CUSTOMERS (No.1) – Provide amazing value to get Sales growth

We believe that Customers is what drives the existence and profitability of a business….as without Customers there are no Sales and without sales there is no revenue stream and eventually no business is sustainable once expenses start to outweigh income and cashflow is negative.….this is fundamental for survival and it is a basic truth that the more customers, the more demand for products or services and the more prospect of growth and profitability.

This means there has to be a major importance and bias towards marketing, advertising and promotion of the business to leverage, attract and create leads, capture them and convert to sales. Asking what customers want and trying to ensure you make every effort to design and deliver what they require is again a basic step even though sometimes customers may not know what they want until they see it….it is a paradox.

Of course once you understand this, you are able to develop products and services that meet what  your customers want, then comes the need to continually provide this value, ensure and improve the service experience and continually aim to deliver a ‘wow’ factor above and beyond your competition to create raving Fans.  This is the basis for service excellence that totally exceeds most customers expectations and delivers a power punch to ensure anyone that has experienced your service is going to come back and tell all of their friends.

PURPOSE – With a big enough WHY, the HOW becomes easy…

To be successful in business requires a reason or purpose to start one and ideally over and above just wanting money which is why some people start a business. A better place to start from is often a place of service to Customers with the thinking that the more you can serve, the bigger and better your business will become due to the huge demand, which means if operating profitably, the money will soon follow.

It is a subtle shift in thinking but when things get tough, money may not be able to provide that x factor internal motivation, inspiration, passion and drive to really get through the turbulence and it is better to be built on a firmer foundation such as a higher purpose to fulfill an ambition, reach a big goal or a passion that is fueled by making a difference in the world, creating a better community or serving more people and customers with what you believe is a product or service they must have.

If you are the sole owner of the business you might have the passion and enthusiasm for your vision to be attained but you can’t do it on your own. In which case you not only have to have the mission, vision in your minds eye but be able to effectively articulate and communicate this in a way that is just as inspiring and engaging to others. The reason why is because otherwise you will be rowing in a boat going around in different directions because no one is a) aligned b) don’t care and c) are not engaged to do anything more than the job they were asked to do i.e. not connected to a higher purpose and not feeling part of anything bigger than just a job.

Having a deeper purpose and a more meaningful understanding of the end goals, why it matters and sharing in that vision is what makes the difference and inspires people to help you AND help everyone recognise where they fit and how they contribute to this BHAG and be able to describe it to others for further recruitment of help.

Part of this is not just the vision, but being able to create a strategy and plan to get there and in communicating it effectively. There also has to be a method to cascade goals and objectives and even break down to weekly and even daily tasks that are going to help reach your destination with a system of Quarterly, Monthly, Weekly, daily tasks that are aligned and add up to the overall goals of the business. This is an absolute fundamental so that not only is the road understood but the route-map is clear even though driving towards on the journey may be a rocky one.

PROCESSES – Standardised, optimised, and repeatable for delivering value to your Customers

Processes can cover a whole multitude of top level value streams to deliver value to the customer or it could be processes at a real basic level that describes how to do tasks in the best possible sequence, to the best standard to get the right results every time, consistent and repeatable. it could also mean all the varieties of processes and systems that exist and interact together to receive orders, prioritise orders, schedule orders, fulfill orders, take payments, or it could be the raft of policies and procedures that mandate certain things for compliance, laws, legislation, etc./.

However, the way that we look at processes is to understand what are the real key value adding and value creating activities that help deliver your core products and services to customers in the fastest time whilst taking care of safety, quality and cost by having simple, repeatable, consistent, optimised processes. If lead-times can be reduced the customer gets their value quicker, less inventory maybe required, the business gets paid quicker (cashflow), and potentially less resources are required for that area but can be used in a more value adding capacity somewhere else. This is the ideal but of course murphys law suggest that it’s not always that way. In which case there also needs to be standard practices and processes that are put in place to risk manage when things do go wrong or even better, systems that make everyone aware of the problem quickly so they can react earlier and not let the customer down (internal and external customers)

PEOPLE – Engaged Leaders & people, motivated, empowered to help solve the problem gaps

People are at the heart of improvement, in fact Employee engagement defines an organisation’s destiny. There are four key characteristics that form the structure of a truly successful business – sustainable profitability year on year, intensely loyal customers, great leaders and passionately loyal employees that go the extra mile. It is that last one that we firmly believe ultimately defines an organisation’s destiny. True employee engagement is worth its weight in gold and as this is the area where like to put focus on because it is a huge opportunity to improve performance….it is as means to an end but also developing people is less costly than hiring, firing and all in all builds a better environment for people to grow and flourish.

The lean tools serve as a catalyst to engage and inspire people to improve the business, learn and develop into better leaders and help change and shape the business towards its vision and purpose. Without people engagement and feeling empowered, important, encouraged, trusted, involved, supported and fulfilled the lean tools will deliver little in the long term as they are built on quick sand and its likely after a short period there will be nothing but a wasteland of tried and failed artifacts to show lean was here!

However, it has to be said that employee engagement comes from leading by example and it has to breed through the organisation like a viral infection to really change a culture en masse. This requires leaders to take responsibility to engage, inspire and support the value adders by removing the problems, issues, obstacles and hurdles that make value adding a harder task than it should be. It requires leaders to care, and it follows that if your leaders aren’t engaged then performance will fall like a set of dominoes i.e leaders first and then their teams as no one is holding them up and everyone is actively disengaged. Of course, life is not a bed of roses and there will never be everyone happy as problems will always exist, but the aim of the game is to make it a much better environment to work, a more harmonious team and what follows is better performance and results. it is like a cause and effect system.

So a pre-cursor to great leadership and employee engagement is based on the strength of the vision, the buy in to that vision, the communication and passion to reach it and clear goals and targets where everyone understand the importance of reaching or beating the goals. When this is known and people are reminded each day about how what they are doing (hard or easy) it creates a deeper meaning and desire from inside (intrinsic motivation) to keep moving towards that goal, especially when reward, recognition and the right incentives are part of that journey. However, like people who do community work, charity work or volunteer, certain people are not chasing the dollars but feel a responsibility and need to contribute as much as possible. This is when you have true employee engagement but beware don’t take people for granted.

 PERFORMANCE & RESULTS (Improvement in SQCDP leading to Profits, NPS, People satisfaction, Customer Satisfaction, Productivity and Cash Flow)

We treat these together because they are the result or outcome of the other 4 imperatives. They don’t all work in a straight line but like a set of gears where one can be working better than the other but in general there is still leverage to get better results from less input or excelled results with even more input if everyone is performing to their best.

When we talk about performance we also mean good planning, good preparation and the right inputs to be able to perform at your best. This could be looking after yourself, eating well, ensuring hydration, having a good mental disposition from meditation, working out so the mind is feeling fresh and ready for challenges. It could be a combination of mental, emotional, spiritual and physical factors that can help improve performance of an individual or even more importantly, leveraging teams to perform better. If you understand how to help teams get from forming, storming, norming into performing quickly then and keep them improving then this is a serious competitive advantage for your business but if dysfunctionality, conflict, poor communication or personality clashes occur then you need the ability to see this and address it early.

SUMMARY

All In all, when we understand our Customers better, have regular feedback and develop relationships with them to keep improving value for them, we understand our purpose and real reason for being in business is to deliver better value for customers and keep innovating and creating better services and products to generate MORE money to fund even MORE value and service then this is the first 2 steps for business success.

The next 2 is to ensure streamlined and optimised processes are created and continually improved to make value flow to the customer easier and keep seeking out the waste that gets in the way of adding value and frustrates people, adds cost time and energy as well as developing people, skills, knowledge and constantly engaging people, challenging them and helping the grow to their potential this will lead to the last 2 Performance and results in improved safety and ergonomics, better Quality, reduced costs, better delivery to customer and in turn this will positively impact the top line and bottom line through customer service and satisfaction, lead-time reduction, less returns, increased productivity and better cash-flow.

Sounds complex, but when you understand the big picture and how to tackle it…its actually quite easy.