Do you have a strategy to know when to say no to a potential customer? To know when they walk in the door that although you would like to help them, you just really aren’t capable or you might jeopardize the help you provide to existing customers. It’s hard not to want to help everyone but the reality is you…
Month: June 2015
Taking on new opportunities can enhance your diagnostic mindset.
The more and more you do the same type of work, or the same type of activities, the harder it is to focus on what’s the right thing to do. The more of an expert you become, the easier it is to jump to conclusions about what you need to do given a particular situation. This is simply how your…
A recession is no excuse
External forces in business, like a recession, are a simple fact of reality. It’s not a matter of if, rather it’s only a matter of when. Blaming poor performance on external factors is admitting you didn’t have a vision. That your business has always been out of your control. Those that had a vision that didn’t cut it aren’t out…
Improvement is not innovation
Innovation is to create something new for tomorrow. Improvement is to refine what we already have today. Innovation requires a vision and then working backward to where you are today, like completing a maze in reverse, to forge a path. Improvement merely requires movement, small steps, from where you are now, regardless of the direction. Improvement is not innovation. But,…
Experience is not expertise
It’s tempting to think that someone who has experience doing something for many years is skilled at what they do. But, repeated exposure to events is not what leads to expertise. Skill does not develop from experience. For example, let’s say you can gauge the success of an auto mechanic by looking at rate of success in repairing cars. If…
Interview: The Value of the Customer’s Customer
I recently talked with Kirk Bowman of the Art Of Value about my book Commitment To Value: How to make technical projects worthwhile.
In this interview I wanted to focus on the idea of the Customer’s Customer and funny enough, Kirk did too. Here’s the recording:
There’s only an “A” for results
In grade school, effort was sometimes all it took to get a passing grade. But in life and in business, there’s no “A” for effort, there’s only an “A” for results.
A stab at success
Customers have needs. They may come to you with wants. If you deliver what they want and it’s not what they need, that’s not success. If you charge them by the hour until they become frustrated and walk away, that’s not success. The only way to have a stab at success is to understand their needs.
Patient care will be thrown out of the car.
Any business in the health care industry is subject to the greatest external forces that hold the power to destroy a business. Laws, like the recently passed Affordable Care Act, are putting immense pressure on businesses to improve quality, reduce costs, and protect privacy. Regardless how you feel about the laws, these laws place external pressure on businesses. Pressure that…
Get your customer out
If your car crashes and catches on fire, do you care how the paramedic gets you out? I wouldn’t and I hope you wouldn’t either. Your customer doesn’t care how you do your job, just get them out. Likewise, if your customer is in a burning car and they try to tell you—the paramedic—how to get them out, tell them…