It's Worth Noting | by Levi Smith
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Leadership

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Leadership

Offer something you don’t have to sell

Do you spend a lot of time selling, trying to convince everyone that the product or service you offer is needed and of value?  Is it wearing you out?  Maybe it’s time to consider a more productive and fulfilling approach.  Sure, you can make money selling what people do not really need or understand, but is that what you want to be doing?  What if your product or service sold itself? No one has to convince you to buy what you really need and understand the value and use of.  You may have to generate awareness to make your product or service known or to stand out in a crowded marketplace, but you do not have to sell.  Dry cleaning and oil changes are good examples. Are you tired of selling? Think about how you can shift to offer products or services that do not require you to sell. You’ll…

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Leadership

I know how serious you are by how well you prepare

I hear a lot of dreams and ideas from people, from wanting to start a business, family or new career to engaging in community service or launching a non-profit. I can quickly gauge how serious someone is by asking one simple question: “How much time and effort do you expend today preparing for the transition or impact you want to make tomorrow?”  The answer is usually uninspiring. The quantity and quality of your preparation today is a leading indicator of your success tomorrow. If you really want to start something new or make a transition in life, start preparing – now. Find mentors, read voraciously, etc. If you lack the motivation or discipline to prepare, you’re likely to lack the motivation or discipline to succeed in the new endeavor. At best, you’ll force other people you take along for the ride to suffer the consequences of your lack of preparation.…

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Leadership

Do you know what motivates your key vendors?

When you think about what motivates your employees, is money the first and only thing that comes to mind?  No.  It’s important, but it’s one of several things that motivates your employees to be on mission with you, to do their best, to engage, etc.  You’d be naive to run your business assuming cash is the one and only motivator that matters. Now let’s switch to your key vendor relationships.  I’m not talking about vendors who provide commodity services like long distance or office supplies, but vendors who you need to partner with you to make your business a success. Do you have these key vendors in mind?  Now ask yourself how you’re motivating them.  How do you get them to be on mission with you, to do their best and to engage?  If you’re like a lot of businesses, and how I was several years ago, the financial lever…

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Leadership

It’s time to get engaged and take action

Happy 4th of July! Today, we celebrate the action of a few who decided to do something about an unrepresentative and absentee government. Their actions serve as a good reminder of the impact of deciding to stop wishing and to start doing. How often do we just wish things would get better? With our spouse, kids or other family and friends? At work or in our churches or government? What if we stop throwing pennies into the wishing well and take meaningful action? Maybe we need to put ourselves at risk and say what needs to be said or do what we know needs to be done. Maybe we need to say I’m sorry, express appreciation or commit to change. Would our families, friends, workplaces, churches and government be the better for it? While taking action will be riskier and harder than the lazy and disengaged alternative, at least there’s…

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Leadership

Looking for a job? Consider doing some unsolicited work.

There are a lot of well qualified and strong character people out there still looking for work.  Depending on the locale and industry, there’s some hiring going on but the opportunities are still slim.  It’s now more important than ever to stand out and convince prospective employers that they need to take a strong look at you.  But how?  Maybe it’s time to try something crazy. What if you identified a handful of companies that you really want to work for and figured out how to do some unsolicited work for them?  Depending on your skills and experience, you could do anything from mystery shopping, developing a competitive analysis, exploring expansion opportunities, assessing social media engagement, reviewing customer policies or anything else that you believe would substantially benefit them and reflect what you’re really good at. Do the work, write it up and deliver it on a compressed deadline.  Give…

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Leadership Reviews

Are you in business with the right people?

I’m finishing up People’s Tycoon, a biography on Henry Ford.  The book details the story of three motor companies Ford helped start, the last being the only one we remember.  What struck me about all three attempts was that in each instance, Ford found himself at odds with his key business partners, the guys with the money.  The genesis of the conflict, at least regarding the business, was that Ford’s vision to provide mobility to the masses conflicted with his partners’ vision of selling higher margin luxury or performance cars (to be fair, Ford also seemed to lack some focus in the early years). The problem wasn’t that Ford’s vision was good and the others’ vision was bad.  The problem was that they didn’t share the same vision or measure for success.  If the people who run or own your organization have the same problem, debilitating conflict is inevitable.  The…

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Leadership Reviews

Do you provide good instructions?

Consumers will increasingly lean towards products and services that are easy to open, setup and assemble because their access to reviews and purchase options continue to expand. If you make the first use of your product or service unnecessarily challenging, consumers will find someone else to purchase from.

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bad customer service
Leadership

Why do you annoy your customers and prospects?

Why is it that when a friend invites a guest to their gym, the gym is committed to annoying everyone by making the guest jump through endless hoops and listen to sales pitches just to try out their product?  They could make it easy: (1) have guests sign a simple waiver, and (2) let them enjoy the facilities with a member who already thinks it’s worth paying for.  Seems like a recipe for success until management starts worrying about free riders and the lost opportunity to make an annoying sales pitch. My advice to the gyms: do whatever you can to make members want to bring guests and make guests want to come back.  Reasonable restrictions are okay to maintain the desired member experience and prevent abusive free riding, but that leaves a lot of room to make favorable impressions and to move your members from being mere consumers to being your most effective marketing arm.…

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Leadership

The danger of measuring your success based on your competition

What if an airline filled up an entire cabin with wide seats and extra leg room? No first class seats, but a whole plane full of seats offering about 20% more width and leg room. The fact that this suggestion seems fanciful is indicative of a major problem amongst the airlines: they lack focus on radically improving the customer experience with the application of creativity and innovation. Give JetBlue, Southwest, etc. some credit – they’ve made some improvements over the years – but why have the improvements been so minor and on the whole unsatisfying? The root of the problem is that the airlines measure their success based on one another. Instead, they should measure their success based on the imagination and expectations of their customers. A business takes the shape of how it measures success. If your measure is your competition, you’ll look a lot like them and spend…

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