Marketing Musings: Ticking Your Way to Millions

Back in Week 48 I talked about the power of systems and how simple checklists for each and every task in your business can help tremendously with the entire service or product delivery process. This month in Fast Company Magazine, the authors of Made to Stick highlight some amazing benefits of a simple checklist - here's an excerpt:

The holy grail of checklists may be the one created by Dr. Peter Pronovost of the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. Intensive-care units (ICUs) often use intravenous lines to deliver medication, and these lines can become infected, causing nasty health complications. Pronovost, frustrated by these preventable events, compiled a five-step checklist.

The checklist contained straightforward advice: Doctors should wash their hands before inserting an IV, a patient's skin should be cleaned with antiseptic at the point of insertion, and so forth. There was no new science and nothing controversial--only the results were surprising.

When Michigan ICUs put the checklist into practice over a period of 18 months, line infections were virtually eliminated, saving the hospitals an estimated $175 million, because they no longer had to treat the associated complications. Oh, and it saved about 1,500 lives.

Amazing right? Simple right? The same Dr Provonost goes on to say:

People fear checklists because they see them as dehumanizing. Maybe that's because people associate them with the exhaustive lists that let random teenagers successfully run fast-food chains. They think if something is simple enough to be broken down into discrete steps, a monkey can do it. Well, if that's true, grab a pilot's checklist, and try your luck with a 767.

Then warns:

Even if you're sold on the value, beware checklist creep. A checklist doesn't mean huge binders full of obsessive and likely counterproductive ISO 9000-style process documentation. As Pronovost says, "One mistake I've seen in health care is that people will produce these 200-page process guidelines that nobody ever reads." You're not trying to create a high-resolution photograph of the status quo. In fact, if the status quo worked perfectly, you wouldn't need a checklist, you'd need a bonus.

Checklists simply make big screwups less likely. "We wanted people to standardize on the mission-critical elements--the areas where we have the strongest evidence," Pronovost says. "And these things that are mission critical, we've got to do them every time."

Where could your business benefit from a checklist?

Full article @ Fast Company

Marketing Musings: Setting the Table

A friend of mine just lent me a booked called Setting the Table by Danny Meyer. Danny is a successful restaurateur/entrepreneur in New York City who has been in business since the 80’s and now has over 10 highly successful hospitality businesses. What I liked best about Setting the Table was Danny’s approach to customer service – no excuses are tolerated for service that is not first class. In Week 39 I asked if it were possible to systematize employee behavior. Danny has moved on from this – the system is the culture in his group and through proper training, every employee understands what they need to do. This excerpt from the book illustrates the somewhat empowered environment and how at the same time, the business is present for every customer:

“Hospitality cannot flow from a monologue. I instruct my staff members to figure out whatever it takes to make guest feel and understand that we are in their corner. I don’t tell staff precisely what to do or say in every scenario, though I do have some pet peeves that I don’t ever want to hear in our dining rooms. I cringe when a waiter asks, “How is everything?” That’s an empty question that will get an empty response. Also, I can’t stand the use of we to mean you, as in “How are we doing so far?” I abhor the question, “Are you still working on the lamb?” If the guest has been working on the lamb, it probably wasn’t very tender or very good in the first place. And if a guest says “Thank you” for something, the waiter should not answer, “No problem.” Since when is it necessary to deny that delivering excellent service is a “problem”? A genuine “You’re welcome” is always the appropriate response.”

Setting the Table, Danny Meyer.

Week 51 - Choices - What a Feeling!

Above all, one time actions equal one time results. You MUST keep repeating the actions that we have highlighted over the past 12 months. Keep reading, keep networking, and keep learning about new industries and where yours is going. Stay positive and choose your friends on that basis. If necessary, make the decision to change businesses.

If you can stick to the plan, you will be faced with the most liberating of all words…. CHOICE. In this case, the choice to sell your business, to franchise your system or to simply work in your business less while it provides you with the income you need. There is no way we can put a timeline against this. Every business is different and whilst many are facing the same challenges, most are doing so from a different starting point. So don’t get discouraged if things don’t happen as quickly as you would like.

Try to enjoy the process - you will know you are on your way when your weekly sales start to increase, your bills get paid more quickly and you start to generate more and more referrals. Along the way you will have the choice between watching TV and reading a business magazine, or the choice between a game of golf or attending a tradeshow. Just remember the longer term effects these choices can have and the question “do you want to continue to exist, or do you want to do something really special with your business?”

As I have said repeatedly, we are all different and are running different types of businesses so no two situations are the same. Having said that, how you view your business, how you market your business and create new income streams and how you tie it all together with systems are factors that can lead to success in any business. Further you need to use all of the tools. Use some of the tools and you will only get mixed results. This is because all the systems tie together so tightly. You cannot do any consistent marketing without knowing exactly who you are and what you stand for. You can’t be consistent without knowing what systems deliver you the best results. You cannot ask people to make referrals unless your systems are delivering an awesome experience for your customers. The list goes on obviously. Use all of the tools in a systematic way and the world will open up for you

Occasionally some of the people you work and share life with hope to forestall change and hang on to the old system - even though it may be broken. Why do people behave this way? It could be because they fear they will not be able to “grow” into a new thing, create new skills that will be valued. Change makes people worry about being left behind. If you have not already read it, get a copy of Who Moved My Cheese by Spencer Johnson. This will help you to understand feelings that surround change. You may also be able to recommend to those who just cannot let go of the past.

Week 50 - Make Changes Stick

Any change you make needs to be supported by a system to ensure actions continued to be carried out in the new way. By now you should be comfortable with systems, policies and procedures so this is the point where you must systematize the revisiting of the policy and procedure making process. That’s right, before you laugh, we do really need a system for updating your system!

Set aside one day each month to review your policies and procedures. During this day you should spend one hour on each different area of your business. Do this every month with unwavering commitment and your business will improve as never before. Can you honestly remember when you last took the time out in this way to make positive improvements?

Some things you can look at each month are:

1. What problems arose for us during the month and how can we modify our policies and procedures to avoid a repeat of these?
   
2. Did any of our policies and procedures cause trouble during the past month – how can we adjust them to avoid a repeat?
   
3. How do the employees feel about the policies and procedures? Which would they like to see modified and why?
   
4. Responsibilities – are all bases covered? Do we need to assign new responsibilities to employees to cover new areas of business?
   
5. Does anyone think we could make more money or make our jobs easier by changing the way we run things?

It is essential that you involve your key employees (perhaps all of them) in this workshop discussion. Through a combination of effective systems and development of new income streams, your business will be far less vulnerable to the ebb and flow that is business today. So what about you personally - can you handle the ebb and flow? You see the same principles apply to you as an individual. You need to prepare your mind, constantly feeding it with rich information and positive re-enforcement.

Marketing Musings: Scowls on Rodeo Drive

This week The Wall St Journal ran a story about customer service on Rodeo Drive in Los Angeles. In Week 42 I wrote that you really must ensure that all aspects of your business are firing. It’s not enough to have a nice shop fitout, or helpful front desk staff. All areas of your business must be lifted to the same level. What’s interesting about the WSJ article is that despite the multi-million dollar shop fit outs, the global branding budgets and the huge expense of staff, you can still “Fall at the Last Hurdle”. Here is an excerpt:

-------------------------------------------

…I decided to gauge just how inviting Rodeo Drive's stores are with the help of Mr. Hill, who is president of Sensory Logic, a company based in Minneapolis that helps businesses from Target to Toyota connect emotionally with patrons. Mr. Hill employs "facial coding," a technique of reading and using facial expressions to elicit the most profitable emotional response in a customer. The premise is that feelings occur more quickly than thoughts and play a more effective role in purchasing decisions, so businesses need to appeal to our emotions. This is territory plumbed eons ago by Madison Avenue's ad men, but it's been harder to put into practice in many retail stores.

If it's the emotional rather than the rational part of our brains that makes many of our buying decisions, that's particularly true when it comes to luxury. (Certainly, it was my emotional brain that bought a St. John Knits suit recently, which my rational brain is now trying to justify.)

Yet just training sales clerks to say, "May I help you?" may not be terribly effective, given Mr. Hill's argument that only 7% of communication relies on verbal exchange. The rest is store décor, the facial expressions of sales associates, and things our eyes and ears pick up subliminally. Thus, on Rodeo Drive, Chicago's Michigan Avenue or London's Bond Street, one of the key factors deciding whether you walk out with a new Prada handbag may be the muscles at the corner of a sales clerk's mouth.

-------------------------------------------

It’s great stuff and worth while reviewing your business from the ground up.

Marketing Musings: Oh No, The Sandgate Hotel

Gordon Ramsay is a master at picking apart hospitality establishments that have lost their way (or never had it!) What's incredible is how simple many of the mistakes appear but also how as an owner, you can be so oblivious to the solutions due to the pace and drama of the place. I highly recommend you seeking out the entire episode of Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares: Sandgate Hotel. As a small business owner, it will probably be the most entertaining yet informative hour you have experienced.