Beware the slippery slope

Your competitor has talent on his roster. Talent, which you think would look good on your side. So, you decide to make a pitch. You invite the coveted “talent” for coffee and suggest that the grass is greener.

Surprise, the “talent” says he is very satisfied with his current position and that he has no intention of leaving.

Now what?

Guaranteed that the “talent “ is going to report the recruitment and any proprietary information that you divulged back to his Boss. By attempting to lure the “talent” you are suggesting to the market that you current roster needs improvements (not good for staff morale) Moreover, the door is now wide open for the competitor to come after your staff.

Whoops, you’ve just clamored up a very slippery slope!

If you are thinking about stealing “talent” you had better be sure your target is unhappy with his current lot. Underestimating your competitors corporate culture and staff loyalty, can lead to trouble.

If “talent” approaches you by all means recruit and improve your team. Attracting talent is paramount for any entrepreneurs’ success. But don’t get obsessed with the players on the other team. In the end you are probably best served to support and nurture you own talent and avoid the slippery slope.

Builder of the Decade?

I attended the Builder of the Decade event mostly out of curiosity. Having seen Premier Campbell speak a few times, I wanted to see if he had been humbled. Nope, the man is as defiant as ever.

Considering the botched roll out of the HST, the “now you see it now you don’t” fifteen percent tax cut and his resignation, you would have thought it was time to crawl under a rock! But, there he was proudly recounting his accomplishments for a packed house.

Look at it objectively and the Liberals achievements are impressive: the Sea to Sky Highway, Golden Ears Bridge, Abbotsford Hospital, the Gateway Project, Canada Line and the 2010 Olympics! Together these projects created thousands of jobs and helped to make the province a better place for everyone. Campbell and his liberals don’t deserve all the credit for these projects but they did their part.

Under Campbell the residents of BC pay lower income taxes, dodged a real estate crash and the subsequent economic meltdown. Not bad.

Campbell’s speech last night captured his time as Premier nicely. Solid performance with snippets of unfortunate clumsiness (his Schwarzenegger impression was brutal)

Say what you will about Premier Campbell you can’t deny that under his leadership the province got infrastructure, jobs and lower taxes.

Err on the side of Fun

My business partner likes to say “Err on the side of fun”. Kevin likes to have a good time. In both business and personal, it’s good advice. Looking to feel more connected to your family, goof around in the basement, play Wii together or go jump around in the local swimming pool. Want to feel more connected to your clients, take them out for some fun.

Last weekend the Wolfgang Team and one hundred and fifty clients went out for some fun. We hosted a private screening of the new DreamWorks movie Megamind. We picked up the tab for movie and the treats. It was a great family event. Parents and kids loved the movie and had fun.

The Megamind event was our way of saying thank you to our valued clients. The event was very casual; no hard sell, just a great time. For me, the best part was having a laugh with our guests as they entered the theatre. It was great to touch base outside of work and meet the families.

Will the event generate some immediate business? Probably not, our business is seasonal not much painting goes on in the winter. Generating business was not the point, saying thank you was. But, I believe that people want to do business with good people. So, come spring, when our clients look to tender their paint jobs, they will probably remember that they had some fun with the Wolfgang.

Learning from our Customers

Every year we survey our customers in an effort to improve our service. We enquire about the quality of our work, service and our people. Thankfully our wonderful clients take the time to answer our questions. The feedback is invaluable and we use it as the foundation for our business strategy.

This year our survey respondents told us that we are easy to work with, our workmanship is solid and our customer service is great. At the same time, our customers suggested that Wolfgang should work to become more consistent. Specifically, we need to start and finish projects in a more timely fashion. After all, any construction project is pain in the rear and no one wants it to drag on.

We’ve listened and learned. In fact, consistency is our organizational theme for 2011. And, we are putting our money where our mouth is.

For 2011 Wolfgang Commercial Painter will be offering a “Start and Finish” guarantee. In short, we guarantee to start and finish your project when promised or you get five percent back.

The “start and finish” guarantee is risky for Wolfgang. Commercial Painting is competitive and we don’t want to give away five percent of our hard earned profits. But, improving our service is important and this guarantee gives our customers another compelling reason to buy from us.

So, we thank our customers very much for the feedback and helping us to make Wolfgang a better company.

Thank you!

How much does it cost to acquire a new customer? How much does it cost to retain an existing customer? We ran the numbers and Holy *%$#, new customers are expensive!

From a marketing perspective, in our case, the cost to acquire a new customer was ten times that of retaining an existing customer.

Marketing costs only tell part of the story. New customers are labor intensive. They require more utilities from the sales, operations and administrative departments. And, more often than not, new customers are won over by price. Yikes! Add it all up and you are probably not making much margin from your new customers

But you can’t have repeat clients without new. So you do what it takes.

Knowing the numbers is helpful because it crystallizes the value of repeat clients. Nothing is more important in your business than customer retention and nothing is more costly than loosing a previous customer.

Maximum efforts must be taken to keep your existing clients happy and feeling great about the services your offer. This means specific marketing campaigns, special events, extra patience and extra care.

Most of all it means saying thank you. To all our customers, thank you very much for your business. We greatly appreciate you, we value you and we look forward to serving you in the future.

What Did You Expect?

More often than not, service companies fail to meet their customer’s expectations. Who is to blame? Almost always, it is the service company! Unrealistic expectations start with over promising and end with unsatisfied customers.

Perhaps the super friendly receptionist states “John, will call you back immediately” or the smooth as silk Sales Rep states “ We’ve done this a million times, no problem” or the owner says “Our team is the best in the industry” or a previous customers states “ They were awesome! Nothing to do better” Either way during the sales process, the customer and the operations team can be set up for a fall.

When lofty expectations are not met the customer is inevitably dissatisfied. In other words, your operations team can deliver above average service, better than the competitions and the customer can still be unhappy.

How do you avoid this problem? Set realistic expectations from the first point of contact to final inspections. Here are some examples of realistic expectations:

• I am sending a message to Jack as we speak. I know that he is very busy today but he will return your call.
• John, the building is going to look worse before it looks better.
• It may not look brand new, but the building will look great when is complete.
• We work 7:00 – 3:30. But, Mary, sometimes our guys show up late. On Fridays they will probably leave a little early.
• Your landscaping may get damaged. If we break a plant, we will replace it.
• Problems will occur. We will correct the problems quickly.
• Surprises will pop up. We will inform you of the surprises as soon as we can.
• Weather dependent, the job should take two - three weeks.

Good service companies don’t over promise on purpose. It is human nature to pound ones chest but is not helpful. When your organization uses the appropriate language with customers it is easier to meet expectations. In fact, if you are good at managing expectations, you can exceed.

Under promise over deliver and your customers are satisfied.

Innovate, Innovate, Innovate

No doubt, innovation is key to success in business. The most innovative and different companies lead the pack.

A local “hero” of innovation is Silver Wheaton, a metal streaming company and an offshoot Goldcorp. Wheaton makes an upfront payment to “non-silver” mines in exchange for the rights of the silver production. The mines use the upfront payment to fund current operations, expand or explore and Wheaton gets the silver at fixed price. Wow, a win-win.

With this model, Wheaton has locked in its largest expenditure. In business, when you “fix” your most volatile expense, you are winning. Wheaton has overcome the biggest hurdle of their industry. Brilliant and Innovative!