Greatness Is Impossible To Duplicate

A recent walk through Scottsdale, Arizona this week had me shaking my head a little. Scottsdale's famous "Old Town" is a souvenir-hunter's paradise. There have got to be thirty gift shops within a three block area, all virtually carrying the same Red Dirt T-shirts, turquoise jewellery, Navajo blankets, water-ripple globes of the world and leather belts. All the prices are virtually the same. The hours of each store are the same. The parking issues are the same. The decor of each is virtually the same. All in all, each independantly-owned gift shop is a cookie-cutter version of the gift shop next door.

Did the people who opened the 30th gift shop really believe they were bringing anything new to the table by opening the exact same store as the 29 others on the street? And whose idea was it to make sure that every shop carry the same lines, selection and price? Really, there is no reason for the local residents to shop this area. This is a tourist area whose sole means of survival is by volume of tourists. Get enough tourists through and everyone can do OK - not great - just OK.

And while we're at it, as a tourist, why would you save up and plan a vacation for a whole year only to spend your vacation in the same restaurants you have at home? There are no memories made in eating in ordinary restaurants. The best memories are made when you stretch yourself and experience something different. In fact, the best businesses become successful using the exact same philosophy: be different than everyone else.

Greatness is impossible to duplicate. Copying mediocre? Piece of cake.

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Attitude w/ ATTITUDE by Kevin Burns - Corporate Attitude/Culture Strategist

Creator of the 90-Day Strategy to Greatness Culture


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Savvy Shoppers Are Kicking Your Butt

This week, I went looking for a specific item, an AV cart for my office, but didn't know the name of any stores that would carry what I wanted. For the office supply stores, it is a "special order" anyway. So why not just save a useless trip to the store (only to be again disappointed) and instead just order it on-line - like they would at the store. So I Googled.

I didn't bother with opening my copy of the Yellow Pages because, well, the information in the Yellow Pages is from last year - and besides, there are no prices - and no pictures of the specific item - and no updates - and no way to check if it is in-stock - and no info on new stock - and no way to see their web site - and no interactivity - and no way to compare against others - and no video showing how to use the product - and no recommendations - and no reviews from customers - and no pictures of the storefront - and no interactive maps with directions. And businesses still spend hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars monthly on their Yellow Pages ad for basically a billboard on paper that only gets seen when someone needs your product immediately and is willing to haul out a big book and you hope they can find your category.

I search on-line. I am a Baby Boomer with no fear of technology. Today I know the name of a great kitchen store because I've read some great reviews on it. Today I know to NOT deal with my neighborhood flower shop because they're out of business - caused by poor service that I discovered on-line. Today I know which restaurants are great, which car dealers to avoid, which hotels have the best view, which second-hand store has that classic guitar I've been looking for and also that people, no matter how great the review, will not put their trust in a hair stylist that isn't recommended by a friend or neighbor. I might use the Yellow pages at 2 in the morning if I wanted a pizza - but then maybe not - unless I were in a strange city.

If you are using the Internet to do your homework before you buy, wouldn't it stand to reason that your customers are doing the same thing? You've got to be on-line and on-line needs to be one of your primary marketing strategies. You can probably forget that big, flashy Yellow Pages ad and go with a simple free listing in the book with your web site address included. Then, make sure you are where everyone else is already gathered - on-line. Besides, if your customers already know your name, they'll find you in the white pages - not the Yellow Pages surrounded by all of your competitors.

I bought the AV cart, not from a local company, but from one in the USA. They had the best web site, the best selection, outstanding pricing, free shipping to my front door (even to Canada) and it was in-stock today and would be shipped immediately. Add to that the fact that their web site was so easy to navigate, didn't ask me to set up an account but automatically set one up for me (with user name and password) once I keyed in the credit card info, gave me a tracking number for my shipment, had hundreds of testimonials from over-the-top satisfied clients who rated each product individually ... and ... they also said "thank you." And I think they meant it.

Stop being ordinary. Start being the standard to which your customers become raving fans and your competitors bristle. Change your Attitude about how you do business. Your customers have just as much knowledge as you do. Don't ever treat them like you're doing them a favor. You're not.
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Attitude w/ ATTITUDE by Kevin Burns - Corporate Attitude/Culture Strategist

Creator of the 90-Day Strategy to Greatness Culture


Subscribe to Kevin's Attitude with ATTITUDE Blog by Email
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Rewards Make Performance Worse

Imagine yourself standing in the middle of a large networking event. You are surrounded by hundreds of people. You reach into your pocket and pull out a handful of your own business cards. Then, with all of your might, you throw that handful of business cards straight up into the air and let them fall to the ground like snowflakes. Then, you stand back and wait for people to pick up your business card. What are the chances that people will call your phone number to place an order for your product or service using this model?

This is exactly the same sales business model that companies are using worldwide: make a cold call, throw a business card at the prospect and rush back to the office and wait for the phone to ring. Essentially it's the same as throwing a handful of business cards into a crowded room. And yet, sales managers still believe in cold call competitions: rewarding salespeople for knocking on the most doors in a day. They believe that by handing out prizes and incentives for knocking on doors that their business will increase as a result.

Dan Pink, former speechwriter for Al Gore, is now studying motivation in the workplace. What he and many other researchers and economists have found is that rewards and incentives do not work. Perhaps small incentives work a little bit but large incentives actually make performance worse. In fact the bigger the incentive, the worse the performance. As Pink says, "there is a mismatch between what science knows and what business does."

So, what does business do? The same thing it is always done: offer incentives for performance. In other words, business holds onto an attitude that says, "don't confuse me with the facts because I have already made up my mind." But now here's the strangest part, business will offer incentives for out-of-the-box thinking. Do you see the problem with this? Incentives retard thought. And the bigger the incentive the less likely someone will come up with a solution.

So now even a bigger problem exists because of the findings that incentives retard performance: there are incentive companies that have built their survival on the misconception that incentives improve performance. But science and research prove otherwise. In spite of these findings, you may still receive a telephone call from an incentives company offering their services to improve the performance of your people. Incentives companies were formed on opinion and not on fact. How many other companies do you deal with whose very business models are based on opinion and not fact?

You need to see the video for yourself. The video is from a TED conference and runs 18 minutes in length. Might I suggest that you close your office door, put your phone on voicemail, turn off your Blackberry and give your undivided attention to this video. It is important. Findings like this will change your attitude about what you believe to be true and the way business gets done. Ignore this video and its findings and you may actually be impeding the performance of your people. This is an Attitude Adjustment of monumental proportions.



http://www.ted.com/talks/dan_pink_on_motivation.html
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Attitude w/ ATTITUDE

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Old-School Training Are Like Cold-Meds

Why are the newest and weakest people in the organization tasked with the most important job in the organization: customer service? Why are not the CEOs, Veeps and Supervisors, the veterans of the organization, not serving the revenue stream to the organization – the customer?

At the end of the day, senior management is responsible ultimately for the financial success of the organization. So why then is the most important responsibility - the maintaining and development of revenue streams - left to the minions who are simply treating it like a job?

Corporate America needs an attitude adjustment. If the customer is king and without them the organization ceases to be, why are customers not being served directly by the kings? What consumers are experiencing today is service by dimwits - people who take a dim view of their work and do not use their wits in service of the customer. The solution from above is, "let's send our front-line people to another customer service seminar to improve our service."

So they hire trainers who are desperately clinging to last year's model of business service and are leaving the responsibility for improving their internal performance with a bunch of outside contractors. In essence, you've just said to your people, "Take this course and do it better OK?"

Corporate America may know how to make a profit but it sure doesn't know much about people. And it's people who make the thing run. As long as your people treat their jobs like a job, service will never improve. It can't. It's impossible to build any solid relationship-creating culture on a foundation of "Is it 5 o'clock yet?"

• Time management training to someone without self-discipline is a waste of time.
• Sales Training to someone lacking self-confidence is wasting your money.
• Teamwork training to someone without self-esteem creates a weaker link.

Customer Service, Time Management, Sales and Teamwork training are like taking cold meds for your flu symptoms: you mask the symptoms but don't really address the root problem. You're still sick inside even though you may look healthy outside.

ATTITUDE ADJUSTMENT: The workforce is changing. Workplace values are changing. The people in the workplace are changing. So why are you still trying to run your business using ancient business models that are dying?

If people can talk to Presidents and Prime Ministers on social networking sites, your customers ought to be able to talk to the CEO. The old business model of "top-down - keep your customers at arms length - blanket policies" is not going to sustain your organization in the future. People around the world are creating conversations with people who matter. Why can't your customers talk to the people who make the decisions in your organization?

Your business model is sick and risks dying soon. Stop feeding it cold-meds and simply hoping it gets better.