Articles
How to raise havoc and not even know it
The nine biggest business busters
by John GrahamThe big tests in business rarely come in good times. That’s when we
eagerly take the credit for our incredible success. But it’s when the
economic storms hit that we start blaming everything and everyone else for
our poor performance, and those who thought they were smarter than most a
few months earlier head for cover when the storm hits.
Anyone with an inside peek at businesses can detect the trouble spots. Here are
nine of the biggest business busters.
1. Lack of follow-through. When it comes to wrecking
or hobbling a business, failing to follow through is near the top. Whenever
you hear “I’ll do it right away” or “I’ll
get back to you tomorrow,” it either won’t happen or what
you get will be useless. Many people––including owners and
managers––have a difficult time actually doing what they
agreed to do.
The lack of follow–through is destructive because it causes delays, confusion
and disruption, and is demoralizing for those who have to put up with it.
2. Lousy communication. It isn’t just poor communication;
it’s an absence of communication. People don’t respond to
emails and even if they do, they fail to deal with the issues in the
email they received. Just as bad is a failure to keep those involved
in the communication loop.
“We haven’t had a staff meeting in two years,” a manager stated. “We
have no idea what other departments are doing.”
No business can operate efficiently in an atmosphere of ignorance.
The end result is always the same. All the energy goes into making sure one’s
rear end is covered, leaving little time or energy to devote to making the business
a success.
3. Incomplete, inadequate and incoherent instructions. It’s
rampant. Email after email arrives with a few cryptic words that make
sense only to the sender or so we assume. Leaving people guessing at
what we mean is a cold, conspiring killer.
The words, “Please let me know if this isn’t clear to you,”
should end every communication. Many employees are afraid to ask and
others just go off in the wrong direction because they didn’t understand
the assignment. It all has a cost in lost time and misspent energy, not
to mention its demoralizing impact.
4. Unresponsiveness. The practice is so pervasive, it
must be a required course taught by sick souls at dozens of colleges.
It generally goes something like this: “We really need to get this
done. When can you have it?” The message can come from someone
inside the company, a customer or vendor. Since the task seems important
and time–sensitive, everyone goes to work to get it done. It goes
to the person requesting it––and then nothing. It isn’t
even acknowledged. A week or two goes by and you send a “friendly”
reminder. Still nothing. It’s the same two months later.
It’s not just that ignoring people is desperately rude. When the next request
arrives, it goes to the bottom of the “To Do”
list where it may even disappear.
5. Information paralysis. Today, databases are the lifeline
of every business, perhaps a company’s most valuable asset. Yet,
frequently the lifeline is near death. Databases receive little or intermittent
care at best. Oftentimes, contact information is entered incorrectly
and is often incomplete––and no one figures it out! There
are missing ZIP codes and street names and addresses are wrong. Spelling
accuracy is nonexistent.
It isn’t unusual for a company to send an email blast to its own customers
and someone discovers that there’s a high percentage of bounce backs––and
this has been going on for years. All because no one is charged with the task
of checking.
If this isn’t enough trouble, countless companies must manually access
specific customers and prospects from databases for mailings. Is it any wonder
that nothing happens?
We may be good at business, but we could be even better if we could get beyond
information paralysis.
6. Relying on magic. The “Easy” button that Staples has
made famous is brilliant since it’s great differentiation. We all want
to believe that pressing a button is all that it takes to make something happen.
If we send an email, we believe we have done something important and what may
or may not happen as a result of hitting the “Send”
button is irrelevant.
In the same way, there are a myriad of business services that offer the
“Easy” button: you can communicate with customers and prospects,
send personalized messages, offer various types of information and have
anyone respond and make a purchase. It’s like sitting back in your
easy chair and it all happens without effort. All it takes is a press
of the button.
It’s wake-up time: even Staples is discovering that in a slow economy it
takes more than a magic button.
7. Failing to differentiate. Even though differentiation
is one of the most popular and persistent business topics, it suffers
from an overabundance of lip service and ineffective execution. Let’s
slice it thin: differentiation isn’t what a company thinks about
itself. Of course it sees itself as unique, in a class by itself. It’s
only the customer’s view that counts.
If taken seriously, differentiation can provide a significant competitive advantage.
The two fierce retail competitors, Wal-Mart and Target, are examples. As it turns
out, there’s a minimal price differential between these two giants. Target
is only a scant 1% to 3% above Wal-Mart. Yet, The Wall Street Journal’s Ann
Zimmerman points out that 87% of shoppers think Wal-Mart’s prices are better.
While Target seems to be struggling with declining profits as compared to Wal-Mart,
ironically, Target’s president seems to blame the problem on Wal-Mart for
being better at marketing. Based on his survey of the marketplace, he suggests
that there doesn’t seem to be a change in the number of discounted items
or the depth of the discounts.
Wal-Mart’s consistent and persistent message of lower prices pulls in customers.
When they need to save money, they think Wal-Mart. If they have a little extra,
they may turn to Target, with its slightly upscale image.
Basically, differentiation is what customers think about when they think about
a company. For both Wal-Mart and Target, it’s no minor matter.
8. Making everything too complex. In a Fortune article,
Apple’s Steve Jobs lasers in on a critical issue, what he calls
“democratizing technology.” The idea is that if what you
make is “really great, then everybody will want to use it.”
What Jobs seems to understand better than just about anyone else is that products
must make sense to customers. In fact, such clarity characterizes the entire
Apple product line: iMac; MacBook, MacBook Pro, iPod, iPhone, iTunes, and iSight.
Compare Honda’s product line clarity to GM’s disarray of makes and
models.
Complicated kills. Customers will not spend the time trying to figure out what
you’re offering. They migrate to simple and clear every time.
9. Getting too hung up on the wrong issues. The current
rage for ROI–Return on Investment–is an example. What is
the ROI of a country club membership? What’s the ROI of taking
a group of salespeople on a cruise? What’s the ROI of spreading
Blackberries to everyone? What’s the ROI of running an ad during
the World Series? The answer to these questions is the same: no one knows
because it’s next to impossible to calculate.
The point is simply that marketing issues are different from real estate and
equipment, for example. What makes it even worse is that so-called professional
marketers have jumped on the ROI bandwagon and focus their budgets on activities
that can be reduced to bean counting so they can save their jobs.
That’s exactly what has happened to Starbucks. When founder Howard Schultz
returned as CEO, he pointed out that the company was floundering because the
short-term “what are we getting for every marketing buck” mentality
was sucking the soul out of the Starbucks experience.
Not long ago, the marketing director of a regional bank in the Northwest with
144 branches invested $830,000 of her budget on a campaign to attract small business
customers. She called it “Lemonaire” and it was aimed at youngsters
and their business-minded parents. It included print and radio advertising, as
well as email blasts and signage in the bank’s branches. The offer was
a do–it–yourself lemonade stand kit that included $10 in start–up
money. The program resulted in 1,500 new accounts at a cost of $553 each.
How do you calculate the ROI on that promotion or the Starbucks culture? How
do you measure creativity? The “pay-off” always occurs over time
and manifests itself in many, many ways.
Business busters come in many forms. Each one has the potential to create havoc
without those in charge even knowing what hit them.
John R. Graham is president of Graham Communications, a marketing services and sales consulting firm. He is the author of The New Magnet Marketing and Break the Rules Selling, writes for a variety of business publications, and speaks on business, marketing and sales issues. Contact him at 40 Oval Road, Quincy, MA 02170; 617-328-0069; jgraham@grahamcomm.com.