BIZBUZZ: R. Whiteley, The Customer Driven Company

This is episode 7 of BIZBUZZ.

I stimulate conversations that challenge business owners to consider new possibilities and to Act Boldly.  The following video highlights some of the content from Richard Whiteley’s book The Customer Driven Company that made sense to me.

Hi, I’m Gary Brown a FocalPoint business coach.

Welcome to BIZ BUZZ.

I’ve chosen to comment on The Customer Driven Company, by Richard Whiteley.  Not surprisingly, this book deals with the relationship that we have with our customers.

I’d like to highlight four observations from the book that interest me.

The first deals with vision.  I know that this is a repeat from my most recent BIZBUZZ episode, but I believe it bears repeating.  Whiteley defines vision as a source of inspiration and a guide to decision making.  How often do we use our vision statement as a litmus test for decision making?

My next observation expands on vision statements.  Whiteley encourages the reader to communicate the vision constantly.  He stresses the need to establish challenging goals that are driven by the vision and to embody it in our everyday behaviour.  How many of us act on this advice?

Comment number three is specific to our customers.  The suggestion is that we should make it easy for our customers to complain to us about our products and services.  That might sound trite but do we even have a method for customer complaints?

Finally, I’d just like to mention that Whiteley identifies what he calls the seven essentials that are the game plan of winners.  Here they are:

1. Create a customer keeping vision

2. Saturate your company with the voice of the customer

3. Go to school on the winners

4. Liberate your customer champions

5. Smash the barriers to customer-winning performance

6. Measure, measure, measure

7. Walk the talk

That’s it for The Customer Driven Company.

Your comments are always welcome.

Stay tuned for more BIZ BUZZ.

BIZBUZZ – S. Godin, Purple Cow: Transform Your Business by Being Remarkable

This is episode 1 of my version of BIZBUZZ.  I stimulate conversations that challenge business owners to consider new possibilities and to act boldly.

This video highlights some of my selections of the most significant comments made by Seth Godin in his book Purple Cow: Transform Your Business by Being Remarkable.

Hi, I’m Gary Brown a FocalPoint business coach.

Welcome to BIZBUZZ.  This is my attempt to help you generate some buzz in your business.

I’ve chosen to comment on Seth Godin’s book entitled Purple Cow: Transform Your Business by Being Remarkable

I really enjoyed reading this book and I found a number of very thought provoking ideas and suggestions.

I’d like to comment on three of them.

The first is the overall emphasis on differentiation.  Godin says this OUT LOUD when he claims that the opposite of remarkable is very good.  This bears repeating … the opposite of remarkable is very good!  If you think of a scale that has remarkable at one end and say, mediocre on the other end, how many of us would have placed our business on the wrong side of very good?

My second take-away is that it is safer to be risky than to play it safe.  In a crowded marketplace, Seth Godin suggests that playing it safe, or fitting in, frequently leads to failure.  Are we prepared to exchange safety for riskiness?

Finally, my third choice is the suggestion that your marketing message needs to be targeted towards the innovators and early adopters in the marketplace for your product or service.  Godin describes your message as an ‘ideavirus’ and your task is to find the early adopters who are most likely to ‘sneeze’ your message onwards.  Consequently, he strongly suggests that you avoid a marketing message that is aimed at the general marketplace.  It’s a waste of your resources.

That’s it for the Purple Cow and for me.

Let me know if this produces any insights for you.