Nothing is dazzling, exciting, or memorable to a “satisfied” customer…nothing. It simply means you met the “minimum requirements” for the experience you delivered. It wasn’t bad, and it certainly wasn’t awesome…it was…AVERAGE.

What about your organAization? Are you merely “satisfying” your customers? Are you giving them the experience they expect and merely meets their needs? Or are you WOWing them to a point where they are blown away and can’t wait to tell someone else? If not, let’s look at why this is happening and what you can do to change up the game and give them something to talk about to their friends and colleagues.

First, stop and think about the last time you had a “satisfying” experience. It was fine. It did what it was supposed to do…satisfy your need or want. Did you tell anyone about it? Probably not. Did you rave about it? Nope. Did you share all the details about it and tell an engaging story about it? Nope. And, perhaps most importantly, did you go out of your way to tell others they should definitely buy from this company because it was satisfying? Nope. Why???

Because you were merely “satisfied,” not elated and certainly not delighted. They met your requirements for what you needed…nothing else. It wasn’t terrible, and it wasn’t incredible…it was expected and average…mediocre. But here’s the big disadvantage to a “satisfying experience,” it wasn’t worth telling anyone else about. Satisfaction is pure mediocrity…average…expected.

The NUMBER ONE REASON companies don’t deliver an over-the-top, rock your world, blow the doors off Customer Experience…it takes work. We’re talking about one that customers rave about to others and can’t wait to experience again. We’re talking about the experience that eclipses your competition and leaves them in the dust. Not just a better experience, one that is miles ahead of anyone competing with you. That’s the type of customer experience that gets talked about.

Most organizations approach their Customer Experience all wrong by focusing on two things that get them in trouble.

Make a decision today to put your CUSTOMER FIRST and watch these two issues disappear!! Today, we are in the BIGGEST GREENFIELD I have ever seen in my 30+ years of business…it is ripe for the taking.

Since most companies aren’t (actually) putting their customers first, those who create a strategy to put them first are eclipsing them…leaping ahead of their competition…guaranteed! The customer is begging us to differentiate. They want to put their LOYALTY somewhere. They don’t want to shop commodities all the time…they want relationships and a company they can count on to help them meet their needs and wants. They tell me this all the time in interviews, so I know for a fact it is a “top of mind” concern for the customer.

The opportunity is to move well beyond SATISFYING your customers to DAZZLING them.

As I mentioned earlier, it isn’t easy, but the rewards are immense. For example, do a little calculation on your own, and you will see the power of this change. Start by calculating your CLV (Customer Lifetime Value). If you don’t know how there is a formula in my new book you could check out or look online at my blog post, Now is the time…to BUILD LOYALTY. In a nutshell, this helps you determine how much revenue and profit each customer contributes to your organization. It’s important to know this for your different customers…especially your top customers.

Once you know this number, here’s where the fun begins. DOUBLE IT! That’s right, double the number and then see how this would affect your bottom line. If you are like most organizations, it will have a dramatic impact. It does because it doesn’t cost you any additional money beyond what you would expend to serve the customers.

What you get is MORE PROFIT WITHOUT MORE COST. Are you in for that? I hope so.

This is just one of the many advantages you get when you STOP SATISFYING your customers and start putting them in the CUSTOMER IN THE CENTER of your business…what I call CUSTOMER OBSESSION. Less than 20% of the businesses today have committed to putting the customer in the center of their business. An appalling number if you ask me. Again, it isn’t easy, but it is powerful and profitable.

Are you in? Are you ready?

My new book (see below) is focused exclusively on this strategy. It is designed to help you build not just more LOYALTY, but ADVOCATES AND MARKETING AGENTS with your audience. I literally want your audience to “do your marketing for you” and help you eclipse your competition. Sound good? I don’t know a business leader who doesn’t want to do this in their organization.

What To Do Next...

I hope you can change your mindset to one where you no longer desire to “SATISFY” your customers but DELIGHT them beyond anything they imagined. When this happens, you can build more TRUST and more ADVOCATES so they can’t wait to tell others about you. How would that change your organization? How would that impact your profitability? 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.

BUILDING LOYALTY is a big bucket of money sitting there, waiting to be picked up!

It is also one of the most significant ways a company can leap ahead of their competitors. But these can only happen when you have a strategic focus on building Loyalty with your audience. Before I share how you can build massive Loyalty, let me clarify one thing. You can only earn Loyalty from your Customers. It should be the goal of every company to get all their desired customers to the status of Loyalty…it’s money in the bank.

Customer Lifetime Value (CLV)

Speaking of money in the bank, do you calculate a Customer Lifetime Value (CLV) for each of your customers and customer groups? If not, I highly recommend you start here. It is an excellent way for you to get some hard analysis on which customers make you the most profit. It is one tool I find many companies are not using (yet) but will open your eyes to some fantastic information when you go through the exercise of calculating it for each customer.

I talk about it extensively in my upcoming book (learn more about it at the end of this article), but suffice it to say, it should be on your required list when analyzing customers and their contribution to your organization's profitability. In essence, it calculates how much profit you get from each customer and customer group you serve. You essentially identify how much money you make from a given customer over their lifetime (or projected lifetime) minus the costs it takes to acquire them and service them. Let’s look at a straightforward example…

And Example...calculating CLV

Let’s say a customer of yours had an average purchase of $500, and they purchased from you four times a year. Their purchases would give you a total revenue of $2,000 each year. If this customer stayed with you for five years, their estimated revenue for your company would be $10,000. However, to calculate their Customer Lifetime Value (CLV) and profitability, you would need to subtract the costs it takes to acquire and maintain this customer. Let's say it cost you $1,000 to initially acquire the customer and $250 per year to maintain them as a customer (your internal cost to support them). It would cost you $2,000 over the same 5-year period. When you subtract these costs from the revenues, you end up netting $8,000 of gross profit for this particular customer…their VALUE over their LIFETIME. Their CLV is $8,000.  

When you change your mindset from “acquisition” to “retention and loyalty,” you will see amazing things happen in your business. Your profitability will go up, and your marketing will completely change…both of which are awesome things! I hope you can read my upcoming book on this topic. It represents an incredible opportunity for virtually every company on the planet. And, most importantly, it moves you one step closer to building Advocates, the Holy Grail for any business if they truly want to dominate their market!

As you can see in the Advocacy Architecture diagram below, there are a few stages your audience needs to go through before they can become Loyal to your business. Everything starts with building Trust. Without trust, there is no chance of building Loyalty. But once you have someone’s Trust, you can then begin to build a solid and “Trusted Relationship” with them, which leads to Loyalty.

If you do nothing more than improving the percentage of Promises you Keep, you will be on a much stronger path to building Trust, which can lead to creating Loyalty with your audience. Sounds simple, right? It isn’t. I have found it very hard for companies to keep their promises. First, most employees don’t understand they are making promises when they interact with their customers. Many promises are “implied,” where a Promise wasn’t actually made, but the audience believes a Promise was made. These are the most dangerous to an organization. The customer hears you promised something to them, but you don’t think you committed or promised. We have a disconnect. Other times, we make a commitment and then don’t keep it…breaking a promise. Both implied and not keeping promises kills the opportunity to build Trust.

Another way you can help build more Loyalty in your audience is to “help them improve their life and/or their business.” When someone sees you going out of your way to help them improve, they have more commitment to you. The more things you can do to help them out, the more sense of Loyalty they have to you. People are loyal to those who help them…period. Think about how you specifically help your audience improve their life and/or business.

These are all great questions to stop and ask yourself if you want to improve Loyalty. Take some time to think about the Advocacy Architecture and do a self-assessment on how well your company does at each stage to building Loyalty. If you feel you lack in these areas, it would be a great time to identify WHY you are and then develop some specific plans for HOW you can do more in this area. And not just tell your employees to keep more of their promises, for example, that never works. There have to be specific process changes and Customer Experience changes if you want to move the needle in any of these areas. It can be done, and relatively quickly…well within 30 days. You can see significant improvement in 30 days if you have a definite and targeted plan. If you want more guidance on this, shoot me a message, and I would be happy to talk with you and help you get started. Building more Customer Loyalty will definitely change your business significantly…and quickly.

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…

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…

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…

TRUST...something we all want more of

Ask yourself, as the CEO, Business Owner, or Leader in your company, “Are we doing things to specifically “build” more Trust with our audience (including customers) during this crisis or are we doing things that “erode” Trust with our audience?” Be honest with yourself…the real answer to this should help you see whether or not you need to be more “proactive” in specifically building more Trust. If you feel that you are “building more Trust” with your audience, the next step is to identify specifically “HOW” you are doing this on a daily basis. If you answered “no” to this question, then the next step would be to hold a brainstorming session immediately with your leadership team and identify some specific ways where you can build more Trust.

Think of the above phrase for a minute. It’s synonymous with the idea in business that if you “aren’t moving forward” in some way you are “falling behind.” There is no “staying the same” when it comes to business. The same is true with building Trust. Unfortunately, our audiences need constant reinforcement and emphasis if they are to see any changes. They need to “see and feel” what you are doing that will allow them to Trust you more tomorrow than today. They need constant reinforcement to “why” they should Trust you.

Most leaders I talk to don’t have a “specific action plan” for building Trust. They think it will happen just by the way they do business. This is false thinking. Trust is prescriptive. You need to have specific (prescriptive) measures and actions you are taking if you want to continually build more trust with your audience. These don’t have to be major programs, but your actions need to be consistent and frequent to be effective.

PROMISES...the best and most effective way to build Trust

Use the word "PROMISE" and change the game

Here’s something I would encourage you to think more about…actually using the word PROMISE. Instead of wondering whether or not your audience is hearing this word, use it. Whenever you think you are making any kind of commitment (large or small), use the word Promise. For example, if you are going to deliver something to the customer on Friday, tell them, “I Promise we will deliver it to you by the end of the day on Friday.” Now there isn’t any misunderstanding and the customer probably heard that phrase anyway, regardless of what was really said. But now you have it on the table, in front of them, and they will recognize it. They will really appreciate it and you will have just taken away a ton of stress from them. Now you just have to keep the Promise, which is also the most important part of making a Promise.

Now that you have started telling your audience you “Promise” to do something, the key is to KEEP this Promise…every time. It’s the “keeping” part that builds Trust, not the “making” part. The “making a promise” part is easy, everyone does that. It’s the “keeping your promise” part that builds Trust. You can make all the Promises you want but if you don’t keep them, you will be worse off than if you didn’t make any. Having plans in place where you can keep these Promises is a game changer. Caution…this doesn’t just happen because you say it should. Telling your employees they need to keep all the Promises they make won’t change anything…they won’t keep them. Not because they don’t want to, but business processes and other demands will deter them from keeping these Promises.

Go back to the beginning of this article and you will see that “building Trust is a prescriptive process” that has to be orchestrated throughout the organization. There has to be processes and maps in place to help the employees keep their promises. If these aren’t in place, they won’t be able to keep their Promises. I have never seen a single situation where employees can naturally keep all their promises without a prescriptive, well-designed plan in place. They need tools and processes in place so they can keep their Promises as part of their job. They have to be “supported” beyond words if you want them to deliver on the Promises they make.

There are other ways to build Trust. This is just one, albeit a major one. However, developing a prescriptive process and plan for how to help your employees keep their Promises will change the game NOW…today. As I mentioned at the start of this series, I want to give you things that you can do quickly and that have a long-lasting impact for your organization. Creating a prescriptive recipe for how you will keep more of your Promises is exactly that…it will change the game almost immediately for your organization when you put it into action. If you need some guidance on how to get started doing this, shoot me an email and I’ll give you some additional thoughts to get you started…complementary of course. I’m here to help…I want your organization to build more Trust.

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…

Given our current set of circumstances in business, this series is designed to help you take a leadership role in your industry…regardless of what your industry may be. They don’t sell anything…they simply HELP your business stand out and rise above your competitors. They are practical, actionable, and proven ways to elevate your business above others and make you “top of mind” to your customers. I guarantee they will make a difference in your business. I hope you will find these helpful. I hope you will share them with your fellow business owners and leaders. And I look forward to hearing about how they helped you in some way. Here’s the first one…

DIFFERENTIATION...a word often used but rarely executed.

Everyone likes to talk about how “different” they are from their competitors, but are they, really? Rarely. We all like to think we’re different. And in our own minds, as business leaders, we are. That is, until we talk to our customers. The ultimate test is ALWAYS what the customer says, not what we say. They vote with their wallets. They keep us in business. They count.

I discovered this truth decades ago and it is truer today than ever before. The customer has the microphone…their voice matters. And, unlike decades ago, they can now share their voice with hundreds, thousands, and even millions of others. They are in complete control today. Their voice is loud and it is powerful. And it can make or break a business. I’m sure you know of some…I worked for one…Arthur Andersen. Fortunately, I left just a few years before the downfall of the mightiest public accounting firm of its time. A few people brought down an entire company. But the “buzz” and “customer voice” fueled the downfall. It was sad and no one ever thought it could happen. It did. And it happens more often today than ever before. It’s worth repeating, the customer is in complete control.

When times are tough, like they are today with the current pandemic crisis, being different is more important than ever. It’s moved up the scale from “very important” to an “absolute necessity” for businesses to thrive. When there are fewer customers or the customers you have become picky and demanding, being DIFFERENTIATED is the secret sauce. Clearly standing out from your competitors in a “dog fight economy” like we are in today is critically important. With fewer customers and less dollars being spent, it’s vital to capture as many of those dollars as you can. You can if you are viewed as different in the eyes of your customers (and others).

Start with a definition...

Let me start by sharing with you a simple definition of what it means to be DIFFERENTIATED. It simply means “being viewed by your audience (customers included) as someone who doesn’t look like, behave like, or act like their competitors.” You are in a class by yourself, standing alone. No one is the same as you, you are seen as not being part of the pack of competitors. That’s being differentiated. How do you know if you are truly differentiated?

When you customers say this, you are in a league of your own…you are DIFFERENTIATED.

Stop reading for a minute and ask yourself, “How many of our customers would tell me this if Blaine called them today?” Regardless of your answer, how would it change your business if this was what I heard from 90% of your customers? Exactly…it would change your business (most likely) completely. You would be the one that stood out in the eyes of your customer…their FIRST CHOICE when buying your particular products or services. You would win out over your competitors almost every time…and it wouldn’t be because you were the cheapest.

How do you get to this enviable state of being truly DIFFERENTIATED? 

Let me share with you some ways you can get there…quickly. And stay there for the foreseeable future. These work…all the time…they just work better (and usually faster) when we are in a crisis than when we aren’t.

First, keep ALL your PROMISES.

Before you say that you do, I would challenge you to think a bit deeper about this statement. When I ask leaders if they believe their organization keeps their promises, they almost always say they feel they keep the “majority” of their promises. What exactly does “majority” mean? Is it 51% or 99% or somewhere in between? The goal is 100%. To a customer, if you don’t keep 100% of your promises, they remember those and figure you don’t keep your promises.

I ask this question all the time when interviewing customers, “Do they keep their promises?” If they hesitate, it means no. If they say sometimes, it means no. If they say most of the time, it means no. For a customer to actually believe you keep your promises, you have to keep ALL of them. I know, it’s tough and you don’t know what all your employees are saying throughout the day. I suggest you focus on this intently…it will pay massive dividends. With regard to differentiation, you will be viewed completely different from your competitors if your customers (and others) believe you keep all your promises…guaranteed! I know, not easy, but incredibly powerful in building DIFFERENTIATION.

Second, OVER COMMUNICATE.

When business is booming and everyone is running around like chickens with their heads cut off (I still have a hard time visualizing that one) we almost always slack off with our communications. We’re simply too busy to communicate like we should. But NOW things are different. EVERY employee has MORE TIME on their hands than ever before. Commuting is virtually nonexistent for most people. Meetings have been eliminated and are now virtual, which means there are usually fewer of them and they are shorter. And many other things that have “freed up time” for everyone.

What are you doing with all this extra time? I’m sure some of your employees have gotten better at Candy Crush on their phones, but now is the time to turn things up when it comes to communicating with your audience. NOT SELLING, communicating. Be more proactive. Be more helpful (that’s the next area I’ll talk about). Share more information. Give them more updates on the status of an order. Do anything that allows you to communicate more than your competitors are…you will stand out…you will be more DIFFERENTIATED!

Third, find more ways to HELP.

I could write a book on this topic. In fact, it is a major part of my upcoming book and takes up several chapters. For now, I would suggest you think about one simple phrase, “How you can I improve the lives and/or business of my customers and overall audience?” If everyone in your organization focused on this one thing, you would change the way they see you. They would see how much you are trying to help them be successful. They will remember this…they will remember YOU. And when they remember you, you have become much more DIFFERENTIATED.

Fourth, LISTEN more.

I know, you’ve heard this a thousand times before…so why aren’t you doing it? It’s an obvious answer to endearing yourself to anyone. Listening more means you care more and when you care more you stand out…period. This is fundamental, yet few of us do it. We get so wrapped up in talking about ourselves, our products, our services, our (fill in the blank) that we forget to listen. Customers notice. They see a huge difference in those who spend the time to listen as compared to those who spend their time talking. I won’t bore you with all the cliché’s about listening, we all know them. Just put this on everyone’s wall and desk as a reminder it is critically important. Customer ALWAYS tell me when they feel a company “listens more” to them. It matters and is noticeable…and it definitely DIFFERENTIATES you in their eyes.

Fifth, make them FEEL SPECIAL.

This is another huge topic that I talk about in my upcoming book. How your customer “FEELS” is critically important to how they view you and your company. Make them feel special and they will see you as someone unique and different. I go back to the Disney example of when you walk into the Magic Kingdom, the “happiest place on earth.” They invest millions in making you feel incredibly special from the moment you enter the park. And as such, we talk about them to all our friends and how they are so different from all the other amusement parks. They are DIFFERENTIATED because they make you feel special…and in the end, who doesn’t want to feel special and important? No one!

All 5 of these will differentiate you…quickly…guaranteed. There isn’t one of these five where your customers won’t notice you as being different from your competitors. And the best part, often times they will tell you! That’s right, they will tell you how you make them FEEL SPECIAL, that you LISTEN MORE, you are truly HELPING them improve their life and/or their business, you are COMMUNICATING much more than before, and, most importantly, your KEEPING YOUR PROMISES.

Put in some plans to start doing these tomorrow, yesterday is already gone. You can’t start soon enough. NOW is the time to DIFFERENTIATE. NOW is the time to do something dramatic that will change your business today and well into the future. These 5 areas will do that for you…guaranteed!

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 more of my "NOW is the time" Series.  Each one will guarantee you some quick results with long lasting implications to change your business to one that is DIFFERENTIATED in the eyes of your customers...the ones who vote with their wallets.

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!

Random Acts (good or bad) is simply another way to say an organization has a “lack of consistency.” When we don’t give our customers (and employees) consistent experiences, they get incredibly frustrated to the point where they choose (and want) to leave. This applies equally to employees as it does for customers. If we ask our employees to do certain things and then change what we want them to do, regularly, they get frustrated and can’t perform at their very best…then they leave. Random acts simply drive customers and employees away.

Let me dissect this phrase a bit more. “Random Acts” simply means things happen in an inconsistent way…you never know what you’re going to get. Kind of like what Tom Hanks said in Forrest Gump, “Life is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you’re going to get.” While this might be great for a box of chocolates, it’s a disaster for an organization and their customers. “Excellence and Chaos” refer to the highs and lows of an experience. For example, if one day you go into a business and the person greeting you is super excited and happy to see you, this is “excellence.” But if you go in tomorrow and you get someone who is cranky, miserable, and annoyed you are there, this is “chaos.” Both are bad…the customer wants consistency, not the unknown. “Customer Defection” is easy, it simply means they aren’t happy with either your ups or your downs, so they leave and go somewhere they think will treat them more consistently.

If “consistency” is the holy grail for the success of any organization, the key question then becomes, “How do you create it?” How does an organization ensure they are being consistent in all aspects of their business, from processes to their customer experience? How do all the employees understand what consistency means and what they should do to deliver this internally and externally? No matter how much leaders might talk about how great this would be to have, to make it happen, it comes down to just one word…

Training is one of the words that is often missing in many organizations today. When I talk to leaders, they all want to do more training. Then they usually tell me they “just don’t have the budget and time right now to do it…we’ll get to it in the future.” I get that…everyone seems to have less time in their day today and too many priorities. Everyone has so much to do that training gets pushed down the list so far it never happens.  

The only way to be a Customer Obsessed organization and become “REMARK”able is to train your employees how to do it…consistently and every day. Our human nature wires us with the desire to learn…and to learn is to grow. When employees aren’t trained the way you want, they can’t do what you want them to do when it comes to interacting and supporting your customers. They can only do what they have learned and delivered in their past. Employees actually want to do the right thing and serve the customer in a way that makes them happy. This desire is not the issue…the lack of training so they can consistently do it is the issue.

What should you do, as a leader, when your employee is trying to do the right thing and it really isn’t the right thing? This is a tough situation. The normal response from the employee is, “I did what I thought was the right thing to do because I haven’t been “trained” any other way…I did what I thought was best for the customer at this point in time.” How do you argue with this response…you can’t? You, as a leader are trapped. If you say what they did was wrong you can’t stand on any firm ground because you haven’t trained them in the way you want them to act.

When it comes to Customer Obsession, training isn’t something nice to have, it is absolutely required! Employees have to be trained so they can be consistent, day in and day out, in every department, for how they should act and how they should deliver an awesome experience to their customer. They also have to be trained to keep their promises and find ways to consistently help their customers. It all comes down to training.

When employees are trained on what they should be doing (and saying) to the customer with every interaction, you CREATE CONSISTENCY. You get to the holy grail of delivering a consistent and repeatable customer experience to your customers. Your employees start acting in unison where they can deliver exactly what you desire to be delivered…every time.

Here's the Formula...

A training program needs to be created by developing the “desired customer response” you want to have from your customer and then designing exactly “how you want to deliver” this to your customer. It starts with the end in mind…what do we want the customer to feel when we interact with them? What do we want the customer to say when we interact with them? When we know the outcomes we desire, we can create the processes and scripts needed to create these outcomes. This isn’t any different than any other aspect of your business, but it takes special attention and focus to create it for your customers.

For example, think of a process you use in your business…whether it is to create a product or deliver a service. There has to be a uniform “way of doing it” if you want to achieve the desired result. There isn’t any randomness in this operation. And if there is, it is soon found out because the desired outcome isn’t what you wanted. Customer Obsession and the experiences you deliver to get there acts exactly the same way.

The solution is usually straight forward, but takes focus, commitment, and training. This is the number one reason I see organizations bail out on their journey of being Customer Obsessed. They lack focus…simply telling their employees to deliver a great experience…but the employees don’t know what this means. They don’t have the commitment from the top leadership team in the organization…so employees think this is the “flavor of the month” and ignore it, hoping it will go away soon. Without training…there isn’t anything formal that helps them understand and see what exactly they should be delivering to their customers with each interaction.

When you have these 3 ingredients you are well on your way to being Customer Obsessed…and becoming “REMARK”able. It’s really this simple. The OPPORTUNITY is to take control of these three ingredients. The opportunity is in front of you because the statistics show that approximately 75% of the companies will NOT execute these 3 ingredients. But for those who do focus on these 3 ingredients, they will dominate in their market. They will own the top spot in their industry. And they will be the envy of all their competitors. Is that going to be you?

What To Do Next...

If this sparked some interest in you, as a leader, and gave you some inspiration to want to take advantage of this incredible opportunity, congratulations. You are in the top percentage of companies who will become completely differentiated from your competitors. The journey has begun…

Everything starts with understanding where you are, so you know what you need to do to get where you want. Making an honest assessment of where you are is always the start to change. I’ve given you some insight into how you can figure this out inside your own organization to better understand where you are today. This is the first (and most) critical step to getting a handle on building more trust and not taking it for granted. Once you understand where you are, the next big step is to get educated on what you need to do to move from where you are to where you want to be.

If you’re not sure now to make this all happen or get started, I’m happy to help you out with this if you need a boost. Lots of ways to do this so that you can run with it going forward. Or if you just want to talk through it a bit more, let’s grab coffee (or lunch) sometime. The coffee (or lunch) is on you…the education and information is on me. My goal is to help save you TIME in the process if you are interested in being Customer Obsessed and becoming “REMARK”able in the process...which is my passion and goal for every company on the planet. Big goal…but it starts with one.

The only question that remains is, “Are you ready to be Customer Obsessed and become “REMARK”able?”

What is happening here? There was no one from the leadership group involved in any of these situations. This was CULTURE AT WORK. This was CULTURE BEING DEMONSTRATED. There was no class or training on any of this. This was “home grown” by the employees after truly seeing their purpose and their core values and how important they were to live, not just have in a book or on the wall somewhere.

Employees have to have purpose to create a culture. If they don’t see the purpose shared by leadership and demonstrated by leadership, they’ll go rogue and create the one they want, not the one you might want. EVERY COMPANY HAS A CULTURE…it just might not be the one you want. But that can be changed by going back to Purpose and Values. When employees clearly know the purpose of the organization and what values the organization has at its core, culture change can happen.

Since I’m in the world of helping every organization be Customer Obsessed, putting their core focus around making the customer the center of their universe, leads them to demonstrate this to their customers. The way the employees treat their customers is paramount…critically important…an absolute necessity.

If you want a different company, take another look at your purpose and your core values…I can guarantee the answer is hidden somewhere inside of these. A vague or “corporate purpose” (one that no one really understands but sounds good) is never internalized by employees.

What do your values and purpose statements say about your company? Here’s a simple test to see if your purpose passes the “simplicity test.” Ask them to write down the answer to this one question on the sheet of paper, “When you see our Vision, Mission, Purpose, and Values statements, what do they mean to you personally?” Make a copy for every employee and hand it out. Tell them this is their own, not to be discussed or shared with anyone else. Write down what it means to them…a word, a sentence, a paragraph. Once you get all of these, read through them to see what your employees think is their purpose and to see how much alignment (or lack thereof) there is among the responses. You’ll be shocked!

The answer to this question will tell you immediately what your employees believe the culture of the company truly is…not what’s written in the employee handbook. It will tell you how they have internalized these words, and of course, how they are living them out in your company. But even more important than just what the words mean to them is “how much alignment” do you have from employee to employee? I generally find very little alignment…which translates to an inconsistent culture. It is like herding cats, there is no common direction, they are just going the way they want.

One of the most common statements I hear from employees is, “I see the words of our Vision, Mission, and Values but really don’t understand what they mean.” Is it any wonder why employees don’t embrace the great work leadership is doing in constructing these sentences and statements? I have been in countless strategy meetings where there is lots of discussion about the right wording for these various areas. Unfortunately, often times the wording is something “well crafted” but not “easily understood.” There is a big difference between something written well and something that is written to be understood.

Companies, like Zappos, figured this out and use the simplest, shortest phrases possible so EVERY person in the company gets it and can internalize it. This is mission critical from my perspective. Zappos is one of the best at making this “dirt simple” so that anyone, anywhere, can get what their purpose is and understand who they are and what values drive their culture.

Customer Obsession helps to resolve this issue…so do other methods. Their purpose is to help get two things to happen…

When this happens, the answers to the question above is in alignment and employees are working toward a common cause, goal…purpose. It’s one of the reasons I’m so insanely passionate about Customer Obsession because it gives employees a common rally cry around the one person that writes us checks and pays our salaries…the customer. There are other areas as well…such as a noble and important cause and others. But the key is the same…alignment.

When employees and leadership…essentially everyone in the organization…are in alignment, amazing things happen. NOW…everyone in the company is DEMONSTRATING their culture…the holy grail for a company to really be a wonderful place to work and for customers to love working with your employees. No one is trained…yet everyone is focused on the same thing…how awesome is that!!

What To Do Next...

Did this post cause you to sit back and about the culture in your organization? Did it cause you to think about where your customer is in your culture? Did you cause you to think whether or not your employees are in alignment when it comes to your culture? If any of your answers caused you to think a bit differently about your culture, your employees, or your customers, then you’ve started to make the transition into the world of Customer Obsession. My goal is to always help you think a bit differently in an attempt to help you and your organization be the best it can be.

Everything starts with understanding where you are, so you know what you need to do to get where you want. Making an honest assessment of where you are is always the start to change. I’ve given you some insight into how you can figure this out inside your own organization to better understand where you are today. This is the first (and most) critical step to getting a handle on building more trust and not taking it for granted.

Not sure you can do this as I described? I’m happy to help you out with this if you need a boost to get started. Lots of ways to do this so that you can run with it going forward. Or if you just want to talk through it a bit more, let’s grab coffee (or lunch) sometime. The coffee (or lunch) is on you…the education and information is on me. My goal is to help save you TIME in the process if you are interested in being Customer Obsessed and becoming “REMARK”able in the process...which is my passion and goal for every company on the planet. Big goal…but it starts with one.

The only question that remains is, “Are you ready to be Customer Obsessed and become “REMARK”able?”