It’s All About Price?
August 11, 2010 by Ed McLaughlin
“All that my customers care about is price.”
Be honest – have you ever said those words? If so, I’ve got news:
You’re right.
But do you know why?
It’s because you haven’t really given customers much else to care about in the first place.
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Loyalty Isn’t a Program
August 9, 2010 by Ed McLaughlin
I went into the bookstore of a major chain the other day. As I was checking out, the clerk asked, “Are you a member of our loyalty rewards program?”
“No…” I smiled, wondering if she would persist.
“Would you like to become one?”
“Not really.” Then, of course, I got curious. “How many people say yes?”
“Almost no one,” she said. “But I’m supposed to ask.”
No surprise there. Loyalty programs, once something of a novelty, don’t actually work. Consumers are smart enough to know that they’ll wind up with too much SPAM and a weekly newsletter they don’t want to read. Yet companies love to push them.
Here’s the tip: real customer loyalty has nothing to do with a program. If the experience or product is great (think The Apple Store), then we’re in. That’s it – no discounts, freebies or plastic cards necessary.
Going, going…
July 20, 2010 by Ed McLaughlin
Gone! A grand slam!
My son’s first baseball game was more exciting than expected. After spending the first four innings watching a back-and-forth struggle, one of his favorite players hit a grand slam – the giant home run that changes the outcome of a game.
Not surprisingly, the media coverage that evening focused almost exclusively on this particular moment in the game. Apparently, the little things that occurred earlier in the contest weren’t as fun to talk about.
But sports teams that rely on the home run cannot win over the long term. Neither can entrepreneurs and business owners.
That sure hasn’t stopped them from trying. Companies love to develop business plans that are little more than a series of attempted home runs. And while occasionally someone hits one, this approach doesn’t lead to sustainable growth.
A better strategy is to concentrate on hitting singles. It may be less exciting, but think about it this way: if you try for home runs and miss, you’ve accomplished nothing. Modest wins, on the other hand, mean that you’re always growing. And over time, steady growth will transform even the smallest of firms into a powerhouse.
Which is a lot better than the occasional big inning.
Shake It Up
June 8, 2010 by Ed McLaughlin
My friend Shawn Murphy doesn’t follow. He leads.
Shawn (@shawmu on Twitter) just launched the Wake Up and Shake It Up blog series. Need a push to think bigger than you have before? Here it is.
The first post, Big versus Small, went live this morning. I think you know the author – check it out.
The 5 Goals of a Project Manager
May 22, 2010 by Jason Westland
I’m thrilled to introduce a new contributor to The Baby Gorillas – project management expert Jason Westland. Jason is the founder and CEO of Method123 and Project Manager Online. He has written articles for Computer World and was the author of the best-selling book “The Project Management Life Cycle.” And he truly understands the concept of thinking big and acting small, which makes him a great addition to this blog.
For more information about Jason’s online project management software, visit Project Manager.com.
Please join me in welcoming Jason – we’re lucky to have him. His first article is the perfect primer for project management. I hope that you find it useful.
- Ed McLaughlin
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As a Project Manager, you need to manage people, money, suppliers, equipment—the list is never ending. The trick is to be focused. Set yourself 5 personal goals to achieve. If you can meet these simple goals for each project, then you will achieve total success. So read on, to learn…
The 5 Goals of a Project Manager
These goals are generic to all industries and all types of projects. Regardless of your level of experience in project management, set these 5 goals for every project you manage.
Goal 1: To finish on time
This is the oldest but trickiest goal in the book. It’s the most difficult because the requirements often change during the project and the schedule was probably optimistic in the first place.
To succeed, you need to manage your scope very carefully. Implement a change control process so that any changes to the scope are properly managed.
Always keep your plan up to date, recording actual vs. planned progress. Identify any deviations from plan and fix them quickly.
Goal 2: To finish under budget
To make sure that your project costs don’t spiral, you need to set a project budget at the start to compare against. Include in this budget, all of the types of project costs that will accrue, whether they are to do with people, equipment, suppliers or materials. Then work out how much each task in your plan is going to cost to complete and track any deviations from this plan.
Make sure that if you over-spend on some tasks, that you under-spend on others. In this way, you can control your spend and deliver under budget.
Goal 3: To meet the requirements
The goal here is to meet the requirements that were set for the project at the start. Whether the requirements were to install a new IT system, build a bridge or implement new processes, your project needs to produce solutions which meet these requirements 100%.
The trick here is to make sure that you have a detailed enough set of requirements at the beginning. If they are ambiguous in any way, then what was initially seen as a small piece of work could become huge, taking up valuable time and resources to complete.
Goal 4: To keep customers happy
You could finish your project on time, under budget and have met 100% of the requirements—but still have unhappy customers. This is usually because their expectations have changed since the project started and have not been properly managed.
To ensure that your project sponsor, customer and other stakeholders are happy at the end of your project, you need to manage their expectations carefully. Make sure you always keep them properly informed of progress. “Keep it real” by giving them a crystal clear view of progress to date. Let them voice their concerns or ideas regularly. Tell them upfront when you can’t deliver on time, or when a change needs to be made. Openness and honesty are always the best tools for setting customer expectations.
Goal 5: To ensure a happy team
If you can do all of this with a happy team, then you’ll be more than willing to do it all again for the next project. And that’s how your staff will feel also. Staff satisfaction is critical to your project’s success.
So keep your team happy by rewarding and recognizing them for their successes. Assign them work that complements their strengths and conduct team building exercises to boost morale. With a happy motivated team, you can achieve anything!
And there you have it. The 5 goals you need to set yourself for every project.
Of course, you should always work smart to achieve these goals more easily.
Yesterday, Tomorrow, & Today
May 21, 2010 by Ed McLaughlin
The secret of business success comes down to one thing:
Time.
Sound too simple? I’d probably agree – if not for the fact that using time well is incredibly difficult.
Perhaps this story will help you to change your perspective on time. Imagine that your bank credits you with $86,400 every morning. You don’t have to pay this money back, but there’s a catch – every night, the bank deletes any balance remaining in the account. So if you fail to use any portion of the money during the day, you lose it forever. In this scenario, would you be certain to withdraw every cent? Sure you would.
Every day, we receive a similar credit – 86,400 seconds of time. As with the imaginary bank, failure to use any portion of the daily deposit is your loss. So the question is this: how much value do you place on the time you have remaining today?
Every second of time is valuable. If that seems like an overstatement, you should talk with a person who just avoided a car accident. It’s quite possible that the difference between life and death came down to a single second (or less).
Yesterday is history.
Tomorrow is unknown.
Today is a gift.
Don’t waste it.
Less is More
February 18, 2010 by Ed McLaughlin
Thanks to the Internet, the world has gotten smaller. It’s now possible to connect with people all over the world in a meaningful way.
While I agree that it matters who you know, that doesn’t mean the goal should be to have thousands of online friends. Quantity alone doesn’t mean that you’re truly connected.
Here’s a thought: make your network smaller. Then take that network and focus on making it tighter. Do this by reaching out to people more frequently (about them, not you) and connecting them to others.
This approach takes time, but it’s the best way I know to build a real network.
When To Make A Decision
February 17, 2010 by Ed McLaughlin
A friend of mine regularly talks to me about his job. A couple of years ago, his company’s managers were slow to make decisions. While other firms in his industry changed how they worked, his business sat still. “They didn’t have enough information to support doing things differently,” he told me. Eventually, some of their largest customers migrated to the competition.
Now the opposite is true. With less revenue, the company started showing signs of financial strain. So the CEO and other senior managers made some very quick decisions. Those decisions were made with limited information, and they backfired. Now the company is in serious trouble.
The main rule of decision making: as soon as you have a reasonable amount of information, decide what to do. Any more or less could be catastrophic.
Improve Your Follow-Up
February 10, 2010 by Ed McLaughlin
Most businesses look at follow-up as something that’s easy. Wait until someone shows interest in your product, then call or email in an effort to push the sales cycle along. But that’s a call about you, not them.
There is another kind of follow-up that seems hard, but really isn’t. And since it takes place in moments other than when a sale is on the line, it’s much more powerful.
I’m not talking about generic thank you emails or satisfaction surveys. They’re boring, and do nothing to create customer loyalty or referrals. What I mean is someone from the company connects with the customer in meaningful way.
Let’s use an easy example: high-end restaurants. People aren’t dining out as much these days, and those that do are typically buying cheaper wine and ordering fewer courses. To lure customers in, many restaurants now offer value menus or run promotions. Fine. But the only time they follow-up with a customer is when confirming a reservation.
What if they decided to follow-up with patrons in a simple but unconventional* way? Someone from the restaurant could call to ask how dinner was the night before. Or the wait staff could send handwritten thank you cards to their customers. And if those doing the follow-up are empowered to resolve problems, than you’re much closer to establishing an emotional connection with your customers than you were before.
This small act is inexpensive, and chances are it will do more to generate repeat business and referrals than advertising ever will.
*This is unconventional for a restaurant, which is why it might work. The point here is that you need to figure out what is unconventional for your business and act on that.
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