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This seems like a pretty good idea to me – personally I think we put too much distance between doing business and being human. This is a really insightful presentation by Tara Hunt, who spells out the challenges with finding happiness and most importantly, how we can take this knowledge and apply it to our business for a much happier outcome. I like it.
The following link will take you to Business Blogs – and this article in particular is a good one. It describes the 7 stages of a business and I am sure that most of us can relate to at least a few of them.
In this interview Andrew Griffiths and Robert Gerrish discuss the concept of “Business Isolation” – a real problem in the modern business environment. Andrew offers five tips to overcome the sense of isolation that many business owners face today.
This interview was conducted for BNet Australia, a division of the CBS Corporation.
Today I heard a very powerful story about a hot dog stand. This hot dog stand was run by an old man who had started if many, many years ago. He loved his business and his customers. He used the best buns money could buy and his sausages were made to his own special recipe by his friend the butcher. He took great pride in every single hot dog that he made and word of mouth had spread far and wide. As a result he had many customers coming back time and time again for over thirty years.
One day the mans son came by to visit his father. His first question to the old man was to ask how he was coping with the challenges of the Global Financial Crisis? The old man said he had no idea what this crisis was and he certainly hadn’t seen any down turn in his business. But the son went on about how the old man needed to change his business, cut his costs, get smarter and do what ever he can to protect the hot dog stand.
The old man respected his son as he had got a good education and he was very smart. So he started to look for ways to cut his costs. He started buying smaller hot dog buns, that were one day old. That saved him a lot. Then instead of getting hot dogs sausages specially made by his local butcher he bought them in bulk from a supermarket. He also started to charge extra for condiments like sauce and mustard. And last but not least he cut down his working hours to save on electricity.
The old man told the son what he had done and the son told him that he had done the smart thing. Over the coming few weeks the old man noticed that many of his regular customers started to complain about his hot dogs – they had never done that before. Business got slower and slower, until finally the old man shut his hot dog stand down. He was very sad that his business was gone, after so many years, but his son reassured him that many businesses were going broke as a result of the Global Financial Crisis.
Mmmmmm………….kind of makes you think doesn’t it? I think there are a lot of great hot dog stands out there that are going to send themselves broke as a result of GFC induced panic.
We live in a world where it is getting harder to make our business stand out from the crowd and the clutter. In the future it will be even harder as more advertising mediums appear, as customers habits change and become harder to understand and as competition increases.
As consumers we are becoming more driven by word of mouth recommendations simply because we trust what a friend tells us much more than we trust what an advertisement says. Because of this it is vital for any business owner to have the biggest possible network of friends, associates, fans, followers and fanatics.
I live in a relatively small city. If my business is a bit slow, all I have to do is go for a walk to the post office and I will bump into someone who needs some marketing done. It happens all the time and over the years I have built a big network both in my hometown and around the country. This network provides referrals, it provides advice, it gives me opportunities and it is a kind of insurance policy against tough times.
I often hear people say that they hate networking, it feels false, and it is awkward and embarrassing. Well it can be. I don’t like going to cocktail parties and standing around looking and feeling like a sore thumb. But there are many ways to network and build up a client base. Let me share one example.
For several years I had courier that used to make deliveries to my office several times a day. His name was John and I knew him enough to say a friendly hello, but nothing more. John has literally been to my business thousands of times and I realised one day that I knew nothing about him. So the next time he came in I asked him if he had a couple of minutes for coffee, because I felt awkward that he was such a familiar part of my business yet I knew nothing about him.
So we wandered down to the local coffee shop and had a short but very enjoyable chat. He had moved to Cairns from Sydney, where he had a big operational job that was slowly killing him. Now John started early and finished early and he had lots of time to spend with his kids. We really connected and I was really glad that I took the initiative to call our meeting.
Over the next couple of weeks we got incredibly busy so I didn’t really have a lot of time to think about John. But the work started piling in and something strange was happening. I asked my consultants where the work was coming from and they told me it was all referrals from John the Courier.
He spent all day going from business to business, chatting to people. They would say that they needed to do some marketing so John would tell them that they had to use my business. Then he would give advice to firms that looked a bit run down or that were doing it tough that they needed professional advice from a company like mine. John became our very own personal sales rep and he was amazing. I couldn’t tell you how much work he directed our way but it was a lot – all because I had a cup of tea with him.
Today most of my work comes from word of mouth referral. I am very proud of this fact because it must mean that I do a pretty good job if people refer me to others.
Likewise my collective group of people who I have met in the course of my business life are sounding boards. They offer advice if I need it. They help me to see through complex situations when I am too involved.
To BULLETPROOF your business, you have to build a network of people who protect, promote and provide information. To build this network you have meet people, honour the relationship by being honest and ethical in your dealings and make it a two way street. If they support you, you must support them, however you can.
Building a network takes time and it should certainly not be written off as a waste of time. I don’t go to a lot of networking functions, but I make a point of introducing myself to people, getting my existing network to introduce me to their contacts and so on. In other words you can make networking suit your personality. If you are a one on one person, make an appointment and go and see a person. If you like the social scene, go to networking functions and meet people, don’t just stand in the corner talking to the same person you talk to at every event.
From my observations and my own personal experience a network of good people will help to make any business BULLETPROOF.
Andrew Griffiths