We have talked in this space before about answering the first important question before you spend a dime on marketing and promotion: What do your customers really buy from you (not what are you selling?) Here’s another important question that goes beyond marketing and promotion: What kinds of experiences do you want you customers to have in doing business with you? Two good places to start for strategic input-what are your customers and your customer contact people telling you about complaints and problems? Catalogue and analyze this data and see what guidance it gives you about improving your total system of customer experience. Also look at praise. What do the nice things customers say about their experiences with your business that could be applied more widely across the whole company? Also, find out what people say about positive experiences they have with other companies and then dig into as much detail about what they do to create those experiences as you can. If they are not competitors, you may find them more willing to help you with information than you would think. Whether you are in a relationship business or not, in an on-line, viral spread of information world, how many bad reviews do you want to have before you decide to answer the customer experience question? Yes, there are unreasonable people and there are also honest mistakes. So you also have to be really good at fixing problems and managing your on-line reputation.

Previously in this space, the concept of building a business on the basis of trust has been discussed. The recent economic distress has increased the importance of trust as a basis for growing and sustaining a company. This is especially true if you are in a relationship business, whether or nor it involves recurring revenue. Even companies that see themselves in a transaction business know they will not get repeat business if they cannot be trusted. So what are the things companies can do to establish and build trust with their prospects and customers? They can clearly communicate and meet expectations and be better than their competitors at fixing problems of unmet expectations. They can teach customers how to get the most benefit from the products and services they provide. And, they can impart useful information to the market, whether or not the delivery of that information is directly connected to revenue. Here is where on-line social media like LinkedIn, Facebook, Pinster and a host of other social media programs come in. Whether you like it or not, your business has an on-line reputation. You need to manage that reputation and deal with any negative postings promptly and fairly. You need to follow the etiquette of social media-to be helpful but not pushy and “salesy.” Participate in appropriate discussion groups where you establish your company as a thought leader. If you have ever built a house or have watched one being built, the first, basic foundation is often a set of concrete “footers” on which the house rests. To help build and sustain your company’s positive reputation and the trust that reputation generates among customers and prospects you have not yet met, have a strong social media strategy with someone directly in charge of its success.

Making your business different than your competitors in ways that are important to your target market is a strategy that is available to every business regardless of size, industry or resources. The first step is to find out from your best customers why they think you are different (and presumably better.) If you are just starting, then talk with your target market and find out from them what differences they look for in the companies they want to work with. Look for no more than 5 “service objectives” between your business and your customers that they say are important to them and adopt them as your core deliverables. They become the expectations you set with every customer as you bring them aboard and keep them. Once you have settled on the service objectives, get everyone in your company who has a piece of the company’s ability to meet each of those objectives on to a team that will design the internal processes to meet them on a regular basis. You are asking people who do the work to design the work. They have to establish the internal service objectives document the processes and the reporting mechanisms so you can track on-going performance. As you saw in last week’s blog, there should be procedures for dealing with the exceptions that happen so they can be dealt with swiftly. You can’t be perfect, but you can be better than your competitors in communicating the expectations through service objectives and then fixing the mistakes faster than anyone. As for documenting the procedures and keeping them alive, see this blog that talks about internal Wikis. To get great guidance in establishing and delivering quality service and products, find and study Quality is Free by Philip Crosby. It may be hard to find, but is well worth the effort to get it.

Every business has systems; technology-based or not, that enable it to satisfy customer demand and make a profit. These systems can range from a simple paper invoice put in the mail to incredibly complex technological processes involving thousands of people. Try as we might, no system is perfect. “Zero defects” is not possible. You may not be perfect, but you can be really good at reacting to the exceptions that occur and dealing with them swiftly and properly. In fact, this capability can be a powerful marketing strategy and competitive advantage (see next week’s blog.) What this capability requires is the combination of quick reporting of exceptions, aggressive internal and external communications and a team approach that reinforces the interconnectedness of all jobs that produce customer satisfaction.  In fact that is every job in the company. What it also requires is a company-wide policy that does not penalize employees who “cry wolf.” A machine may not sound quite right. A computer program may be running slower than normal. The temperature in the office may be off. Whatever the exception is, it should be reported. Like all good intelligence, whatever the exception is may not seem important to the observer, but it could very important to someone elsewhere in the organization. The more everyone in the company knows about how things should be running properly, the better armed they are for spotting the exceptions.

One dark side of success is that it can create more problems than failure. They are good problems to be sure but they must be faced and dealt with. When you have achieved a measure of success,  decisions look riskier because you now have more to lose if you are wrong. You have more employees and have to create a more complex organization. You may need new space, new technology, new marketing support. You may find yourself spending time on things you never dreamed you would have to deal with. Failure is final. Success must be sustained. This is when you realize one of the things they do not teach you in business school about running a company-that you have to take chances all over again and “walk off the cliff.” You have to spend money before the revenue is in place to support it by hiring and investing in infrastructure and technology. The trick is to keep the time between the investment and the break-even and profit as short as possible. In fact,  you have to escape the paralysis that comes from saying to your self. “I cannot afford to do these things,” and then never drilling down into the decisions and seeing what the monthly costs are and then developing the revenue strategies to overcome the shortfalls. Besides the reluctance to delegate, one of the biggest problems is the fact that the owner/CEO is pulled away from his or her highest and best use that got the business to this point to begin with. So, remind yourself of what you do best and put in place the people and resources to free you to do that and enjoy the success you have achieved and deserve.

One of the steps business owners need to take as their companies grow is to regularly review the controls that are in place and should be in place protecting their money, inventory, databases, intellectual property and premises. Using outside experts like your CPA, commercial insurance agent, attorney and a professional investigator, you need to find the gaps and plug them. Not everyone is honest. Not every process is airtight. One of the principles of establishing good controls is to avoid creating situations that are tempting to people to circumvent. For example, do you let the people who generate the checks in your business also reconcile the checking accounts? Divide those duties and sometimes take a look at checks and invoices yourself. Do you have dual controls on the process that puts new employees on the payroll? Who is watching over your copyrighted or otherwise protected material and products to make sure they are not being compromised? Are your facilities safe and in compliance with ADA and OSHA requirements? As companies grow and become more successful, they have more to lose by not being in control as much as they should be. Talk with your outside professionals about establishing, maintaining and updating your controls on a regular basis.

There are still echoes out there of the reaction to the death of Steve Jobs last year. Apple has another triumph on their hands with the rush to buy iPad3s. But thinking back on what Jobs accomplished, especially during his second tour at the head of Apple (Now the world’s largest corporation?) you keep running into one simple lesson: find a need an fill it. Apple has a history of finding needs people have-ones they did not even know they had-and filling them. We could argue all day and night about the societal implications those needs filled-but connectedness, portability of and access to our information and the further fuzzing of the lines between work and play are right here in front of us. Apple is by no means the first organization-for-profit or non-profit-to find needs and fill them. After World War II, people were not demanding power brakes and power steering in their cars. But including them in cars propelled sales of automobiles to unimagined heights and the two-car family was born. The Susan Komen Foundation has become the driving force in awareness of and research into breast cancer by tapping into the hearts and minds of this terrible disease’s victims, families and friends. So, whether the economy is treating you well or not, what needs can you find and fill to propel your business to unimagined heights?

Many people go into their own business to avoid the accountability that comes from being an employee. They chafe at being watched over and micromanaged. (Who doesn’t?) They long for the freedom that comes from being your own boss and doing things their way. (OK, you business owners and self-employed can stop chuckling now at the reference to the freedom of being at the top or self-employed!) Think back on all the things you have accomplished in your life and try to remember any of those accomplishments that did not involve being accountable to someone or something besides yourself. Was it a parent, a teacher, a coach, a drill sergeant, a spouse, a goal you had since childhood, a friend or a customer? The point is we are goal oriented creatures. It is how we got here. It started with the goal of survival and has developed multiple levels since. Look up Maslow’s hierarchy. So, if you lead a business or a simply self employed, to whom are you accountable? Who cares enough about you to expect you to do what you say you want to do or have to do? How do you keep score on your accomplishments besides looking in the checkbook or reviewing your financial statements? Do you regularly keep your banker informed on how you are meeting your financial goals and loan covenants? If you have shareholders, what do you report to them? Do you meet regularly with other business owners and CEOs to share ideas and support each other? Accountability is the main engine of accomplishment. Keep that engine tuned.

I don’t know whether it is the weather, a generational thing, or me but there seems to be an epidemic of unreturned communications.  I swear I am not being paranoid. It does not seem to matter whether it is a phone call, e-mail, text message, letter or post card-most of them languish out there. I was taught it was impolite to ignore a communication. It may be difficult. It may be frustrating. It may even be unpleasant or scary, but when someone tries to contact you for legitimate reasons, not getting back to them is not only rude but is also potentially damaging to your reputation. And, if you believe that your reputation is one of the foundations of trust and being trustworthy is important to you, then get back to them somehow. You do not have to buy, say “yes” or even agree to a meeting. But if the situation were reversed, wouldn’t you rather have a “no” than silence? Nearly every vacuum in communications is filled with negative assumptions. How many negative assumptions do you want people to make about you or your business? In fact, politeness and returning communications may even be a differentiation strategy. I keep quoting Woody Allen who said, “Success is 90% showing up.” Returning communications is one part of showing up.

The Internet continues to strongly influence our business and personal lives. The meteoric rise in Social Media such as LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, etc. is taking up more and more of our time presenting opportunities, complicating things and confounding us. But before you abandon all of the things you have learned about marketing and put all your chips on Social Media as the road to customer and revenue growth, please remember this: nothing invented ever really goes away. Every form of money ever invented, including barter, is still in use today, despite the rapid growth of Electronic Funds Transfer. Do you recall the coming “Checkless Society?” How about websites, which have gone through the rapid evolution from being on-line brochures to being full service delivery and commerce systems? Maybe store construction has slowed some, but don’t we still go to them? So it is with marketing, as long as you remember the strategic question about your target market and how they get their information that leads them to do business with you. Always makes sure your messages appear in the right media (even “old fashioned” media) if they are the ones that bring you desired results. Then look to Social Media to complement your messages to those segments that are flocking to the use of Social Media if those people are in your target market.  Finally, there is still no substitute for face-to-face contact so there will still be the need for personal networking and sales forces. How those personal networks are built and how sales forces work can benefit from adding the use of Social Media to their duties, again if the targets are people that use them.