Teik Oh

A “proper” planning process

Aug 18 2015

In over 30 years’ experience in advising clients on planning I believe very strongly that there is a correct process to follow when you are preparing your strategic or business plan.

At the same time, I have also seen many attempts at different ways to prepare strategic or business plans by consultants who have never had to live through the implementation phase of planning, when client staff go “Huh? What exactly are we supposed to do here?”

I have just spent some time with a client who has prepared their plan exactly in that way. While I was advising them on the financial aspects of their business, their Chief Operating Officer was internally preparing their strategic plan, which I had a chance to look at since it would obviously have an impact on their financial strategy and budget. It was not my role since, as a gun-for-hire consultant I can only do what I am contracted to do. However, for the benefit of my client I felt I had to provide some warning about what I felt were the shortcomings of the planning process to the CEO.

As a consultant you have to approach these situations carefully. You do not want to seem critical so that you look like you are touting for more work; you do not want to insult internal staff and put them off side in case you have to work with them on other issues – yet, I always feel a responsibility to provide an independent view of what I see that may affect their business.

Here, for nothing, is a list of what I thought was wrong with the process and the resulting planning document.

Comment 13

Customer Service in frontline staff

Aug 11 2015

As your business grows, you no longer have the only contact with your customers. More and more, that front-facing position is being filled by your frontline staff – your sales people, your front of house reception, your people who meet and greet and deal with customers day to day.

The customer service instincts that you displayed now have to be passed on to your frontline staff. So how do you breed that customer-service mentality into your team?

The principles are actually quite simple – ensure your team is vision-driven, build strong teamwork, create vision-centric KPI’s and provide rewards for doing the right things, as explained in this video.

Some key steps include:-

1. Ensure customer service starts with understanding your “brand”.

Your frontline staff need to understand what your “brand” is, as reinforced by your business vision statement. What does achieving your vision mean to your customer? What values will your staff need to uphold in front of the customer to ensure that the vision comes alive? What indications does your vision statement give them on how they should deal with a complaint? Are they empowered to make decisions about customer-service as long as their decisions align with the indicators in the vision?

2. Reinforce good teamwork

Remove any barriers to teamwork and create a structure that shares knowledge about clients and about service. Provide systems that give frontline staff all they know about customer preferences. Allow staff to hand over to someone else in the team more appropriate for the task or the customer.

3. Negotiate and implement KPI’s that measure attainment of the vision in customer-service

Remove Key Performance Indicators that measure output (how many customers served) and instead implement KPI’s that reinforce vision-centric outcomes (how many customers received what they asked for, how many customers received more than they asked for).

4. Reward vision-centric outcomes

Stop paying bonuses for income generated from customers. Instead create rewards that that actually reward behaviours that produce outcomes described by the vision and brand. Instead of awarding an award for the highest sales every month, how about awarding the person who satisfied customers? High sales may be one-off, satisfied customers come back again and again.

Get over to the Resources section of https://teikoh.com to see what other models, worksheets and templates can help you grow your business the right way.

Comment 13

How do I quantify my Vision?

Aug 04 2015

I received an email from Joanne who owns an interior design consultancy in Toronto who asked a series of questions about her Vision for her business.

One of the more intriguing ones was:-

“I realize that making the company’s vision statement live is the key to how we fulfill the promise of our unique selling proposition. But I’m finding it hard to explain what I mean in our vision statement to my team and to customers. It seems so clear to myself what I want to achieve at the end of the day but have I got the wording wrong in the statement?”

Her company’s vision statement reads “We believe in taking both our customers and ourselves to the front edge of design so that we both benefit from leading the pack.”

Not a bad vision statement in my book. It describes a journey that involves both the business and the customer so that it creates the feeling of mutually beneficial relationship; it sets their value of being at the forefront of design which also sets the scene for the customer that says “don’t come to us if you want lace and frills”; and it feels inspirational and inviting. When I read that statement I see energy, innovation, and adventure.

No, I don’t think Joanne has “the wrong wording”. So back to her question, how does she explain what she means in the vision statement to her team and her customers?

Before I answer that question let me talk a little about why you need to make your vision statement “live”. Many businesses make the mistake of writing an exciting vision statement and putting it on the wall, but not making it come alive in the business.

Your vision statement is your “brand” and it should guide how you run your business, how you deal with your customers, how you behave day to day and why you are doing it. If your team members understand what it actually means, it takes away all the little micro-decisions they have to make because the vision spells out the way. No longer do they have to get authorisation or seek management advice about who to hire – they refer to the vision, understand what type of person is required, and make the decision. If they are concerned about whether or not to offer a customer extended payment terms, they refer to the vision and if they understand what it says about the desired customers and what service means, they make the decision.

In this way, a well understood vision statement empowers people.

So, how do you quantify a vision statement in such a way that everyone understands how it applies in almost any given situation? This video explains how.

If you choose your perspectives well, and if you really drill down in each perspective, the resulting description or answer to the question “once we achieve our vision how will we…” lays out what your vision statement means.

The website https://teikoh.com have worksheets and templates to help you describe your vision and quantify it, along with many other templates, tools and resources to create strategy, provide leadership and grow your business. Start the conversation, go to our Facebook page and leave a comment.

Subscribe to our newsletter here and get these tools delivered right to your inbox for you to refer to when you need them.

Comment 13

How much should I pay myself?

Jul 28 2015

When I’m consulting to startups or small businesses there is a perennial question: “am I paying myself the right amount?”

That really is a difficult question to answer.

On the one hand, I’d like to say that you should pay yourself what you would have to pay someone else to do what you do. That’s difficult enough as it is. After all, as business owner you are almost certainly doing things above and beyond a normal Job Description – long hours, things “beneath” a manager’s role, the literal bottle-washer. How much would you pay someone for all that?

On the other hand you did not start your business to earn a salary. What you put into the business will reap you the rewards a salary earner will never get – even though it may take a few years to eventuate. You will have equity, you will have the satisfaction of working for yourself, and perhaps the most powerful of all, you will fulfill your dream – the reason you started in business.

Watch this video for a discussion of what you will have to think about when you try to work out what you should pay yourself.

Let’s be honest. At the beginning, what you are likely to be able to pay yourself is simply what’s left in the bank at the end of the day! That can be difficult for business owners who are single income families with mortgages especially in the early days when cash available in the business is in short supply.

I’ve written before about how business owners need to realise they may have to make sacrifices, and this may be one of them.

However your reward really comes from the future, the building of a sustainable business with a base for growth, steady profitability and a structure that you can mould to your vision. Stick to the vision. Focus on what it takes to make your business successful. Be clear about quality and customer service. Stay determined and constantly on track.

Sure it gets hard from time to time, but work smart and work hard, plan your way forward and you will get there. When you do, the celebration is worth the sacrifice!

In the meantime, subscribe to our newletter here so that you can get all our resources, tools and tips to grow your business sent directly to your inbox for you to read and prosper from in your own time.

Comment 13

Create systems for better customer service

Jul 21 2015

Have you ever received truly exceptional customer service? What was it like and why did you think it was exceptional customer service?

Each experience is different but I bet you can tick off a couple of common characteristics in what happened:-

You felt individual attention
You felt that every detail of the service or product was meant for your satisfaction
You felt that whatever you received was timely
You felt that you not only got the product or service, you got that extra something that accompanied it.

Am I right?

Firstly do you see it is about what you felt? Exceptional customer service is not only about the quality of the box you bought, it is about how you felt during the transaction.

Secondly it is about “extras” – and these need not be something tangible like a bonus product. In customer service “extra” is about listening to you as an individual and perhaps providing nothing more extra than a courteous word.

Yet people also get it wrong don’t they? For every instance of exceptional service I would bet you have 10 examples of poor service.

If only every business realised that excellent customer service is not about spending more money or even putting in more effort – it’s about being consistent and predictable in what you offer. That’s it! Consistency and predictability!

Watch this video to see why you should implement simple systems that create excellent customer service.

Now let’s get back to how you should make your customers feel and how that can be done with some simple systems.

Comment 13

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