Building Business Value | Corporate Management Strategies

Becoming an Online Trusted Advisor - Relationship Building 101

Ever since David Maister came out with "Trusted Advisor", professional services companies have integrated the term trusted advisor into their repertoire of service delivery and business development lingo. The really good firms have embraced it as a long-term approach to building relationships and perhaps clients that will last a lifetime. Other firms have viewed it as a marketing ploy; words to use in your corporate literature, but not words you live by.

Intimacy and motive are two key components to building a trusted relationship with a client. To develop intimacy you need to really understand your client's wants and needs.  You have to work closely with them. You have to be available when they need you.

You and the client have to be crystal clear on your motives. Are you there to extract all you can from their wallet or do you have their best interest in mind?

Intimacy and motive in an online world are challenges. Are your marketing and service delivery methods one to many or one to one? Are you building an online community and becoming a trusted advisor to that community or blasting emails and direct mail at your 'market segment'?

Maister gave us "Trusted Advisor", Seth Godin has given us ‘Tribes'. It's time now to integrate the two.

Should You Hire an Outside Facilitator?

Full disclosure. I make part of my living running meetings, but since I just finished a couple of days as an outside facilitator, I thought we should challenge the convention.

For centuries, Niccolo Machiavelli's name has stood for the concept of amassing power, often by nefarious means. He once wrote, "There is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain in its success, than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things." His world was that of Florentine politics in the era of the Renaissance. It may have been easier for Machiavelli to create change in Florence than it is for any C-level executive to shift the direction of a business today. Machiavelli could put his enemies on the rack or even get them excommunicated, and he didn't have to run his decisions past the head of human resources (HR). All CEOs have are stock options and the threat of firing people. Machiavelli wouldn't have lasted ninety days in modern corporate America.

It's typically more powerful and more productive for companies to bring in outsiders to facilitate this process. Companies that don't engage an outsider have no one there to challenge positional power.  In larger, more established companies, a pecking order may restrict who can say what in an all-hands meeting. Sacred cows, land mines, turf wars, or whatever expression applies may inhibit a company's progress. An outsider can come in, eat the cows, step on the land mines, and conduct the discussion unencumbered by the ghosts of the past. An outsider can also introduce ideas learned from working with different companies. The process will go much more smoothly if you bring in an individual or team of people who can offer a fresh perspective and a point of view that is not influenced by existing company dynamics.

For years I ran my own meetings and I know a few CEO’s that can do a better job than any outsider. But first take an honest look at your skills and your ability to get the best out of your team while at the same time uncovering all those areas of challenge to ultimately find the direction that will help you best build your business value.

What’s the Value of Services Rendered ?

The air conditioning guy just left you with a $350 bill for what seemed like a few tweaks, a couple turns of a screw and whole bunch of trips between your heat pump and his service van.

So how do you feel about that bill now?  Do you wish you had been a member of their ‘platinum customer’ service plan that gives you free emergency calls during weekends?  Do you feel like $350 was a lot of money for 90 minutes of work?  Do you wish you had gone to vo-tech in high school, or are you just relieved to have air conditioning again?

If part of your business is service related and I’m actually hard pressed to think about many businesses that don’t have a services component, then the question you should be asking yourself every day is this.

What is the value of services rendered AFTER they’ve been rendered?

Are your services really worth what you charge?  Are they worth more?  Less?  Does your customer find great value in your services?  Can they get them elsewhere, cheaper and easier?

Most of us have short memories.  Your customers are no different.  The old saying of “what have you done for me lately” really does apply.  Always remember that your customers need and deserve the best value you can offer.

Tell them what you’re going to do for them, do it for them, and then tell them what you did for them … over and over again.  It can take a while to build trust.  Your reputation might get you in the door, but a long term trusting relationship with your customers means matching your actions to your words and putting your customer’s interests first.

Benefits of Baselining Your Company - Transformational Initiatives

Evaluating how well your company is doing today will provide an important baseline in your value-building process.

Before you can start thinking about the transformational initiatives that will take your enterprise from where it is to the place where it can command the highest premium, you've got to talk seriously with company leaders about where your company is right now. You need to get everybody's perceptions of the company as it exists today out on the table.

This discussion will provide three immediate benefits.

• First, you'll develop a baseline, a market position that will make all of you nod your heads and say, "Yes, that's where we are."
• Second, this is the first step toward determining what kind of initiatives your company needs to undertake to create a premium value.
• The third benefit is the most important-it helps to connect people across the entire company.

Enterprises rarely have company-wide discussions about what's really happening on the ground. For example, your marketing people may seldom have any contact with the folks in engineering, and your sales force may rarely have any meaningful interaction with the people in corporate planning. This exercise gives everybody a chance to have the kind of enterprise- wide conversation that almost never happens. Just getting the key players to talk about the same issues will be beneficial.

"Fave 5" - Action Sayings

Every few months I end up giving a workshop on Goal Setting. I'm a proponent of writing down your goals and developing a personal goal strategy. In 2006 Harvard Business School Press published an easy to read article on the benefits of goal setting called "Increase Your Personal Productivity and Effectiveness."

But while presenting last week on this topic, I shared an action phrase that I'm often guilty of.  I mentioned the term "Ready, Fire, Aim."  I'm such an advocate of taking action that I sometimes forget to aim!

Well, the group kicked around a few more "Action Sayings" so I thought I'd share them.

• There are two types of people, the quick and the dead.
• Time waits for no one.
• Ready, Fire, Aim
• Never up, never in - must have been a golfer in the crowd.
• You snooze, you loose.

So there you have it, my current "fave" five action sayings.

Are You Working On the Business or In the Business? Value Drivers ...

Most CEOs spend too much time on the details, like the subtleties of new benefits package, instead of looking at the bigger questions of "Where are we now?" and "Where do we want to go?" They "stay in the noise."

Instead, CEOs should be asking themselves what drives value in their company. They need to ask themselves if they are working on the business or in the business. I believe the first time I came across this concept was in the "E-Myth" by  Michael Gerber and most recently in an article by Jay Ebben in Inc Magazine.

If leaders spend most of their time in the business, they are part of the problem. They should be asking themselves what they would be doing differently if there were a stock exchange for midmarket privately held companies. Most entrepreneurs are good at operating businesses-they're good at what they do. They know they need to make money, to satisfy customers, and to keep their employees happy. But do they know whether there will be a future for their products and services? Are they targeting the right market segments? Can they repeat what they've done in the past but on a larger scale? Anyone with some financial savvy will be primarily interested in the trailing twelve months. But the future is the sizzle. To build long term business value, it's not enough to have your rear view mirror polished to a shine.

Are you working on the business or in the business?

Strategic Inflection Points in the Publishing Industry

I had the good fortune of doing a book signing last Friday in New York at Book Expo America. I also spent a couple of days with the Independent Book Publishers Association's Publishing University. Although I learned a ton, met terrific people and enjoyed being around book people and books for 3 days, there was a huge gorilla in the room. In this case King Kong was named e-books.

Andy Grove, former Chairman and CEO of Intel, coined the term "strategic inflection point." Basically, a strategic infection point is a major shift in your markets. Grove has suggested that good business people know when they are in the midst of a strategic inflection point, the great ones can see it coming and the also-rans say something like "what ha-happened?"

The publishing industry is certainly struggling with the shape and form we will be using to read content in the future. The auto industry is challenged with what size, shape and propulsion options consumers will demand for their transportation. Many traditional industries are wrestling with how best to compete in this ever-changing business climate.

The balancing act for those of us in the middle market is to take advantage of emerging market trends while still keeping the lights on in our current operations. There will be a few of you that risk it all in pursuit of the next hottest thing, but more often, middle market execs will choose a strategy to "have their cake and eat it to."

As you develop your new market strategies, be very clear on your tolerance for risk and your expected return. Build transformational initiatives that are executable mini business plans. Review them early and often. Add funding when required. Pull the plug when necessary.

Focusing on current operations is necessary, but not sufficient. Focusing on the next hot thing can leave you empty-handed. Identifying specific initiatives with known tolerances for risk and return allows you to plan your expenditures and kill projects when that next hottest thing turns out to be ice cold.

Magnifying your Excellence - Find Your Strengths

I came across a term last week that I just can’t get out of my head.  Magnifying your excellence is just one of those expressions that sticks.  In fact, I’d love to pass along credit, but for the life of me I can’t remember where I heard it.  But I keep hearing it over and over in my head.

Consider your business.  If I asked you whether you magnified your excellence, some of you would shout a resounding yes, while others might bow your heads and if truth be told, would say “I’m not sure we are excellent at anything.”   You must admit, it’s tough building long term business value if you are not excellent at anything.

Magnifying your excellence maps to a story told by Marcus Buckingham.  In his public lectures, sometimes Marcus will ask the audience, “if your son brings home a report card with two A’s, 2 B’s and a D, where do you place most of your focus?”  Well if you’re like me, that D really stands out and it's very hard not to let that dominate the conversation.  Never mind that your son might be the next Stephen Hawking,  your going to make sure “no son of yours” gets a D in Language Arts!

Buckingham argues that you must find your strengths and spend your precious time maximizing them.

So now the challenge is to find your strengths and maximize your excellence.