In our weekly discussions we’ve been concentrating on customer service and the ultimate customer experience. In a survey, the largest consumer survey ever, from 2001 the most important factor is overwhelmingly solving problems for them and helping them to make informed choices. Click the image to download the full summary.
One of the best ways to foster a healthy relationship with your customers is to use a regular, but not too frequent, Newsletter. Here is an example – again click to download.
I’ve always read books and being in business means that I have a reason (as if I need one) to read books about business. I thought it might be worthwhile to create a list of my top business books; the ones that influenced me most.
- Good to Great – Jim Collins. I’d never heard of Jim Collins until a few years ago. I attended a leadership conference where I watched a series of speakers from all over the world talk about leadership and one of these was Jim Colins. His book good to great is one of the seminal works that has shaped my subsequent business and personal activities. In the book he recounts the process of looking at hundreds of good and great companies all over the world and trying to identify what it was that enabled a company to make the transition from simply being good to being a great company. It sounds dry and academic but the insights that he, and his research team, draws out of the evidence, have to place this book in my top list.
- Jeff Olsen – The Slight Edge. In this small book Jeff Olsen talks about the choices we make everyday without even thinking about them that over time lead to either success or failure.
- Robert Kiyosaki’s book – Rich Dad Poor Dad in which he tells his own story about how he watched his real father get the best education in the world but end up poor as a teacher and his friend’s dad who helped Robert embark on an educational path that provided financial literacy and the knowledge to enable him to amass great wealth. The board game Cashflow 101 is well worth getting if you have children and teenagers – available via amazon.com
There has been much talked about Mentors and their roles. However, how many people in business have one and really understand how to get the best out of them. Having a mentor is all about having a 2 way relationship, a conversation, that enables and facilitates accountability. A mentor is:
not all mentors need to look like this
- approachable – can you walk with them or they walk with you
- experienced
- easy to talk with and listen to
- often the one person who will ask the difficult questions
- encourages self development
- models good behaviour
- hold you accountable for actions, choices and decisions
- probably slightly disconnected from what you are creating
A mentor is not:
- not infallible
- is not a scapegoat for things that don’t go as we want
- available endlessly – there has to be some movement
Mentoring is about one person helping another to achieve something of real importance to them. It is about giving help and support in a non-threatening way, in a manner that the recipient will appreciate and value and that will empower them to move forward with confidence towards what they want to achieve. Mentoring is also concerned with creating an informal environment in which one person can feel encouraged to discuss their needs and circumstances openly and in confidence with another person who is in a position to be of positive help to them.
Mentors are probably confined to helping in a relatively narrow area and you may actually have several mentors at any one time each of whom assists in a different area.
One concept of a mentor is a person who holds up a mirror and annoyingly asks those questions that you might not have asked yourself.
A mentor might be someone who is around for just a few short months or may be much longer term – it all depends on the area you are working in.
So the call to action for today is this. Who is your mentor? Do they know it? How often do you talk with them about the important things you are trying to create?
There I was talking with our daughter about or plans for the future and admitting that we were a long way from achieving them? She then came back, quick as a flash with something I’d taught her years ago.In essence what she suggested was:
- Know where you are starting from
- Find out where you want to end up
- Develop a strategy to get you there
So don’t forget to put into practice what you taught (or teach others). Go back and re-evaluate your learning and growing processes. Teach yourself as well as others.
While walking the dog this morning I had a moment to ponder why was I walking the dog? It gets her out and gets her some exercise. I get some fresh air and some exercise, not as much as she does, but it helps me to maintain my levels of fitness or even improve them.
Point 2 for today is “exercise is not a luxury – it is a vital necessity“. I we don’t use a muscle and stretch it then it will wither and die. If we don’t exercise we will lose the ability to do so. You don’t get fit or healthy overnight and conversely you don’t get unfit or unhealthy overnight either. The process is the cumulative effect of lots of small steps and choices that add up to one or other of those options. The best book on the subject is one by Jeff Olson called the Slight Edge. Well worth a read as it will add to your understanding but remember knowledge without action is fruitless.
Point 3 comes from a long held passion of mine – to keep developing. So what new skill have I learnt this week, what new hobby have I taken up, what do I now do better than I did at the beginning of the week. So what new skill or ability am I going to learn this week.
