Your Customer Strategy is a re-articulation of your Business Strategy, but in the context of the customer. Recognising that the realisation of the goals in your business strategy will come from changes within your customer portfolio. Such as: a decrease in the portion of lower value customers; increases in the portion of higher value; changes […]
READ MOREThe Customer Centric Business Model
We know today that we need to have customers at the heart of all we do. Customers are central to our purpose. Revenue comes from the decisions made by customers. Growth comes from the amount of advocacy provided by our customers. And yet most organisations still utilise business models that are based on product-centric or […]
READ MOREPeter Drucker and the Customer
Peter Drucker was one of the greatest management and leadership scholars ever. He studied business, managers, leaders and how this intersected with society. As a consultant and an academic he wrote 39 books and probably founded modern management. His perspective on ‘the customer’ provides us with key insights today that allow us to build sustainable […]
READ MOREGet performance improvement from your management framework
High performing teams gain performance improvement. They plan, act, learn and replan to realise performance improvement. They have a culture of learning, supported by having a performance measurement framework that provides feedback. Iterative and progressive improvement is achieved over many cycles of acting, measuring and learning. High performing teams use measurement and improvement techniques […]
READ MOREIgnore the customer at your own peril – Lessons from the Masters failure
There are business lessons from the failure of Masters. The strategy was wrong. By focusing on the competition, they ignored the customer. When you ignore the customer your fate is sealed. Woolworths/Masters ignored customer feedback and 63 stores will be no more. By focusing on “sucking the oxygen out of Bunnings” they delivered appalling customer experiences that will cost them up […]
READ MOREThe sales stereotype is still dominant, but in today’s market it is irrelevant.
Do not rely on the old sales stereotypes and behaviours to engage with customers. Selling today is about genuine customer engagement, people buy from people. For sales leaders – design the optimal sales activity, for salespeople – don’t sell, understand you are working with people. The Sales Stereotype The old style, stereotyped sales gun is still lurking […]
READ MOREThe top three things for entrepreneurs need to know to build a profitable customer portfolio
Your revenue comes from your customers – not your products, or your services – the customers who are prepared to pay for your offerings. When we start new businesses we tend to get our offer ready, then release it onto the market – knowing that customers will come and be wowed by our offering. […]
READ MORELet’s Ban KPIs
Let’s ban KPIs or perhaps more specifically, let’s ban how we are currently using KPIs. We use guess-work to identify KPIs, they don’t tell us what our priorities are, we fudge the numbers and confuse improvement goals with business-as-usual. This post was inspired by a friend who works in the field of customer analytics and […]
READ MOREOrange Sky Laundry
Last night I attended a Meetup with the founders of Orange Sky Laundry, a truly humbling experience. The Meetup was organised by Paul and Joeri from BigJump, and held at River City Labs. Orange Sky Laundry is the mobile laundry service that provides a free service to homeless people, and you can learn more about Orange Sky Laundry here. Listening to, and […]
READ MOREThe end of The Funnel
Yes that’s right – The Funnel that is used by some of the best marking organisations on the planet – has long passed its use-by date. The Funnel that we so often use to describe leads to converts (social media, marketing and sales), has stopped being useful at all, in fact I believe it actually hinders engagement with our […]
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