product

A Preface for Talking Story:
Right upfront, this post is a bit longer than most (my rants turned into stories usually turn out that way.) However I think this is important, and I hope you will take the time to read this, and choose it as one of those posts you copy and share with your staff in your next huddle: This concerns them too. Get their help.

Planning ahead:
Today’s post presents a problem, and my follow-up post Thursday will present what I feel to be a big part of the solution we can collaborate on.

We interrupt our normal programming of Tuesdays’ leadership topics to talk about Ho‘okipa: Aloha inspired customer service. But then again, everything is about leadership —or the tragic absence of it.

I need your help

I recently set a goal to write about exceptional customer service in our Hawai‘i nei, for we are the land of Aloha, right? I love spreading the good word about how our values play out every day the way they do. So I went in search of a new story I could share with you and also build a presentation around (my Ho‘okipa class schedule resumes in September), one which would inspire and motivate us anew as we Ho‘ohana together.

Unfortunately I failed. In fact, I ended up with a rant I had to sleep on and tone down. I hate when my writing slips into any negativity at all, however I also seek to write about what’s current and about the way things are; I have learned that it’s best to tell the truth, even when it is less than pleasant. So I need your help in creating a new truth I can write about.

Here’s the story the way it played out.

It’s not because of the recession

Last week was one of assorted errand-running for me; it happened to be one of those times I could batch the things I had to get done into workdays which were scheduled close to home. So I lined up those appointments which fall into the category I’ve come to call, “the business of life” —servicing my car, going to the dentist, picking up a printer I’d taken in to repair; those sorts of things. I was sure I would have lots of opportunities to work on my Ho‘okipa writing goal.

The businesses I happened to visit would all qualify as those who are more recession-proof than most; competitive pricing and discretionary patronage isn’t really part of the picture. Consider the dentist: Skipping your semi-annual appointment with the hygienist can really come back to haunt you. When you (the customer) seek out these basic-need, business of life companies, you just need them, period, and you’re counting on them performing well for you. Chances are you’ll need them again one day in the future, and so you have this vested interest in them; you truly are pulling for them, wanting them to succeed and do well, remaining in business for the long haul. You know they support you, and you are willing to support them.

Customers want to feel smart

A good part of this wanting them to do well, is that you ARE going to pay for their products and services because you do need them; due to different variables, you feel that your choices are limited. So you want to pat yourself on the back for being an intelligent, rational and choosy consumer, making a smart choice even if reality bites and you don’t really have that much of a choice at all.

Sometimes you’ll feel this way on O‘ahu, but when you live on a neighbor island “slim-pickings” can be quite the understatement, and you learn to live with scarcity and the so-called “price of paradise” at the extreme ends of the scale. When I took my run yesterday morning they were changing the price at my neighborhood gas station to $3.27 for regular unleaded ”“ and the cars were patiently lined up, waiting their turn to obligingly swipe in their plastic charge cards for a full tank.

Sadly, the businesses I visited over the last week were a bitter disappointment. They made me feel like a dummy customer and a victim of their complacency ”“ pure yuck.

I didn’t have much choice with certain things ”“ for instance, where I live, my spare tire had to make a 45-mile drive for me to get a new one from the only place which had it in stock (which doesn’t necessarily mean the new tire would match my other ones; it doesn’t). I waited over an hour past the time they committed to having it done, two hours altogether for a 15-minute tire change, and then just as I gratefully approached my ‘finished’ car to leave, I noticed that the tire pressure was so off balance the car looked visibly crooked.

The mechanic didn’t disagree when I pointed it out to him and asked him to recalibrate the tire pressure for all four tires; he did so. However I felt so deflated and disappointed; how dare they make me feel like a fool for choosing them? How dare they make me feel grateful to finally leave them and their stifling hot waiting room, where no one bothered to let me know the job would take longer? How could I be so foolishly accepting of a new tire which cost me $131.73 (yep, one tire) and so much aggravation, a price tag I paid without a second thought or complaint? How dare they make me now feel that it wasn’t a good choice to have been there at all, and I was the one who was wrong, dumb enough not to chance driving another twenty miles on my spare tire to give my business to someone else?

Is there a pulse here?

This is just one example of what I think of as the biggest sin committed in business today: complete mediocrity. By the time the week was over I’d collected a few more unfortunate stories which gave me a very severe case of Ho‘okipa withdrawal. I was craving some exceptional service somewhere, or even uneventful service, but from lively and engaged people! My expectations were getting so low, that surely the warmth of Aloha alone would trump product and service quality, wouldn’t it?

I am sure that no one working at the businesses I visited wanted to do a bad job, or deliberately set out to get me (believe me, I know that being a nice customer works much better than being a complaining one).

No one intentionally lied to me, and no one was rude to me. They did something worse: Either they ignored me or took me for granted.

No one abused me or flagrantly ripped me off (I don’t think” please let my ignorance be bliss, and don’t tell me what you paid for the tire you last bought for what is one of the most common cars found on our roads today).

It seemed that no one had enough energy to intentionally be awful; they just kinda slumped their way into a downslide, and then they stayed there.

No one seemed to have a pulse. Everyone was just so blah and uninspired. So going through the motions unremarkable. In fact, they weren’t even passably good. They skipped steps and didn’t even notice that they did.

The biggest sin in business is mediocrity

Customers today expect more, even if you are the only game in town. If anything, we the customers who feel forced to patronize you for basic needs feel that you’ve been assured of our continuing business, and thus are able to do better ”“ you’re the one with a palpable revenue stream right now! We can clearly see your veins; an example is the monthly bill we get for your ‘utility,’ but your pulse with not taking us for granted is getting alarmingly weak and hard to find.

I didn’t wait two hours for that new tire because they had too little business, but because they had too much business and couldn’t keep up. And it wasn’t an unexpected jump in business ”“ they’re always like that. The only customers who actually wait in their establishment are those like me who live the coastline drive away. When they got behind, they didn’t seem to care; when a customer sitting in your waiting room for hours doesn’t make you or your staff uncomfortable, something is very, very wrong.

I don’t blame any of this on the recession.

I blame it on a lack of energy, the absence of imagination, and the death of creativity and vitality that results from poor leadership and poor management.

Your employees and partners blame it on you too, even if they are the ones doing a rotten job or uninspired and mediocre work. You’re not around or engaged enough as their leader, managing and leading enough to improve things. You are settling for less than is possible, no matter how horrible the economy might get ”“ attentive energy isn’t totally dependent on your bank account. There is always something to be improved and reinvigorated; there is always someone to be coached into achieving their full potential.

Your customers blame it on you too. As is the local way, they will generally be very forgiving of your employees ”“ I was, and I’m a coach who has a very hard time keeping her mouth shut when I’ve got a living laboratory right before my eyes! Customers will blame anything hinting of monopoly behavior, an arrogant resting on laurels, or a recession cop-out attitude on you the owner, you the boss, you the manager. They will blame it on your poor leadership and management, and in my opinion, they’re right, for you’re better than that.

If you are committing the sin of mediocrity, allowing energy to drain out of your company, your business will die. Your customers may not have a choice now, but the day they do, it will be all over for you.

If you have customers right now, dazzle them

Please: Be Alaka‘i great. [From the archives: Can you define your Leadership Greatness?] Help your employees and every one of your business partners be great every single day, and with every single customer. Banish mediocrity by proactively choosing to lead and manage exceptionally well.

It is not that difficult knowing how to begin: Look at your business the way a customer does. Start where you can visibly see you need an infusion of fresh energy. We will talk more about this in my next posting on Thursday.

Turn your customers into raving fans who feel smugly smart for choosing you and giving you their money. When you do that, this negative, “oh woe is me” recessionary thinking will end for all of us. The raving fans you want talking about you (and writing about you) are those customers who feel savvy and in-the-know brilliant that they chose you: When someone recommends you to their family and their friends, the quality of their opinion is on the line, and they know it.

I am not giving up on my goal.

No way. If anything, I am more determined than ever to talk about Aloha-inspired Ho‘okipa customer service.

Has mediocrity been banished from your business? If you think your workplace has service levels which will dazzle me, please write and let me know about you.

And don’t waste your time telling me about your product features: Even a great product never reaches true excellence without a human service component attached to it.

On the other hand, if you are Aloha and Ho‘okipa exceptional, our Say “Alaka‘i” readers deserve to know about you, and I want to help them choose you and give you the patronage which will help you thrive.

Let’s talk story.
Any thoughts to share?

2010 Update: I made the decision to bring Say “Alaka‘i” here to Talking Story in late May of 2010 when the Honolulu Advertiser, where the blog previously appeared, was merged with the Star Bulletin (Read more at Say “Alaka‘i” is Returning to the Mothership).

Therefore, the post appearing below is a copy of the one which had originally appeared there on January 29, 2009, so we will be able to reference it in the future when the original url it had been published on is no more…

Set your price, charge it, and stand behind it

Had an interesting conversation with a local businessman recently about pricing, and all the variables which go into your decision on pricing a product or service.

There are the obvious ones, like covering costs and getting some kind of a return on your investment, but then there’s that great equalizer, at least for the vast majority of business people who have not yet achieved the euphoria of a winning brand’s monopoly, and that equalizer is supply and demand.

However, an overly obsessive concern with supply and demand can make variable costs and expenses weigh much too heavily in your decision-making. You’ve got to ride any ebbs and flows with more confidence, knowing your pricing decisions were sound in the first place.

Talking about when the balance scales of supply and demand shift —in either direction— and coming up with changes in your pricing is

a) Too complicated when it doesn’t have to be, repeatedly pulling your attention away from other growth pursuits

b) Completely at odds with getting your own staff to believe in, and understand your value equation, so they represent you well

c) Extremely annoying to your customer: For example, think about how you only get “a deal” when you are a brand new wireless telephone buyer, and not when you are a long-time loyal customer (unless your plan is up for renewal). Whoever got the whole industry to adopt those practices should be ashamed of themselves.

We who sell goods and services have trained our customers to game the system. We have trained them to deny our right to make a profit —and thus make a decent living for ourselves as their fellow human beings— so they can get some wildly unfair deal when we are down.

Let me propose a better way. Set your price, charge it, and stand behind it.

Set your price

Do I propose you ignore supply and demand? No, not at all. I simply propose you deal with it just once, and exceptionally well during that one time; during the construction of your business model and business plan. If you have a sound business model, there will always a customer for you; if not, you didn’t have a sound business model to begin with.

This past Tuesday’s blog (S-e-l-l can’t be a 4-letter word in business) assumed that you already had a customer in hand, one who was ready to buy, and who needs you to make the buying process easy and enjoyable, but what about when they truly are “just looking” and still comparison shopping?

In both cases, price needs to be just slightly less than perceived value. What you need to concentrate on is the perceived value, and figuring out if you are willing, and able to deliver it at a decent profit for your efforts (the ROI thing). Second, you must remember that every winning business is in the service business ”“ every single one. I cannot think of a single product that comes without necessary service in its delivery, and the better your service, the more you can charge, for service becomes the added value to the product.

Barter may be making a pretty decent comeback (love the concept), but even those who trade and barter set their price and stand behind it so there is a transactional number which makes things easy. And know this: There is leadership in pricing too. Leaders know their worth, and they state it proudly.

Charge it

Drive through Waikiki right now, or stroll through one of our shopping malls, and there are 4 lousy letters that yell at you:

Get those “For Sale” signs out of your window (literally – trash them), and clear their negative self-coaching out of your attitudes (figuratively, and for whatever you sell). You never want to be “for [discounted] sale” no matter what your product is. If you must post a sign, write one that says: “No loss-leading prices here; we charge what we’re worth, and you deserve to have our value, for you are worth us being better too.” Get that attitude out on your sales floor, in your telephone conversations, and in every other presence you have internally and externally.

Then get to work with whatever product knowledge you must teach to every single person on staff so that they fall head over heels in love with who you are (as a business), and what you do you (as a service provider). Champion the love and devotion; coach the sharing of it. Don’t hire anyone who cannot provide great customer service from the primary standpoint of they themselves being one of your most fanatical, loyal customers too. When they “sell” they need to be sharing their product knowledge and adoration, enrolling your customer into their personal fan club.

Stand behind it

If you can’t stand behind the prices you set, honoring their integrity, how in the world can you expect people to pay them, and honor your integrity with setting them too?

The easiest way to stand solidly behind your prices is to illustrate your worth.

If you get to work on putting yourself in the customer’s shoes, focusing your intention where their attention is, you will figure out what is valuable to them about what you sell, and what features you must “put on stage” basking in the limelight. That’s product. Then, service is what you offer as the added extra that wows them, and gets them to stand up, cheer for you, and yell “Hana hou!”

No more discounting. No more sale signs. Discounts and sale signs tell a customer you screwed up with your business model. Discounts and sale signs get a customer to wonder about how else you might be ripping them off.

Do mistakes happen in business modeling and sales projections? Sure. The difference is what you do about them, and parading them in front of paying customers is a lousy strategy.

You are better off just giving away whatever you have to liquidate as promotional goods or to charity, helping those in your community (when they are asking for help versus looking to buy) as a way of saying “mahalo for honoring my price integrity whenever you do have cause to buy from me.”

Two steps back for one biggie forward

If you don’t yet have this pricing integrity I am advocating, chances are you have to retrain your customer out of the bad habits you’ve enabled in them.

So retrain us. Ultimately, we all have to have an entrepreneurial mindset as individuals and you’ll be doing us a big favor. (For more on the entrepreneurial mindset, see #3 in this article: The Top 7 Business Themes on my 2009 Wish List).

Be brave. Change the game. That’s what Alaka‘i leaders do.