At the heart of customer defection is the lack of satisfaction. This isn't the same as dissatisfaction, which means an active dislike for something. Lack of satisfaction is simply the absence of any good reason for a customer to stick around.
In a U.S News and World Report it was reported that a whopping 91 percent of customers who leave do simply because they are not satisfied.
How do you satisfy customers and retain their business? Any number of ways.
All good relationships are based on open and truthful communications, and that is a commonsense place to start. Specifically this means asking questions, staying in touch, and being generous. These are all part of taking an interest in your customer and their customers'.
Dean Rieck blog post on customer retention hits on 3 key points that I found well worth repeating.
Step 1: Ask Questions
Communication is the key in any relationship. Do your customers like your product or service? What do they like? What do they wish was different? Ask them! It’s the only way you’ll find out what’s working and what’s not.
You can ask directly with a short email questionnaire, a comment card in your shipped packages, a phone survey, a feedback form on your website, or any other way you can get answers about your customers’ experiences.
Not only should you ask directly, but keeping those lines of communication open is key. Some ways to do this include toll-free customer service numbers or a special customer service email address. This information should be as common to your website, literature and invoices as your company name and logo. Only well-trained problem solvers who can build relationships out of complaints should be staffing these numbers and emails.
These interactions can be kept up to date on your CRM database, so that every person who has contact with a customer knows the buying and communication history of that particular customer. You can also easily update address and status changes, so that your customer’s experience with you is completely customized.
Step 2: Stay in Touch 
Ever have a close friend drift away because you didn’t stay in touch? Customers can drift, too.
A simple newsletter can be mailed or emailed to your customers’ homes on a regular basis, maintaining a friendly familiarity and keeping your company top of mind. It can include anything that may be interesting, relevant, or useful to your customers, with a balance of information about your product, service, or company.
Letters and emails are also great ways to keep in touch. CRM software can allow you to tailor your correspondence based on the customer’s status in the buying cycle, personal interests, or past purchases. You can also be sure your best customers or leads get special offers or inside information.
A blog on your website is also another informal way to share information, communicate with your customers, and encourage participation through comments and questions. Now your customer is not only treated as an individual, but gets to know the people behind the company.
Engagement in social media provides multiple avenues to stay at the top of mind of your customers. For example, our blog content gets automatically pushed into LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook.
Step 3: Be Generous
People are willing to pay for quality, but you have to show that you value their business.
Little acts of unexpected generosity can go a long way toward cementing your relationship with customers. Free car wash with a tank of gas, free tunes with an MP3 player, free lamp with a desk, free books with a class, and other little extras make your customers feel that you’re more of a friend, than another company taking their money.
In the end, business is more about relationships than sales. If you develop and nurture those relationships through genuine communication, you can attract, keep, and multiply your customers. With a CRM system (strategy / processes/ software), you can track every communication for the best possible outcome.
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der.
Business Blogging is a valuable strategic tool in business relationship development.
The primary power of your business blog is its ability to engage in one-to-many conversations, affecting a multitude of relationships. Provide some type of value with content that allows the reader to learn something new.
I have found that a blog is very helpful in starting the "Know-Like-Trust" relationship process. The blog adds multiplied value throughout this entire process.
My "Why a Business Blog is Important" article explains the benefits of having a business blog:
It is a tool to connect your business to your customers, your prospects and anyone searching for the keywords you are focusing upon.
It makes your business real to your customers. Your personality comes through and the value of your published content extends who you are and what your business is about.
It provides valuable resources to your readers, displays your expert status and in doing so helps to pre-qualify leads if the reader wants to go farther.
You receive feedback on the content that readers open and, better yet, the feedback to blog articles as comments.
It increases your Internet presence (SEO) and makes it much easier to be found on page one of search results.
There are different styles of blogging. Knowing the 25 basic styles of blogging and when to use each one is important in business relationship development.
A business blog is one component of a skillful marketing plan. Since a blog is permission-based, it is a useful Inbound Marketing tool for attracting new business.
Also, as a business blogger with an active business blog in production, I gain focus on regularly delivering quality content - whether you are a new visitor, a retuning reader, a blog subscriber or client.
I can personally testify that this Business Success with CRM blog has produced all the above benefits. This blog focuses on helping entrepreneurs and business professionals become more successful with the use of a CRM strategy and system. Their CRM system provides the knowledge database of all the business relationships developed. The CRM database becomes an appreciating asset---- something of extra value to the business owner.
To keep abreast automatically of new articles, by Email or RSS feed, go here.
Related resources:
9 Critical Tasks Before Launching Your Small Business Blog
73 Ways to Become a Better Writer
The 7 Secrets of Running a Wildly Popular Blog
The 8 Habits of Highly Effective Bloggers
How to be Interesting
The 7 Deadly Sins of Blogging
10 Secrets to More Magnetic Copy
Let me know in the comments section below if you have an interesting blog that your fellow readers should check out.
What value have I missed that you have found from Business blogging and building business relationships?
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A Business Success Requirement- a Keep In Touch Strategy to stay Top of Mind
You need to connect with potential clients many times before they feel comfortable hiring you or purchasing your products.
If you don't have a systematized and automated keep-in-touch strategy in place you may, as the saying goes, leave a lot on the table. Most importantly, you'll miss out on the opportunity to serve people you're meant to serve. Boy- that would be a shame.
The lack of a solid keep-in-touch marketing strategy is where most businesses fail. Either they bombard you with too much information and too many offers that turn you off, OR you never hear from them at all, which leaves you feeling unimportant and irrelevant. Obtain a "Top of Mind" presence with your keep-in-touch strategy.
Having an integrated e-Marketing component to your CRM System is another plus when building business relationships - the Success with CRM factor.
Additionally, more and more people use a search engine like Google to find information and answers. If you are NOT found in the first 3 - 5 results you're not going to be noticed or known. Blogging, social media engagement, receiving inbound links all with revelant, valuable content is a business REQUIREMENT.
Revelant, Interesting, Current and Valuable Content:
Do you have the mindset of a publisher of content about your business offering?
Its up to you to ensure that the content you publish and share with your potential and current customers through your automated keep-in-touch strategy is relevent, interesting, current and valuable.
There are 6 basic categories of content that meet those criteria:
1. Industry information
2. Strategies, tips and techniques
3. Content from other expert sources
4. Product and service offerings
5. Special announcements
6. Your personality, what's hot, fun
1. Industry Information:
This is revelant to your target market and may or may not be widely known. It's excellent content to deliver to your list.
You'll position yourself as an expert within your industry while providing constant value to your potential and current customers. Whats' more they appreciate the information and your generosity for sharing it.
Using this type of information makes it more likely that your potential customers will keep the information and later refer back to it, keeping you at the top of their mind.
2. Strategies, Tips and Techniques:
If you are in the service business this is probably the most common type of content. People love to hear about some tip that will improve their productivity and make a task easier.
NOTE: Don't fear that you are giving away too much of this type of material. You'll find that you'll receive more referrals from people who are not customers just because you helped them for free.
They'll think, "Wow, if Dick and Julie are giving away this much great stuff, can you imagine what I'll get if I acctually engage their services."
Example: the blog articles of ACT Tips.
3. Content from Other Sources
There is a lot of quality published content available. Using valuable information that you find and that will help others promotes community. It also gives me a break from continuously creating content. My hosting partner, HubSpot, is an excellent source of related Inbound Marketing content.
4. Product and Service Offerings
This is where some businesses will fall short. They are making only product and service offerings to potential customers and the material may not be appreciated very much. Your offers must be accompanied by an over-delivery of free value.
For us this is the content about contact management (Sage ACT) and Customer relationship management- CRM - (Sage SalesLogix). Additonally resources are available for enhancing the success of CRM with a "Keep-in-Touch" strategy.
The people who have expressed an interest in your services want to know how they can work with you, and it's your responsibility to tell them and show them their options.
5. Special Announcements:
This is a valuable method of keeping in touch if the special announcement is relevant, important, and presented as a learning tool to your target audience. But be careful as this is often overused. This my be appopriate for membership and community related organizations.
6. Your personality, what's hot, fun....
Each of us loves to express our values and interests. It helps others get a glimpse into our personality. Sometimes this may be new tools like the iPad or the Google Droid Incredible. BTW: Two new techy tools I own and really enjoy, especially the intelligence found in the Droid Incredible!.
This can be unique, unusual and special content that stands out. The possibilities are limitless.
What is the best kind of content to include in your Keep-in-touch strategy to stay "TOP of Mind" based on interests of your target market ?
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To stay at the "Top of Mind" of your customers and prospects is the purpose of your Keep in Touch strategy.
What is the benefit to have your people and business more connected to all the key contacts at your customer?
How about the ability to have this done more automatically?
Sage ACT 2011 has introduced Smart Tasks to help you get this accomplished. Last week in What's New in Sage ACT! 2011 we covered other key benefits from the new functionality.
Smart Tasks provide automated work flow. Start with 10 preconfigured templates for common tasks, edit as needed or create new smart tasks for your needed automation.
The following show the "Manage Smart Tasks" manager and the "Contacts with no recent activity in the last 90 days that will automatically schedule an activity for the account manager to follow up. A great way to re-connect with lost business relationships or connect before they are lost!
Additionally the smart task can be applied to specific contact or a group- say "customers who live in a given state, and who have purchased more than $5,000 for the current year"
The smart task can be configured to run automatically or manually. The following "Pending Smart Task Steps" will allow you to preview, delete or Run the task on the selected contacts.
Other pre-configured templates that you can personalize include:
Birthday Reminder - when a contact's birthday is a week away....
Bounced Email Follow-up - for contacts that have bounced or invalid email.
Closed Opportunity Follow up - for opportunities that have been closed and won.
Contacts with No recent activity- for contacts with no email messages or activites in last 90 days.
E-marketing Birthday Email - on the day of the contact's birthday send an email.
High Value Opportunity Alert - When an opportunity value is $1,000 or greater.
Incomplete Contact information - If any contact is missing key information.
New Contact Welcome- when a new contact is added, send them a welcome email message.
Opportunity a Week from Close - When opportunities are about to close, send a reminder to ....
Results Download - if there are ACT! E_marketing results, update the contacts.
More is found in the Smart Tasks Tour (4 minute Adobe Captive presentation).
For executive overview of What's New in Sage ACT! 2011,
here.
Center for all things, "Success with ACT",
is here..
What automated tasks would benefit your sales people, your customer service department, or your business?
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Entrepreneurs are artists in a way. 
They create something based on a great idea, and then they sell it. Sometimes they have so much fun creating that they rebel against systematizing what they do.
But as their business grows, a lack of processes just about guarantees living in continual crisis mode. Not cool.
Business coach Les McKeown writes in his book Predictable Success (aff.link) that to experience ongoing business success, one needs to learn to live with tension: Creativity and fun have to co-exist with systems and processes.
It’s a dance--give and take, each partner exquisitely aware of the other and responding appropriately. Chaos on the dance floor is downright painful and no fun at all. Likewise for business, creativity accomplishes most when rather mundane processes “bring scalability, consistency, and profitability” to quote McKeown. When problems come up, and they will, the systems already in place make it possible to solve them – yes, creatively sometimes -- and restabilize relatively quickly.
Getting to the state of "Mind like Water" with the Getting Things Done systematic approach helps to obtain that perspective and regain control when needed.
Holding this balance requires constant adjustments. Weak processes mean either staying in or returning to crisis mode, or what McKeown so aptly calls Whitewater. Systems that are too rigid, though, squelch all the fun and fire out of what you’ve created, and you’ll feel like you’re on a treadmill.
Learning the dance is tricky, but quite within your grasp.
Successful business relationship development requires a CRM system that acquires new customers, develops the relationship and retains customers for long term mutual benefit. Benefits that matter....
Allow my experience as serial entrepreneur, a business coach and a certified CRM systems consultant to help you escape perpetual crisis mode and achieve predictable success. Phone: 259-445-3001.
What type of systems have you implemented successfully?
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The foundation of maximizing customer value has to be creating excellence in keeping and satisfifying customers!
Does your company culture, regard customer retention as a Profit Center?
New customer acquisiton costs is a big investment - in time, in resources and in direct monetary cost. So know the cost to obtain a new customer and then make an intelligent decision about proactively investing in keeping and nurturing your relationships with the ones you have. They will remember you with a favorable thought!
Here are two key steps to start in making customer retention a profit center:
Step 1: Develop a dedicated customer retention and appreciation progam
Include frequent contact and communications - a newsletter, greeting cards, little gifts, an email with links to remarkable content..... Do make sure it is valuable to them.
Are you like me, and enjoy getting those birthday cards and
other electronic appreciations?
Plaxo eCards has a inexpensive service that will use your contact list and notify you of a client's upcoming birthday. You can easily pick a Premium card and have it delivered on time and with your thoughful note.
Involve your CSR's, customer service representatives, with the tools to help them communicate more often and provide exceptional customer service. They can quickly view the key interests, past issues and resolutions, and open opportunities from their CRM system. Make that last customer experience encounter memorable by putting a smile on their face.
Build your referral network and engage your current customer base. A new look at your customers as key referrals of your valued services and products will produce new warm prospects and at the same time enhance customer retention.
Step 2: Go after "Lost Customers"
Setup some type of system to track every customer activity.
Psst.... a contact management system like Sage ACT! or full fledge CRM system like Sage SalesLogix is a great place to start.
Whenever one goes missing from some time, send a letter and a great offer, make a phone call and find out WHY they are no longer purchasing.
A good CRM system will provide the ability to query all
customers who have not had an email send to them, an on site meeting, a phone call or a direct mail piece sent for a given number of days. Run this listing and get back in touch.
Better yet have a "Save the customer" department.
What are some ways you could use to build customer retention on purpose?
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You already know how to use Google and you probably use it every day. So do your prospects, your customers, your employees and your competitors.
You may ask "How can I use Google and their offerings to attract more and better qualified leads?"
In upcoming posts I'll cover many of the tools Google offers to help grow your business and specifically to attract more and better qualified leads.
Think of your web presence as a marketing hub with your web site as the center. Inbound marketing focuses on attracting new business because customers seem to be getting better-and-better at ignoring the traditional marketing "interruptions". More on inbound marketing, here.
Let's start with Advanced Google Search and some small tips that can help a lot. These are useful not just for doing searches, but also for tools like Google Alerts (which we discuss later).
If you are like most people, you simply type in a search term or phrase into Google. You hope to get what you are looking for and if you don't you simply type in different words.
However, there is a whole lot more you can do. You can use search modifiers that tell Google more about what you're looking for. Here are some of the more useful modifiers I have found helpful.
Explicit Phrases:
Let's say you are looking for content about Business Relationship development. Instead of just typing in the phrase in the Google box, you will likely be better off searching explicitly for the phrase. To do this, simply enclose the search phrase with double quotes.
Example: "business relationship development"
Exclude Words:
If you want to search content about business relationship development, but you want to exclude any results that containt the term "advertising", simply use the "-" (hyphen) infront of the word you want to exclude.
Example: Business relationship development -advertising
Site Specific Search:
Let's say you want to search a specific web site for content that matches a certain phrase. Even if the site doesn't support a built-in search feature, you can use Google to search the site for your term. Simply use the "site:sitename.com" modifier.
Example and results:
Try this on your web site or a competitors!
Similar Words and Synonyms:
If you want to include a word in your search, and also want to include results that contain similar words, or synonyms, use the "~" (tilde) in front of the word.
Example: "Business relationship development" ~CRM
Specific Document Types:
Let's say you're looking to find results of a specific type, you can use the modifier "filetype:". For example, you might want to find only PDF documents related to Business relationship development.
Example: "business relationship development" filetype:PDF
Finding This OR That:
By default, when you do a search, Google will include all the terms specified in the search. If you are looking for one or more terms to match, then you can use the OR operator. Note: The OR has to be capitalized.
Example:
Business relationship development OR CRM
Check out the HubSpot blog post " href="http://blog.hubspot.com/blog/tabid/6307/bid/1264/12-Quick-Tips-To-Search-Google-Like-An-Expert.aspx" target="_blank">"12 Quick Tips to Search Google Like An Expert" for additional tips.
Next time we'll cover monitoring with Google Alerts- like a personal assistant. This is a great way to be notified of content relating to your industry, your ideas customers and your competitors. What you learned today can be applied in that monitoring.
Gain more expertise. Learn more to become an Inbound Marketing Certified Professional, here.
As an Inbound Marketing Certified Professional and Educator, I'm here to help- 269-445-3001.
Certification Achievements
Educator Qualifications
What did you find most helpful? What tips would you like to share?
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Success with CRM Consulting, What's New on our web site - week ending July 16-2010:
This week there are new resources for the entrepreneur and business professional looking to become more engaged in doing more of their GREAT Work. Also there are several tools to help improve your productivity in growing the business.
Also check out Michael's Great Work Blog....here.
#1 Business Success -> Do More GREAT Work
Don't you wish you could "Stop the Busywork. Start the Work that Matters?"
Three Kinds of Work:
Bad work - that mind numbing, blood sucking type of work.
Good work - what most of us do most of the time. Our job description. Keeps us busy, productive and it gets things done. The problem is that in our overwhelmed work, this can be endless. It is not engaging to You!
GREAT work- work that lights you up. You take responsibility for the life you live- responsibility for your own freedom. It involves choices that may not be comfortable or easy. It involves some self management process to stop getting seduced by the good work, stop getting by the busy work. Become more selective about what you say Yes to and what you say No to. Create a separate place to do this strategic, most productive Great work.
Learn the Five Great Truths: 5 rules to know and with them the 5 choices to make.
Check out the Inspiring Videos! Show them to your employees. Now take action to do more GREAT work!
#2 Success with Sage ACT! -> Sage ACT! 2011 has several new related link resources:
This week Sage ACT! 2011 was introduced. The business services integration with Hoovers will help Lead generation: to select new lead lists, provide a quick import and start off sales prospecting with a bang. Also gain business intelligence from your linked company accounts into Hoovers.
Secondly improve productivity with automated work flow using the new Smart Tasks functionality. Be notified of lapsing contact activity, opportunity status changes, or other tasks to help remind customers about your valuable offerings.
Check out the latest video of Napkin Mike as he introduces you to the real power of customer management systems.
What did you find the most helpful?
What would you like to see or know more about?
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Sage software officially made Sage ACT! 2011 available for purchase through their early bird promotion program. Julie and I were involved in the beta program and we thought we'd share our take on this new version with our readers and subscribers. Also thanks goes out to the users on the ACT community site with suggestions for improvements.
Or view Napkin's Mike animated review here...
Here's an executive overview and some key points:
Sales and Marketing professionals will be able to get up to speed faster with helpful information about a prospect and their industry with the Hoover's data integration. The ability to import lists of target market companies and contacts will kick start lead generation. Smart tasks allow you to automatically stay connected to your contacts and be 'top of mind'.
Administrators will appreciate a streamline startup process, additional data security, improved screen layouts and ability to quickly create new fields in the database. Depending on your organization's level of integration with Outlook, the enhanced configuration options may also be useful. (more in future posts)
Yes, you may have noticed a slight name change. The product is now called Sage ACT! 2011 PRO or Sage ACT! 2011 Premium. The PRO version is for individuals or those in small work group of 10 or less. The Premium version is for those who need the enhanced work group features or access through their Web browser via ACT! for Web.
Disclaimer: As a small business, our Success with CRM Consulting, Inc. business uses ACT and we know the challenges of a small business. Our firm is also a Sage Select Partner and Julie and I are Certified Consultants for the ACT! product line.
There has always been a lot of benefits a contact management application such as Sage ACT! can provide business professionals and entrepreneurs. The 2011 edition extends the major functionality built into the 2010 edition and then some.
So what's new with ACT! 2011?
1. Improved Startup Wizard
Some of these features long time customers have been asking for and Sage has delivered:
Express Importing - which allows users to get contacts into their ACT! database faster with a redesigned import functionality. .
Import directly from Excel - this will especially help when many lists are used as when a commerical supplier of lead lists provides them in Excel or CSV format. Often we have clients that want ability to get a new lead list imported- this should help the process.
Improved Default Layouts for improved navigation - ACT! 2010 had user interface enhancements, and Sage has continued to improve navigation.
Redesigned Welcome Page- somewhat easier and more intutitive navigation. There seems to be less clutter and somewhat more useful getting started topics.
2. Sage Business Information Services
Have you ever heard or used Hoover's? If you are from the Sage SalesLogix world you also have heard about Hoovers. Well, Hoovers provides lead lists and business insights about companies around the world. This information saves a lot of research time for any business or sales organization. Extend your depth of knowledge into an industry using First Research's trends, major players, and key challenges. Sage has partnered with Hoover's to provide access to Hoover's data within Sage ACT! 2011. (Sage SalesLogix support was also announced at Sage Insights in May)
Here is the business information the ACT customer gets with the subscription service:
Contact and company profile.
Company Financials, Contacts (org chart information) and Notes
Industry Information - useful for gaining an quick understanding of the prospect's industry and getting that conservation started. Quickly know the key trending that is occuring.
Search for new companies and Import New Leads (which is a big time saver) Its like finding more companies similar to your existing customers...
Email alerts of changes in the account
3. Smart Tasks - Automated Workflow.
This is one of the compelling reasons to upgrade to Sage ACT! 2010 and has the most options for enhancing productivity. Once you have your business processes defined, which in itself is a big competitive advantage, you can take it to the next level by automating the process with Smart Tasks - useful actions for your Keep in Touch strategy. It is like having a virtual assistant helping you schedule activities and staying at the top of the mind of prospects and customers.
Here is an overview:
Smart Task Templates:
10 Pre-configured templates for common tasks, such as:
- Contacts with no recent activity
- New Contact Welcome
- High value opportunity alert
- Close opportunity follow up
- Birthday reminder
- Contacts with incomplete information
Useful out-of-the-box or edit to personalize
Suitable for general productivity or sales
Easy Customization:
Easiest visual designer for creating and modifying Smart Tasks
Drag/drop capabilities for Smart Task steps
Smart Task Operation Visibility:
Pause or Activate Smart Tasks
View pending Smart Tasks
Fully Extensible Engine:
Windows Workflow Foundation
Out-of-the-Box integration with ACT! E-marketing
More indepth analysis and Smart Tasks tour, here.
4. Outlook Integration and Synchronization
In businesses with heavy use of Outlook the sync functionality may be the most important part. With several configuration options it will be much easier for users to move data from Outlook to ACT!
Create new Outlook contacts from Sage ACT! and new Sage ACT! contacts from Outlook. Everything will be kept updated in both places. Don't worry about duplicates.
Keep your busy schedule updated in both Outlook and Sage ACT! no matter where you add or modify activities and meetings.
Choose which contacts and activity types in Sage ACT! synch back to Outlook.
Check the ACT community on feedback from other ACC's and users.
5. New Database Security Preferences
Security is especially a concern for attorney/CPA/financial services type firms and in larger corporate environments that deploy Sage ACT!. One aspect of that concern has to do with file attachments in the database. The following capabilities are now new database preferences:
Restrict emails from being attached to user records - addresses issue of one ACT! user reading another ACT! users (the boss, or colleague) correspondences via their user record.
Restrict email attachements in the database
Restrict file attachment in the database such as IE, Word, Notes, Histories, Activities, Mail Merge, ACT! Email.
6. There is support of Office 2010 in Sage ACT! 2011.
For those early Microsoft Office 2010 adopters, you can now use this productivity toolset with Sage ACT! 2011.
Check out the very active ACT community site for the latest.
Visit our blog articles for more about ACT or access ACT Tips.
Our main Sage ACT! site starts here: Success with ACT.
Home for all things Sage ACT! 2011 here....
Videos:
View Napkin's Mike animated review here...
For visual learners visit our ACT videos or those from fellow partners and Sage corporate on YouTube, here.
Which of the above do you find the most helpful?
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Some vision problems have nothing to do with needing bifocals.
We all run the risk of thinking our own lens, through which we view their business and all of life, is the only one. This kind of shortsightedness can lead to losing one’s way and even to damaging collisions.
Having the ability to use other available lenses, to gain additional perspectives, helps to carry your organization into the Next Level and keep you at the apex of Predictable Success.
Also in the building of business relationships your CRM system can help you see what is happening in the business now and for re-focus your business vision.
In his book, The Way We’re Working Isn’t Working, Tony Schwartz talks about three corrective lenses.
The Reflective Lens
Is what you’re seeing a reflection of facts, or is it distorted by a different kind of story you’re telling yourself? Emotions are as real as other facts, and we should never shut ourselves off from them, but we need to be aware that sometimes they can cause us to assume inaccurate meanings if we're not careful.
The Reverse Lens
What does the situation look like through the eyes of the person you perceive as your antagonist? As Schwartz says, “One of the most powerful ways to reclaim your value when you’re triggered is to find a way to value the person who triggered you.”
The Long Lens
Tomorrow won’t necessarily be as bad as today, no matter how bleak things look right now. It doesn’t hurt to keep a memory tucked away of an earlier time you felt like you were fighting through whitewater, and how you eventually moved out into calmer waters. You can do it again.
Here and now is not all there is, and what you see is only a sliver of what’s true.
Having a peer group to bounce things off of will reinforce the habit of using all three of these prescriptive lenses. My entrepreneurial minded clients who are members of TAB, The Alternative Board, gain great benefit from the perspectives of other members.
Also businesses that have effective CRM Systems can gain a much quicker and thorough vision of how the business is performing, where the opportunities are pointing and the ability of your staff to connect with customers to generate memorable experiences. You can see one example below.
More on management dashboards, here.
For similar book resources and link to Tony's book, The Way We're Working Isn't Working, go here.
What lens could you benefit more from?
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