A Note From The President

Avil Beckford, President

This month I reviewed "Raving Fans" by Ken Blanchard and Sheldon Bowles because I interviewed someone who indicated that this book had a profound impact on him, so I wanted to see through my interviewee's eyes what he saw in the book. You can read my review later in the book review section.

I would now like to spend a few minutes talking about "The Diamond Cutter: The Buddha On Managing Your Business And Your Life" by Geshe Michael Roach. I seem to choose a lot of very difficult books to read. This book gave my brain a workout, but it was well worth the read.

I particularly like the section where Roach lists what he calls 46 typical business problems and their solutions, according to the wisdom of the Diamond Cutter. For example, business problem #5, "No matter how big or interesting your business gets, you always have the feeling that it's not enough; you feel driven by a sense of dissatisfaction." The solution: "Never begrudge others the results of their own efforts; stop comparing yourself to others, just enjoy what you have: be your own person and appreciate what you have yourself." Looking at business problem #18, "People around you don't step forward to help you out when you most need it." The proposed solution, "This again is a result of taking some kind of unhealthy pleasure in other people's problems. At best, try to step into every situation where you could help out… At the very least, keep a close watch on your mind and refuse to indulge in that morbid fascination with other people's problems."

"The Diamond Cutter" forces you to think and reflect while you read, and I am sure that as you read the forty-six business problems you will nod a few times because you can relate to the them. Wouldn't it be worth the effort if you tried a different approach even if it appeared simplistic?

Book Review

Raving Fans: A Revolutionary Approach To Customer Service by Ken Blanchard & Sheldon Bowles

Shortly after I started reading this book, I had to shut up my inner critic and open myself up to the lessons. Ken Blanchard and Sheldon Bowles present Raving Fans as a parable. The book starts off with the president of a company telling the new area manager that the company was built on customer service, and that the three preceding area managers didn't understand that, and that's why they were no longer with the organization. Each of those three preceding area managers lasted less than a year in the job. This fact made it difficult for me to understand why the new area manager, knowing this, would take off with his Fairy Godmother, Charlie (a man) to play golf.

To succeed in business, you have to create Raving Fans - satisfied customers are no longer enough. To deliver Raving Fan Service, you have to look after the customers' needs whenever possible, be consistent in delivering the service, promise more and deliver more than you promise, and be ready to change direction when the vision changes because customers' need and want change all the time.There are three secrets to creating Raving Fans - Decide what you want, discover what the customer wants and deliver the vision plus one percent.

Decide what you want: When you decide what you want, you must create a vision of perfection centered on the customer. This is your perception of perfection. You do this by visualizing the entire customer service experience. What does perfection look like? You live out your business fantasy by deciding what you want, and creating a vision of perfection centered on the moment the customer uses the product.

Discover what the customer wants: To find out what your customers' vision is, simply ask them, and listen to what they say and don't say. Understanding your vision allows you to better understand your customers' vision. And if your customers' vision is very different from yours - that is, the gap is too wide, you may have to stop servicing that customer. You cannot be everything to everybody.

Deliver the vision plus one percent: Be consistent - consistently meet expectations. To be consistent you must have systems in place within your organization. Every organization that delivers excellent customer service has systems in place, and a training program to entrench those systems into the heart and soul of the company. These systems are only guidelines, and you have to be flexible enough to alter the guidelines to better serve your customers. Once you are able to deliver consistent service, ongoing improvement is a must. The plus one percent is to keep you moving ahead and focused beyond your vision.

Five⁺¹ Great Ideas

• All good customer service is a result of nifty systems
• Constantly strive to improve what you have decided to achieve
• Most customers have a focus - you have to find that focus and then mine it for information
• Customers count on you to do what you say you will do
• You can make big changes in almost anything, or achieve great things in your life by improving or changing by one percent. Things can't help but improve if you keep at it one percent at a time
• Customers have needs beyond the need of the company's product, whether it comes in a box or is a service. People need to feel like they belong to a group - they need to feel that they are important, and that what they do, think, and say truly matters
  

I recommend this book because it's an easy read - it takes less that two hours to digest the information. Suppress your inner critic if you are a logical person and allow the parable to unfold so that you can learn the simple lessons.

June's Book List

Raving Fans: A Revolutionary Approach To Customer Service by Ken Blanchard & Sheldon Bowles
The Diamond Cutter: The Buddha On Managing Your Business And Your Life by Michael Roach

Survey Results

"Workplace Incivility: The Target's Eye View"
According to a survey of 1,400 employees in different industries across the USA:

• Both men and women were equal targets of rude and disrespectful behaviour, but men were seven times more likely to target a subordinate employee
• Women were also likely to exhibit uncivil behaviour toward superiors and subordinates, but less likely to be uncivil to their peers
• 78% of respondents reported that incivility has gotten worse in the last 10 years
• Rude people are more likely to be in higher positions than those on the receiving end of the nasty behaviour
• 12% of respondents had actually quit a job to avoid a rude co-worker
• More than half of all surveyed said they lost work time worrying about the treatment they received
• 22% said they deliberately slowed down or delayed their work effort in response to rude treatment
• Patterns of incivility tend to "cascade downward" and self-perpetuate - bosses are more likely to target subordinate employees who, in turn, exhibit disrespectful behaviour toward lower-level employees
  

Source: Bain & Company 2005 Management Tools Survey, http://www.whittierdailynews.com/Stories/0,1413,207~12041~2886367,00.html
http://www.envisionworks.net/media/howrude.htm

How Did They Do That?

Paul Swaby, Founder, ZOMPAS http://www.zompas.com

Challenge: As a public speaker and real estate investor, each week, I have to talk to people about how to create wealth. I'm challenged because the majority of the individuals who attend my seminars know nothing about real estate investments. However, if they know about real estate they usually don't understand the amount of long-term wealth they can attain.

Solution: I teach people specifically about the "New Found Freedom" (NFF) the fourth book I'm going to write. It hones in on the specific steps required to create long-term wealth and become financially independent.

Lessons Learned:

• The world is filled with pessimists and optimists
• Individual success and failure come from two things:
  • "You become what you think about." Earl Nightingale
  • The pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity. I have realized that only enlightened and passionate people are the ones who are optimistic, and find the opportunity in every difficulty
• I have learned to only work with passionate people and I leave the pessimists to do their own self-discovery thinking

What Can Ambeck Do For You:

Ambeck Enterprise provides diverse business research and analysis services to senior level executives, through the relevant distillation of diverse facts and data.

Formula For Success

Paul Swaby

Attitude + Expectancy + Knowledge + Action = Measurable Improvement

Daily measurable improvements need to be maintained through discipline to achieve success.

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