Scott McKain believes that there are three types of customers. At the base level, there are those who are transaction oriented. These are individuals who are completely price oriented. Give them the lowest price and you will win their business. McKain claims in The Ultimate Customer Experience that most businesses overestimate the number of people who are concerned exclusively with price. He makes an important distinction when defining price-oriented purchasers. Price is always a factor but only with a small percentage of the buying public is price the only factor.
We were tasked with finding a speaker who could open a conference. The goal was to fire everyone up at the start of the conference and then provide a hearty meal of compelling content that could be taken from the Conference room on Thursday and applied to our members’ businesses the following Monday.
The reasons we make bad decisions include not investing the sufficient amount of time required to make a good decision, believing that as rational human beings we can thoughtfully solve complex problems in our heads and that you don’t need anyone else’s help to decide, writes Cheryl Strauss Einhorn, CEO of Decisive, a consultancy that helps businesses solve complex problems.
What's bad, boring and barely read at all? Most business writing. If you could taste words, most corporate websites, brochures, and sales materials would remind you of stale, soggy rice cakes: nearly calorie free, devoid of nutrition, taste and completely unsatisfying.
During times of economic uncertainly such as the start of a pandemic when no one had a working crystal ball, people reverted to instinct. They let the left side of the brain take over. They forgot about goods and simply focused on saving what they had and surviving the unknown. That’s it. They rarely took time to do something extravagant or purchase a special item.
Jeff Haden in an Inc. magazine blog articulated commonalities among remarkably successful people. Here’s what they have in common.
No Backup Plans
There are no rearview mirrors. They have no backup plan, because a backup plan represents an easy out if things get tough or don’t go the way they were expected to go. Remarkably successful people focus on making their plans work and will do whatever it takes to succeed. Haden states, “Total commitment – without a safety net – will spur you to work harder than you ever imagined possible.” And if you do not succeed, learn from your mistakes, but keep working hard.
Can you work less and accomplish more? An article in Scientific American, Why Your Brain Needs More Downtime finds that “mental breaks increase productivity, replenish attention, solidify memories and encourage creativity.” How can you work less, when there is so much more to do?
Stories are powerful. Good stories engage us. Great stories win Oscars. As parents, we read stories to our children and for the most part most kids sit attentively and use the stories we tell to make up stories of their own. Storytelling and story listening are part of our DNA. We don’t lose our thirst for story telling or listening as we get older. We do, however, lose the ability to relate compelling content.
I’m not a big birthday guy. As a kid, I didn’t have many birthday parties out of choice. I never saw the benefit of having a bunch of kids over to your house to eat cake (which I don’t like) and ice cream (which I like more than a lot). Who thought of Pin the Tail On the Donkey (now I am really showing my age)? For someone who has been wearing glasses since the age of three, putting on a blindfold holds no appeal. Heck, all you had to do was to take my glasses and send me on my way. I would only have had a 10% chance of hitting the wall. And didn’t you hate the kids who cheated at Pin the Tail? I guess they went to work for Bernie Madoff.
We all have a client, coworker or even family member who lives with the awesome burden of being right 100% of the time. We know the challenge of convincing a builder or homeowner who knows it all even though they don’t and you believe you have a better solution or a more effective approach.
