culture, it is an easy question for them to answer because they fully understand your brand. It is about them, and they can tell me (and many others) who you are and why they should be buying from you instead of your competitors. Isn’t that the ultimate goal we all want to have as a business?

Change your thinking about Culture...

STOP listening to all the culture guru’s tell you how complex culture is to change. Granted, it takes some time and hard work like anything else you want to do in your business, but your employees will get it much quicker and implement it much faster. I know I’ll be getting some hate mail from all the “culture consultants,” bring it on. Stop making something more complex than it needs to be. You can kill two birds with one stone…your brand and your culture. And make it easier on your employees (and customers) to embrace and communicate to others. At the end of the day, isn’t that what we all want?

Take the challenge and blow up all the nonsense about Culture.

It will change your company forever. And both your employees and your customers will love it and embrace it. That’s a win-win. If you have any questions or just want to talk more about how this can actually happen, shoot me a message. I’m happy to share some more thoughts on this topic with you (complimentary of course) so you can get your arms around it. Then you can decide what’s best for you and your company. Give me a shout if you would like to hear more and see how you can change it in your own organization. Simple is always better than complex because that’s what employees and customers want.

WHAT?!? 

If I understood her correctly, she was saying that WORD-OF-MOUTH HAS BEEN REPLACED BY ADVERTISING. I was shocked. Granted, I have focused much of my career on helping companies GET MORE word-of-mouth because it is the MOST POWERFUL form of advertising anyone can get. Now, I’m hearing AT&T tell me that it has been “replaced” by advertising?

They got it wrong...really wrong

There are a host of statistics out there to prove they are wrong. For example, one statistic says that 92% of the people trust the recommendations they get from people they know…that’s word-of-mouth. Only 8% Trust a company’s advertising…that’s current advertising. You’re a business leader, which would you choose? Which would you want to stake the success of your business on? Which one do you believe would help you grow faster and scale your enterprise? We all know the answer…word-of-mouth.

Word-of-mouth has been and always will be the most powerful form of advertising any company can ever get…period. It will always be the first choice we will look for when buying anything. If someone we know (and Trust) is telling us this is an excellent product/service and company, it is our first (and usually) last stop…we usually buy from them.  It is the starting point for any purchasing decision. Why??? One word…

TRUST.

Word-of-mouth is a trusted source. Word-of-mouth tells us that someone we TRUST has had an experience with this product/service and the company, and it was good enough to tell others about. Or it was awful, and they want to warn you about doing business with them…either way, it’s word-of-mouth.

No one will ever tell you to buy something from someone unless there is some degree of TRUST...no one.

The only exception to this is when someone is telling you about a special bargain deal. They are telling you about a great price, not that they trust the company. They are giving you information about a “deal,” not the reputation of the company. This is the only exception.  They aren’t telling you they TRUST them. They are just telling you about a great deal. For example, someone tells me about paper towels being half-priced today at a particular store. It is word-of-mouth about the deal, not that they trust or recommend the store. This is “commodity word-of-mouth.” Powerful word-of-mouth, which is what we all want, is synonymous with TRUST.

What doesn’t make sense in the AT&T commercial is that they are saying TRUST (92%) has been replaced by a good advertisement (8%). Sorry, I don’t think so…it will never happen. An ad has not REPLACED word-of-mouth and most likely never will. Never happen.

What is happening is that we are trading off TRUST for DISTRIBUTION

What I believe AT&T is really saying is that what used to happen one-on-one or one-to-few has now been replaced by one-to-many. They are subtly telling me that their brand isn’t strong enough to spread far or fast enough via word-of-mouth, so they resort to mass distribution…a commercial. It tells me there aren’t enough ecstatic customers out there acting as Advocates and Marketing Agents to grow their business, so they need to replace this with massive distribution. Massive distribution is NOT the same as word-of-mouth. It is just what it says, massive communication of a message, not word-of-mouth, and certainly not earning TRUST.

I can tell you from years of experience and with absolute certainty that you will be far better off investing your money into building more TRUST and word-of-mouth than advertising. It has ALWAYS paid off for those that invest in it. Household company names like Nordstrom, Zappos, Southwest Airlines, Alaska Airlines, and many others have used this for years and built buckets full of TRUST. The result…they get massive amounts of word-of-mouth.

One final point on why you want to invest heavily in word-of-mouth…LEVERAGE

Word-of-mouth is highly leveraged. When you invest in it, it keeps paying you back over and over again and in larger and larger amounts. It grows over time, sometimes exponentially. It’s like you plant one seed, and it continues to grow and spread…all from the one seed. You don’t need to have millions of people to make this work for you, just people who are passionate and vocal about you. A small, passionate and committed group of Advocates will bring you more customers than any advertisement you can buy.

Contrast this with advertising. It isn’t leveraged…you have to keep feeding the beast. How do you think the large advertising agencies got so big and rich? Because you have to keep buying advertising over and over and over again and hope you reach your audience when they are ready to buy. It’s a drug. You have to keep using it repeatedly if you want to try and get the same effect. It never ends. It only ends when you change your strategy from advertising to building more word-of-mouth and TRUST. When you flip the equation, you start getting leverage from your investment.

Everything starts with strategy. Do you have an “acquisition strategy” or a “retention/loyalty strategy?” If you have an “acquisition strategy” where you focus on attracting and acquiring new customers, it usually falls on the marketing department. Leadership wants them to find and attract new customers. Right idea, but it’s how you decide to go about it. This is where things start to break down. From my experience, most marketing leaders are far more comfortable with acquisition through attraction (advertising primarily). They are not as comfortable (or knowledgeable) about “retention/loyalty strategies.” They are not equipped or empowered to create massive word-of-mouth from their existing or new audience.  So they default to what they know…acquisition.

Strategy starts with top leadership…it isn’t a marketing issue. If leadership focuses on acquisition, marketing is left to execute that strategy, the best way they can…and they do. However, when leadership decides they want a more leveraged and longer-term return on their investment, they will opt for a “retention/loyalty/advocate strategy instead.” When this happens, they have decided to build more TRUST with their audience and focus on creating more “Advocates.” Their goal is to build more Trust and word-of-mouth from their audience and “get their audience doing their marketing for them.”

Back to the AT&T commercial. I hope you can now see how ridiculously wrong this message is when you look just a bit deeper. Word-of-mouth was never replaced by advertising. Advertising came about because companies weren’t willing to invest in word-of-mouth advertising. It takes a strategy, a focus on building Trust by treating your customers amazingly well, and helping them improve their life. Doing this day-to-day teaches your customer what you are about and if you are worthy of the Holy Grail for any business…word-of-mouth.

My new book (see below) is focused exclusively on this strategy. It will be out shortly. The key is to determine which way you want to approach marketing and create a strategy to get there. AT&T has declared its strategy in its advertisement, and Lily stated it very clear. Word-of-mouth is something we “USED TO DO,” not what we focus on today. Today, we focus on ADVERTISING. That’s a pretty clear message. I believe they have it all wrong.

What To Do Next...

I hope you can change your mindset to one where advertising simply feeds your audience with helpful information so you can build more TRUST and more ADVOCATES so they can’t wait to tell others about you. So they do your marketing for you.  What would that look like for your organization? Something I would encourage every business to think about and act on. In these trying times especially, having a pack of loyal advocates is worth more than ever. It’s never too late to change your strategy.

STOP DOING THIS TO YOUR CUSTOMERS…immediately.

CUSTOMER APPRECIATION isn't a calendar event. It should be your CULTURE.

If you were a customer and happened to miss the special “Customer Appreciation” day, week, or month, how would you feel? How would you feel now that you aren’t being “appreciated” because you missed the event? Let’s say the event was “Customer Appreciation Month” and you went in the first day of the month after the event. How do you feel? Don’t you want to be “appreciated” on this day, even though you didn’t happen to be there in the appropriate month? I would…and I’m sure you would as well.

What message are you sending to your audience?

It tells me I should only shop with you during the one month of the year…the month you appreciate me. Why would I want to shop with you the other 11 months? I’m not appreciated in those months. I don’t get any specials. I don’t get treated as well as I would during the appreciation month. I’m not as special in the other 11 months of the year as I am in this particular month. Maybe I should just shop with you during this one month and then go check out your competitors the other 11 months.

You get the point. The message is wrong. And while you can justify it and tell me that you treat your customers great all 12 months, you really don’t. You can tell me this is just a marketing ploy to get customers to come in this month because it might be a slow month or you might offer some extra discounts, but that isn’t the message your customer hears. And it isn’t what your customer expects.

Customer Appreciation usually means I'm giving you a discount.

If we cut to the chase, these events are another name for a “sale.” We are cutting prices and need to attribute it to something. If this is the case, just tell your customers you are giving them a discount all month long because you wanted to move some merchandise or increase your sales numbers. They will understand this and will shop the discounts. Be honest with them and authentic.

Create some fun language around this to let them know it is in their best interest to shop during the next day, week, or month with you because you are giving them extra discounts. Tell them the truth. Tell them if you were a customer, this would be a great time to stock up on some of their favorite items that you are putting on sale. Be honest. This will build more Trust than you can imagine. Don’t try to fool them…customers are smarter than you think.

What EXPECTATIONS are you planting with your customers when you have an "appreciation" event?

When we have “Customer Appreciation” days, weeks, or months, we are setting EXPECTATIONS that something SPECIAL is going to happen during this period of time. Is it? Most of the time, it doesn’t and you are treated exactly the same way you were when it wasn’t Customer Appreciation. Is it just another word for a “sale event” or are you truly doing something special for your customers? Unfortunately, most of these appreciation events are linked to product/service discounts, not to appreciation.

The word “APPRECIATE” is tricky. It’s a very powerful word to most people. If I tell you I appreciate you, you feel special. You feel like I truly care about you and recognize all the good things you do for me. That’s what it is supposed to mean…I truly care about you and “appreciate” you or something you did for me. I care. Marketing misuses this word for what it is truly meant to convey. It has become a gimmick or an advertising trick to make you feel special. Unless you are committed to doing it all the time, I don’t feel special…nor do your customers. I want you to stop doing that and to focus on what your customer actually wants…to be appreciated…to feel special…to feel important.

Customer Appreciation should be demonstrated continuously...it should "how we do business" every single day. It is "who we are" as a company.

Customers are awesome. They will go out of their way to tell others about you if they feel you truly appreciate them and you demonstrate it continuously. They will bring new customers to you…for FREE. They will do your marketing for you when they feel appreciated. Customers love to tell others how awesome they were treated. Why not get them telling others about you?

We want our customers to tell others about how incredibly awesome and amazing you are to work with…not that you have lowest prices in town. In fact, I would NOT want to be the one others talk about because I have the lowest prices…this is simply margin erosion…a path on the “race to the bottom.” I want them to tell others how much they are “appreciated” and how “special” they feel when working with you…and they pay a normal price, not some discounted price. It’s a win-win for you and the customer. You get to keep your profits and the customer gets to feel like they are truly appreciated.

3 Steps to changing Customer Appreciation...

My GOAL for YOU...

My goal is always the same…help you be more CUSTOMER OBSESSED so you can become “REMARK”able, where your customers (and others) are doing your marketing for you and acting as your Advocates and Marketing Agents. Everything I share with you has this underlying purpose and goal attached…I want you to “light up” your audiences so they reward you well above your competitors. That’s it. I hope you want the same. Thank you…

BUILDING YOUR BRAND...is absolutely, positively critical today in our noisy, crowded, and commoditized world. A differentiated Brand that stands out to your audience is worth GOLD!

Do you have a Brand that is clearly differentiated from your competitors? Do you have a “Brand Message” that is easy to understand? Does your audience talk about your Brand in a way that is what you want and consistent with your Brand Message? Do your employees communicate a consistent Brand Message in both their words and their actions?

I don’t have to tell you that having a consistent Brand Message is more difficult today than it has ever been in history…you’re living it. Audiences are more confused than ever. And to make things worse, everyone in our audience (customers included) has a “microphone” today and can say whatever they want about us. All this has led to one major issue for just about every business…BRAND CONFUSION.

Let’s step back a bit and see how all this happened. Life was easier in the Industrial Revolution…before the Internet. Companies had control of just about everything, including their Brand Message. What they said was what people heard about them. And they repeated it a lot so it was burned into our memory. I’m probably giving away my age, but I still remember some of the jingles that these behemoth companies put out to get us to remember their products and services. It was all we had.

Then the Internet came along and all of a sudden, we could hear what “other people were saying” about these same products and services. Almost overnight we had many more voices telling us about these same products and services. And they were trusted and credible voices because they were customers who were actually using them. They were believable and we listened. We still listen…more today than ever before. The world has changed…we are squarely in the Customer Economy (according to Forrester Research). The customer is firmly and completely in control of the messages in the market.

Building Brand today is more difficult than ever...or is it?

There are millions (if not billions) of dollars being spent by businesses today to build their Brand. Is it worth it? I believe the money should be spent…but not on building Brand the way most believe it should be built. I disagree that your Brand is built by pumping more ads, social media posts, and other propaganda into the market with the intent of trying to shape how your audience views your company. This doesn’t work. I’m sure I’ll get some hate mail from the “branding experts” on this one, but I think you might just agree with me.

Here’s a simple test you can try for yourself to prove my point. Randomly pick 20 customers that would represent your ideal audience(s). Then simply ask them one simple question, “What do you believe is the “Brand” of our company and our “Brand Message”? My guess is you will get close to 20 different and varied responses…maybe no two the same. And when you do get these responses, how close are they to what YOU believe your Brand and Brand Message to be? I think you will find a great deal of misalignment.

Which one is right? Are any of these Brand Messages right? The surprising answer is, all of them!! That’s right, they are all the right Brand Message to the person who believes it to be the Brand Message. To them, it is accurate. To them, this is what you stand for, your purpose, what you do, and how they would label your company. It might not be what you want them to say, but to your audience, it is truth.

Let me cut to the chase…Branding is simple. Creating your Brand is nothing more than “what you do,” not “what you say.” If you tell everyone you always deliver the best product on time and you don’t have the best products or you don’t deliver on time, it won’t ever be your Brand Message, no matter how hard you try. It is what you “demonstrate” consistently to your audience that creates and builds your Brand Message. Nothing complex about it…it’s your actions that determine your true Brand.

Brand is all about leverage. You demonstrate something to one member of the audience and they tell a thousand people. That’s leverage. You do something over and over again (consistency rules) and your audience tells others this is who you are and how you operate…your Brand Message. Your audience is your “hidden marketing force” that works for you or against you. If they are telling everyone the Brand Message you want, you win. If they tell others a Brand Message that isn’t what you want, you lose. The key is to get your Brand Message in alignment with your audience.

5 Steps to quickly Build your Brand and Brand Message in the market... 

As I promise with all these articles in the “NOW Series”, I want to give you something you can do quickly, like in 30 days or maybe a little more. You can change your Brand quickly with some focused efforts. Here are 5 steps you can take to transform your Brand and Brand Message quickly…

Your audience is a quick learner. If they see you doing something consistently different and throughout the organization, they will believe you are something different. If they see if often enough, they will believe you are something different. You will have changed your Brand Message because of your Actions. Now, if you asked your audience again to tell you what they believe your message to be, you will get a different answer. And your audience is the only one that matters when it comes to your Brand Message. What they say goes and it is what they will tell others.

I talk about helping organizations become “REMARK”able all the time. It is all about getting your audience to do your marketing for you…tell others (remark) about how incredibly awesome and amazing you are. To make this work, you want to arm them with the “right” Brand Message so they can tell everyone what it is you want them to say. This is how you leverage your audience to tell thousands of others who you really are and back it up with action. This will change your Brand and Brand Message in a much shorter time than any ad campaign or new messaging in the market. Show your audience who you really are. And they will reward you with massive marketing on your behalf…in the right direction…for free.

My GOAL for YOU...

As with this series, my goal is always the same…help you be more CUSTOMER OBSESSED so you can become “REMARK”able, where your customers (and others) are doing your marketing for you and acting as your “Advocates and Marketing Agents.” Everything I share with you has this underlying purpose and goal attached…I want you to “light up” your audiences so they can become your Advocates and Marketing Agents. That’s it. If you want the same, keep reading this series. Thank you…

HELPING OTHERS IMPROVE THEIR LIFE AND/OR BUSINESS...a massive Differentiator...and one your customers remember for a very long time

Do you have a formal and detailed plan for how you can help your audience improve their life and/or their business…beyond selling them your products and services? Did you know most organizations don’t have a plan? Did you know it is one of the ways someone will remember you well beyond the normal memory curve of your products and services? Did you know you can improve significantly in this area in as short as 30 days when you have a strategy and executable plan?

When I ask companies how they are specifically helping their audience improve their lives and/or their business, I usually get a blank stare or a lot of excuse making. While it seems like something we should naturally be doing, it just doesn’t seem happen. Why? The number one reason is that there isn’t a specific “proactive plan” for making it happen. And from past experience, if there isn’t a plan, it won’t happen. Left to chance, things never happen the way we want.

While it might sound simple, it takes planning to make it happen. I haven’t met a company yet that can’t make this happen…right NOW. The issue is making it formal and prescriptive…developing a solid plan for the few months and into next year…then executing it consistently and frequently. When you do, amazing things will happen for your organization…beyond what you might believe. Your audience will not only take notice, they will comment on it and talk about it. They will thank you over and over and will actually look forward to it. And, perhaps most importantly, they will “share” it and “tell others” about it…and YOU. It’s crazy to think about how much return you can get from such a simple concept and plan…but you can. Your audience will see how much you care, remember you, and talk about you. And in this turbulent world we live in, who doesn’t need more of these things?

What exactly do you mean?

What exactly do I mean when I talk about “improving the life and/or business” of your audience? How can you do this yourself…quickly?

First, it means you identify ways, outside of your products and services, to help your audience improve or better their personal life and/or improve their business with what you know individually and as an organization. Every organization has tons of knowledge about “how” their products and services can help their audience. We all have this…it’s what we do as a business. But why do we have sell these products and services? What “problems” or “issues” or “situations” are we helping our audience solve? What problems caused us to create this particular product or service? Why do we do what we do as a business?

Second, you know (or should know) the answers to these questions. Hold a leadership meeting and write them all down…capture this thinking. When you have this list, you now have half of the solution in front of you. Take this list and capture ideas by answering this one question, “What could we share with our audience, in terms of our knowledge and experience, that could help them overcome these issues REGARDLESS of whether or not they used our products or services?” That’s right, regardless of using your products or services, how can you help them improve their life and/or business?

An example...

The best way to explain this concept is to give you some examples of what you can be doing…NOW. Let’s say you are a distributor or a sales company for a particular product, such as security products. You distribute them to smaller companies and also sell them to larger companies. You may even install them as well. What could you do? Here’s a list to get you started thinking in the “helpful” direction…

• Create some videos showing employees how to be safer when going to and from work
• Create some articles that talk about the latest trends in security (not  product oriented)
• Create a blog that shares stories about actual situations people are facing and how they could be prevented by thinking about some different issues
• Create some videos of your customers (and others) talking about security issues and how they resolved them (without reference to specific products)
• Create a checklist of items you could have your audience review to see what level of risk they are at based on their current situation

Providing this type of helpful information to your audience is what it means to actually help someone “improve their life and/or their business,” without talking about your products and services. All of these items are helping them be safer and keep their businesses (and employees) safer. They are simply helping them “lower their risk” more than they are right now. They are HELPING YOUR AUDIENCE.

Customer Obsessed companies have this built into their DNA, their culture. They are constantly thinking of ways to help their audience improve their lives and/or their business. They get creative and innovative and come up with some ways that will blow your mind. They are energized by the idea of helping their audience. They look for the opportunity continuously. And, they still do their job, they just go above and beyond their competitors by focusing on how to help them, not sell them. And their audience knows this and rewards them with continued Loyalty and Advocacy. Their audience loves to tell others about them and share their helpful content freely. All of this is what I call “free marketing.” How much “free marketing” are you getting from your audience today?

When you focus on “consistently helping” your audience, you set yourself apart from your competition. As with the first two articles in this series, Differentiation and Trust, you are building more upon the foundation of both of these. When you Consistently Help, you simply look Different to your customers and others in your audience. You build Trust. You Differentiate yourself from your competitors. All these work together to leverage the other parts of the foundation of being Customer Obsessed and centric.

Now you have one more major component to building an incredibly strong and solid foundation for your business. And, like the other two, you can do this quickly. Do this over and over and over again and your customer will start to see you as significantly different from your competitors. You will quickly see results and how you can elevate your company above your competitors…NOW.

You can't become Customer Obsessed overnight...

You can’t become Customer Obsessed overnight…but you can get some immediate impact (within 30 days) and start to demonstrate uniqueness to your customers. And when your customers start seeing you CONSISTENTLY HELPING them improve their lives and/or their business, you stand out and you get talked about. And there isn’t a business on the planet that can’t benefit from getting more word-of-mouth from trusted and loyal Advocates…no one.

You can do this too…and quickly. I have designed this type of plan for a company and it was being executed within 2 – 4 weeks. And I guarantee this will shock your audience…they will notice. They will be thankful…even more thankful in today’s turbulent economy. And when they notice, they tell others. When they notice, they see you as Different. When they notice, you build Trust. When they notice, you win out over your competitors. Why would anyone not want this for their organization RIGHT NOW?

By the way, this entire series about “NOW is the time to…” is an example of exactly what I am talking about. This series isn’t selling you anything. It doesn’t focus on telling you about my products and services…nothing. It is focused on one thing and one thing only…HELPING YOU IMPROVE YOUR BUSINESS. I don’t ask for anything nor do I expect anything…I simply have the focus on helping YOU. You can do exactly the same thing for your audience…it just takes a solid plan and consistent execution.

My GOAL for YOU...

As with this series, my goal is always the same…help you be more CUSTOMER OBSESSED so you can become “REMARK”able where your customers (and others) are doing your marketing for you and acting as your “Marketing Agents.” Everything I share with you has this underlying purpose and goal attached…I want you to “light up” your audiences so they can become your Advocates and Marketing Agents. That’s it. If you want the same, keep reading this series. Thank you…

ANXIETY...something NO customer wants

Did you know that the majority of “Customer Anxiety and Stress” is actually created by the way we conduct business? Did you know that employee anxiety goes up significantly when your customers are anxious or stressed out? Did you know customer anxiety can be avoided or eliminated before it even happens?

Unfortunately, we create the majority of anxiety for our customers. I know, this sounds like we don’t care about our customers and we make their life stressful. We do. I know you care about your customers…but you may not be doing enough to lower their stress or anxiety. Anxiety, by definition, is created due to the “unknown” or the “uncertainty” of something. For example, if you are going to a new place to eat, you are both excited and anxious. Excited because it is a new place and you have probably heard good things about it. But I would also argue that you have some anxiety as well because you don’t know exactly what is going to happen…there is an element of the unknown.

And let’s say you are taking someone you really want to impress…your anxiety goes up even further. When you add in a layer of importance to the situation (risk) your anxiety increases. If this is a first date or a major client, your anxiety is higher than normal because the risk has increased. When there is more at stake, the risk has increased so the anxiety naturally increases.

For example, what if you were dealing with a company who had to get you a particular part. A part that you needed for one of your own customers…a whale (a large customer). If you don’t get the part on time or it is wrong, this could cost you your customer. This is high risk…this creates a high degree of anxiety for you. The unknown and uncertainty just went up significantly. By instinct, we want to lower our anxiety and our risk.

In the example above, the only true way to alleviate the massive amount of stress and anxiety for the customer is to take away the unknowns and create more certainty. When you examine the situation and understand where these uncertainties are being created, you can focus on eliminating them and giving the customer more peace of mind. Sounds easy…it isn’t. It isn’t because most of the time it isn’t something you focus on. But when you change your focus, it becomes a “way of life” (your culture) and much easier to eliminate so you can create more peace of mind.

Often times, the anxiety we create for our customers can be hard to identify. Employees do what they know and think is best when dealing with the customer. Unfortunately, they usually execute their activities based on the processes they are told to follow. If these processes increase customer anxiety or stress, the employees will usually opt to follow the processes rather than focus on eliminating customer anxiety since it is how they are evaluated.

What your employees ask first is what they focus on. If they ask how something is going to impact their job or impact revenue (or profitability) or operations, this is what they are focused on. If they don’t ask how something is going to impact the customer BEFORE asking anything else, their solution usually won’t be focused on alleviating customer anxiety or lowering the customers stress. But if the employee starts every interaction by asking themselves how this is going to impact their customer, they usually find a more customer centric solution. They find ways to ensure the customer has less (or no) anxiety.

Back to the example of the big customer who needed the critical part. In a Customer Obsessed company, the employee would do some exploring to find out how this part was going to impact the customer. The customer would tell them how important it is to get it on time and how they have a lot riding on getting this part. Once the employee understands this, they have a heightened sense of urgency about the situation. They can now see why the customer is under a great deal of stress and has anxiety…the unknown about when they will get the part. A customer centric employee would devise a game plan with the customer where they would keep them informed every step along the way so there were no “surprises” that would come up out of the blue. They would lay out a plan for how they were going to talk to the supplier, communicate the information to the customer, follow-up every day to get an update, and keep the customer in the loop the entire time.

They might also search for another supplier who could to provide the part if this one can’t come through with it. Maybe they order two of them from two different suppliers just to make sure they have one on the date the customer really needs it and absorb the small restocking fee because the customer is so significant. Or maybe they find different ways to transport the part to ensure that it gets here in a timely manner. As you can see, there are a variety of options available to an employee to consider when they have their customer in the front of everything they do. Sadly, most companies would just tell the customer they are “doing the best they can” and hope it gets here on time.

The key to eliminating Stress and Anxiety is "Anticipation" and "Communication"

If you read between the lines in the example I just shared, you probably saw two things jump off the page. The first is “Anticipation.” Customer Obsessed organizations focus on “anticipating” what could happen and then make plans for how to handle these contingencies. They have backup plans for their backup plans so it is rare when something doesn’t happen the way they want. They are “anticipating” different scenarios and finding different options for how to handle these scenarios…in advance of them happening.

AKA...Anticipation Kills Anxiety

The second part of this equation is “Communication.” Customer Obsessed companies “over communicate” with their customers. They are constantly keeping them in the loop on any activities or actions that are taking place so the customer knows exactly what is going on…without having to guess. This level of communication takes more time and effort, but definitely helps eliminate anxiety…it works. And customers love it. If they know you are always going to keep them in the loop they don’t have to worry about the unknowns. After all, you are communicating constantly about what is going on (constantly) so you are eliminating the unknowns and uncertainties.

When your employees are constantly anticipating what could go wrong or happen along the way and they are over communicating with your customers, they are, in essence, killing any anxiety and stress the customer may have over the situation. They know you are constantly looking for ways which will allow them to be successful and you are communicating it every step of the way. This “kills anxiety and stress.”

Everything works together to build a foundation

When you adopt this mindset and are always focusing on anticipating what can happen next for your customers, you are setting yourself apart from your competition. As with the first two articles in this series, Differentiation and Trust, you are building more upon the foundation of both of these. When you Eliminate Anxiety, you look Different to your customers. When you Eliminate Anxiety, you build Trust with your customers. These work together to enhance each one and leverage the other parts of the foundation of being Customer Obsessed and centric.

Now you have one more major component to building an incredibly strong and solid foundation for your business. And, like the other two, you can do this quickly. Do this over and over and over again and your customer will start to see you significantly different from your competitors. You will quickly see results and how you can elevate your company above your competitors…NOW.

You can’t become Customer Obsessed overnight…but you can get some immediate impact (within 30 days) which will demonstrate uniqueness to your customers. And when your customers start seeing you anticipating their issues and “watching their back,” they will want to work with you ahead of your competitors. When times are tough and customers have fewer dollars to spend, Eliminating their Stress and Anxiety will go a long way to helping you be number one in their eyes.

My GOAL for YOU...

As with this series, my goal is always the same…help you be more CUSTOMER OBSESSED so you can become “REMARK”able where your customers (and others) are doing your marketing for you and acting as your “Marketing Agents.” Everything I share with you has this underlying purpose and goal attached…I want you to “light up” your audiences so they can become your Advocates and Marketing Agents. That’s it. If you want the same, keep reading. Thank you…

There is a "Different" Approach

Some of this advice is what we heard back in 2008 and 2009 when we were attempting to come out of that great recession. The advice, which is sound, is to conserve cash and look for ways to conserve cash. But today, with this new challenge in our economy, there is a “New Approach” being discussed and put into place…one that is definitely worth exploring. What is this New Approach? First, let’s take a brief look back to see what we did in 2008/09 that worked…then look at some new approaches that can change your business in the short term but definitely into the long-term as well.

Focusing on Cash and Processes is Only Part of the Solution...there's MORE

How does a business conserve cash and “batten down the hatches” to weather out this storm? How does a company pick and choose what to do when everything seems to be pointing south and sales are dwindling or gone? In many ways, this is already very different than the 2008/09 recession. The economy is still strong, despite the “invisible enemy” that has attacked us. We can’t manage this one based on some economic mistakes or greed like we saw back in 08/09. But the results still seem to feel like the same outcome. But are they?

When we look at ways to free up cash and conserve cash, some would suggest ways to trick the tax system or other “quick fix” strategies. But two of the most effective ways back in 08/09 were (and still are) to stop the outflow of cash and make what you have more efficient so you can free up more cash.

The 08/09 recession was the era where “process improvement” was a hot topic…improve your processes, reduce headcount, and stop spending money on anything not directly related to generating revenue. In other words, if what you were doing or who you had as an employee wasn’t directly contributing to generating cash, they were out.

And everyone was looking at their “fat” processes and trying to figure out how to get leaner and remove excess cost from production, inventory, and a host of other functions. And while it worked for a while, many soon realized you can only cut the “fat” out until you hit the “muscle” of the organization…then you were done. This proved to be a salvation for many companies and they were able to get much leaner and operate more efficiently.

Where to Focus in 2020...and beyond

When we started 2020 with an incredibly robust economy flying along like nobody’s business, there was no doubt companies had added a little fat along the way. But nothing compared to the fat we had built up prior to 2008. Today, the fat might be a few pounds, but not hundreds like in 2008. So, the process of “cutting the fat” and improving the efficiencies of our processes doesn’t represent the big opportunity we were drawing from back in 2008. There just isn’t as much fat to cut today.

Without lots of “fat” to cut out of our businesses, how do we survive this and still either grow or position ourselves for growth? This is where the “EXCEPTION” comes in I eluded to in the beginning. There is one highly visible exception some companies are already taking advantage of and one that more need to take advantage of during this time. It is the one area where you might want to consider spending the lion’s share of your time and effort during this challenging time of COVID-19.

What I am suggesting isn’t some “slight improvements” or “new features” on existing products or services. I’m suggesting investing time and energy into “whiteboarding” who you are, why you exist, and what is it you can do to truly differentiate yourself from your competitors in the market.

A “restart” and a true “reinvention” of why you are in business and “what matters most.” A “fresh look” through the eyes of your customers to see what they really need, not what we have to sell.

Who’s doing this right now? If you are, let’s hear about it. Share your thoughts, your process, your insights so everyone can learn from each other. Let’s help everyone out and it will accelerate our recovery when it comes in the near future. This is a time to band together, share what you are doing and let others translate it into their own business.

From a personal perspective, I live in a constant world of “REINVENTION” by helping organizations become “REMARK”able by being Customer Obsessed. Why wait for a crisis (like we are in with COVID-19) to build true differentiation and uniqueness? I get to do it every day and have done it every day for more than a decade. This isn’t new to me…it’s my everyday life.

I’m not here today to “sell” you on the need to be Customer Obsessed. That decision is always up to you should you decide to differentiate yourself with something more powerful than your products or services. This isn’t new because of the current crisis, it’s what I tell people every day.

Innovation and Reinvention...

I want to share with you a recipe and formula I use all the time to help companies move to a differentiated state which allows them to THRIVE, not just survive. For those of you who already know me and my approach, my goal is to always try to help you in any way I can because it’s the right thing to do…every day.

What is driving me nuts is (back to the beginning of this post) how many emails I get from people who are selling things (products, tools, and advice) who have never focused on innovatively reinventing themselves and redefining who they are and why they exist. They just want to sell more stuff and their normal channels are dead…so now they’re the expert in this new channel of crisis. Really?

So, putting that aside for the moment (and ignoring them as much as possible so we don’t follow them down their rabbit holes), let’s look at an approach I can guarantee you will help you Innovate and Reinvent your company. I would also encourage you to keep an eye open for some of the messages and people out there who are truly offering some insights worthy of listening to about helping you through all this with innovation and reinvention. Find those people and listen to them, they have some good stuff out there. I know of several. If you want to connect with their content, shoot me a message or an email and I can let you know who they are.

A Recipe and Formula for Moving Forward...

For now, let me give you some actions and thoughts I would suggest you take…immediately! These exercises can help you move forward aggressively…today and tomorrow. They will help you pull out some ideas and thoughts which can truly make a difference to your business. And they will move you from “tweaking” to “building” something incredibly powerful…for today and for the long-term. 

Here’s a RECIPE and FORMULA you can follow to help you get there…it works. These are some initial steps I recommend you consider doing with your team. They are powerful and will really open up your thinking about what to do going forward. I will be sharing more in subsequent posts but for now, let’s get started with a few very specific steps you can follow…just like a recipe or formula…

What To Do Next...

I hate to leave you hanging here, but it works better if you take it one step at a time so you don’t short change yourself. Focus on what’s in front of you. At the end of a couple of days, you will have a goldmine of thinking from your leadership team. We’ll start assembling it for you starting next time.

Together, we can help you become an innovation machine. A company that is clearly differentiated from your competitors. Stay with me…this will help. If you have any questions or comments, leave them here or shoot me an email. Until next time…be safe and let’s do this…we’ve got it.

Remember doing your SWOT analysis…hopefully you do one every year. If not, we should talk about that sometime. It’s a great way to put things into perspective as you begin to do your strategic planning. NOW is also a great time to reassess the opportunities that are in front of you today (even amidst this crisis) and throughout the rest of the year and beyond. While we have to focus on the present because it is so overwhelming right now, it doesn’t mean we should forget about the months ahead. Since I am so passionate about helping companies become Customer Obsessed…now is a great time to ask yourself and your leadership team, “How we are doing with our customers?” It’s a question we should all be asking all the time, but even more during this difficult time. There are amazing opportunities in front of every organization…today and well into tomorrow if we just look.

If you haven’t done a SWOT, read this paragraph. If you have, skip to the next paragraph. SWOT stands for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats. The goal is to have your leadership team work together for a half-day session where they about these four areas…every year (because they always change). Once you have created a detailed list in each area, the next step is pretty straight forward, but one where you may need some assistance in pulling it all together. Once the lists are finished, create specific goals and actions around the output from the discussion and the lists you made. For example, one thing you want to do is “capitalize” on your Strengths and leverage those even more…you want to “eliminate or mitigate” your Weaknesses and try to turn some of them into Strengths. You usually can’t do much about the Threats, these are generally out of your control and presented by the outside (such as COVID-19, legislation, and competition) so you just want to note what they are so you can try to do things to mitigate them as much as possible. This leaves us with the most important part of the analysis, Opportunities…the one group you want to “take advantage of and accelerate” as much as possible in your business. I know, this is really a shortened version of SWOT but hopefully gets you at least thinking and moving forward. When I facilitate these sessions, it is usually centered around getting the most ideas and comments from a group of leaders without going down rabbit holes on one or two…always a challenge. It is a free-flowing discussion to capture as much as possible from the group without judgment or analysis. There you have it…a quick breakdown of SWOT. Hopefully you are seeing why I recommend doing it annually as part of any planning you already do.

OK, so now that you know what SWOT is, let’s talk about the one huge area that is looming out there right now even amidst one of our biggest times of uncertainty. This is a great time for leaders to really focus their teams on “moving forward” when the world seems to be on hold or sliding backwards. While the world is on hold for personal interaction, it isn’t on hold for making things happen. It is not on hold to create some innovative and creative ideas that can help your company today and well into the future.

You might be saying, “You don’t get it, we have to lay people off and our revenues are already down and still dropping…this is a very difficult time to just hold things together.” I get it…no argument about this happening (to almost everyone). And while this is going on, we all have a choice…stay focused on the current doom and gloom or spend some time and lift ourselves (and our thoughts and planning) into the future we all know will be here at some time in the year. While there are things we have to deal with (and are ugly) we also have the choice of spending some time escaping this and thinking about hope, opportunity, and a stronger competitive position in the market. This time is critically important to the mental well-being of your leadership team and employees.

For example, there are numbers out there that say the average leader spends more than 20 hours per week in meetings…some significantly more than 20 (you know who you are). Those hours of in-person meetings are gone…don’t exist. Sure, now we are using online video meetings like Zoom and other tools to conduct meetings. But, from my experience, these are much shorter in many cases…people either get right to the point or don’t want to hang out online that long in a meeting. I would venture to say you may have just gained back up to half of your meeting time…10+ hours per week!

Let’s think about travel time…commuting and going to meetings. This is gone (for most of us). This time can average close to the 20+ hours a week. Those hours just got put back into your bank account of time!

While we have issues we didn’t have to deal with before today, such as personnel and declining revenues, we probably aren’t burning up all our extra hours on this…at least not yet. This might give you back an additional 10 hours per week. Doing some quick math, we gained back 10 hours from meetings (minimum), 20 hours from travel (minimum), and we gave back 10 hours for additional crisis management issues. Net hours gained per week is 20 hours (or more) per leader in your company…20 hours. Let’s make an even more drastic cut and cut this number in half right now for other contingencies…now we’re down to 10 hours of EXTRA TIME right now.

I think this is a great time for leaders to do some serious planning and discussions around what we could do going forward NOW and in the FUTURE when this is behind us…and it will be behind us. It’s a matter of “when,” not “if.” Even if this goes on for a month (or two or more) you have somewhere between 40 and 80 hours of additional time where your leaders can work on “O”pportunties. When, if ever, have you ever had this amount of concentrated time to focus on the “O”pportunity side of your business. My guess is you never have, unless it was just before it started up. What are you going to do with 40 – 80 hours of leadership time???

You already know my passion is for every company to be Customer Obsessed so they can become “REMARK”able and get talked about so much that their audience of customers and others become their active “Marketing Agents” for them. If heard me talk about this, go back and read some of my past blog posts and you’ll get it pretty quickly. Today would be an excellent time for you to do some real “O”pportunity planning for how you could leverage your Strengths (and lower your weaknesses) and be more Customer Obsessed. Now would be a great time to really see how you could truly help your customers improve their lives or their business.

This time will pass…how do you want to be remembered for what you did during this time?​

What To Do Next...

TODAY, right now, is the time to schedule a SWOT session with your leaders. Whether you use a facilitator or not, just do it. Dive into it…maybe take a full day instead of a half-day. Go deep…get creative (wildly creative)…be bold…identify some incredible “O”pportunities for your business and your audience. I guarantee it will be the best use you can make of the extra 40 – 80 hours all your leaders have on their hands. And you will be shocked how quickly it can help change perspectives and attitudes within your leadership team and your company. No naysaying allowed…only bold creativity. It will change everyone’s attitude guaranteed. And maybe, just maybe, you’ll find some ideas that will cause your customers to have long (and positive) memories about you and your company during this crazy and unpredictable time. FUD (fear, uncertainty, and doubt) don’t help move the ball forward…but coming up with some unique “O”pportunities will make some lasting impressions!

If I can help in any way with some guidance to get you started, don’t hesitate to ask. I’ve done hundreds of these so I can give you some guidance and tips on what to avoid and how to make them very productive. I’m happy to guide you through this if it would help. I just want you to do it. Let me know if I can help jump start you to blowing up your “O”pportunities and setting the stage for your company to thrive this year…despite our unthinkable situation. You can do this…we can all do this!!

Seriously?!? I’m not going to tell you who it is…it probably pertains to more than this one person or company, unfortunately. I get that they are trying to capture new clients and give you “a model” to help you improve your business during this horrendous time…but capitalizing on FUD? I don’t know about you, but this is just plain wrong in my opinion. This is disgusting…

When I think about the thousands of business owners out there struggling right now and trying to figure out any way they can survive and possibly stay in business, this is NOT the time to prey on their weakened emotional state of mind. This is not the time to swoop in with pipe dreams of utopia and promise to get them out of trouble if they follow a certain “system.” This is not the time to prey on hard working business leaders when they are struggling, confused, and mentally down. Actually, it’s exactly the time to do just the opposite…

However, there are parts of every model or approach that can have some immediate impact on a business or help the leaders get their heads pointed in the right direction amidst all the FUD going around today. We need to help them…for FREE. That’s right, we need to offer whatever we know from our experiences that can help give them a boost and help them think more clearly about how they can survive. I think we owe it to each other during this point of time…not trying to figure out how to create “Panic Buying” of our products and services. As I said, that’s just disgusting.

So as disgusting as the statement is that I shared in the beginning, let’s do the opposite. Let’s look at what each of us have and see what we can do to help everyone else survive. Let’s use our massive (and I mean massive) intellectual training, knowledge, and experience to suggest ideas to others that could help them keep on keeping on. Let’s not let anyone whither on the vine…let’s build them up and offer whatever we can to help them move forward. Are you in?

What To Do Next...

As a member of the Business Advisory, Consulting, and Speaking Industries in our business community, I hope you will all rally around this and brainstorm what your best, short-term ideas could be…write them down…write a blog post with these ideas…post it on LinkedIn…do something with them. They may not all be awesome…but many of them will…and if one, just one helps a business leader, you have helped! And unlike the person preying on the FUD emotions, we get to help create positive, hopeful emotions in people who may have very little if any hope.

This won’t solve everything…I know that. It won’t eliminate the COVID-19 virus, I know that too. But it might just help someone suffering from these effects to survive. I do know that…and that is all I am suggesting…let’s save one, then two, then more. Are you with me? If I can help you in any way, please don’t hesitate to ask…

If you are, THANK YOU. You don’t have to comment on this or do anything for me to see it…I just want action. Take action…we will all benefit from it in the end. Thanks for taking the time to read my rant…it just really set me off today seeing how others are preying on the misfortune of others. And I didn’t want to see that happen. Take care…be safe…say isolated!

Side Note: I’m personally appalled by the number of companies preying on the fear and uncertainty we have in our lives right now…it’s disgusting. I see ads all day selling things we know are only being sold because of this fear ridden time in history. To be sure, I’m personally keeping a list of who those are doing this to ensure that I never, ever work or buy anything from them in my lifetime. If you feel the same way you might want a list of your own…they are parasites and should be treated as such. Enough said…

Every organization (individual and even country) has moments of chaos…times when things are not going as planned. They come in different ways and in different sizes. This current one happens to be a monster and universal to everyone. But in other times of chaos, it happens at different times, in a different way, and comes in varying sizes. Regardless of the type of chaos we are experiencing, we all have to deal with moments of chaos and disruption at one time or another.

If you have read any of my posts for the past number of years, you know that I am “all in” on my desire for all organizations to be Customer Obsessed so they can become “REMARK”able. “REMARK”able organizations create “Marketing Agents” or “Advocates” who are out there proactively telling others how incredibly awesome they are…all the time. My passion is for every organization to become “REMARK”able and be the leader in their industry or market.

The reason “REMARK”able companies are so incredibly successful is that they do things for their customers (and others) to help them “improve their lives or their businesses.” This is just what they do…it’s part of their DNA (or culture) to have a mindset of helping others…and not just in their business. Its’ what gets others talking about them…spreading the word and marshalling support. One of the three legs to the stool of Customer Obsession is “Consistently Helping” others improve their lives or their business. It’s built into who they are and how they do things as an organization.

Customer Obsessed organizations think about doing this all the time, not just during times of chaos or uncertainty. They are constantly thinking of ways they can help their audience of customers and others do better in life or what they are doing as part of their business. They simply want to help others be better at who they are or what they do. It isn’t a checklist item, it’s just the way they think.

It isn’t rocket science…it just takes a different train of thought. To help you get started in this, I have put together a list of some questions I would encourage everyone to be asking of themselves and the employees in the organization. The answers you come up with can help someone in some way today. They can make a difference in someone’s life and in their business.

What To Do Next...

If your organization is able to do this, you could really focus on our strengths into a market that is in chaos…and all markets are in chaos. Rather than having a virus be contagious, let’s let these actions become contagious. Just imagine what our country would look like if everyone started doing this…it would completely change our world. We would have created a culture of “Consistently Helping” each other in a time of chaos and uncertainty.

Let’s move from doom and gloom to mitigating the chaos during this horrific time of uncertainty. The authorities will guide us on what we need to do to be safe…let’s guide our nation on what each of us can do because of our individual (and unique) talents. You have so much to offer (products, services, or information) to others to help them through this chaos…let’s make it happen…together.

If you’re in, I would love to know so I can support you in any way I can…definitely getting the word out to my 10,000 plus followers on a variety of channels. Let’s do this…together. Let’s become Customer Obsessed for at least a moment in time…this moment…today. I believe God is watching us…and waiting to help. Let’s leverage what we have to offer and let him do the rest. Are you with me?

Thank you…