Out Damned Spot

Scientists at the University of Michigan Ann Arbor did a study that found when people washed their hands with soap and water after a decision, they felt justified about their choices and felt increasingly better about their decisions.
The decision was between appealing options. The thought is that if a person has (at least) two appealing things but must select only one, they have a tinge of regret for what they had to give up.
I haven't tried it on myself, but I am intrigued with the idea.
Hmmm. I wonder if your customer is able to be encouraged to wash their hands AFTER they leave the finance office, or AFTER they receive their service bill, they would wash away those tinges and feel even more satisfied? I wonder if you could subconsciously improve a Very Satisfied customer into a Completely Satisfied customer.
Well, why not? At least show off those sparkling, newly remodeled restrooms of yours. No harm in trying!

You've Got the Goods

This graphic was created by Scott Simmerman to illustrate how things typically work in organzations.
Simply looking at the picture leads to hundreds of ideas on how we operate each day, always with the possibility of being and doing better.
Every time I look at it I get another idea:

• we've got the good ideas in us, we don't need to look elsewhere
• we work hard but sometimes don't look where we're headed
• sometimes we can't see where we're headed
• we keep doing things a certain way because we always have
• the way we do things works, but it's not the most efficient or easiest way
• status quo is bad
• what would happen if we all pushed? or pulled?

Point is: we're on a journey, we don't really ever arrive, we can ALWAYS make improvements. Yup, excellence means looking to be better, all the time.

Call Me Quick

Two recent studies published by Forbes and Cobalt show stats that look like what we were trying to correct years and years ago. So it's a little depressing to see that many leads are wasted; 71% to quote Forbes.
The good news is that the solution is not complex.
But before diving into the solution, first look at the findings from mystery shops of over 10,000 companies:
We don't greet promptly. The average response time is 46 hours and 53 minutes. Eek.
Sometimes we don't greet at all. 20% of leads go unanswered. 60% of auto dealerships don't even call the customer, relying strictly on emails.
We give up way too soon. The average number of call attempts are 1.3.
75% of leads for "Quick Quotes" did not include a price quote.

It's obvious what's wrong with each of those stats. So whadya do?
Make sure you know what your stats are. Not what you think they are, not what your employees say they are. But verification that:

• All of Your Leads are Responded to
• Leads are responded to within 30 minutes during normal business hours
• Every Response is Complete - this will take you auditing actual responses compared to actual leads
• Your contact cadence includes phone calls - and you make more like 9 or 10 attempts versus 1 or 2

Now, follow this link and read this report. The next scary thing you will see is that leads called within 5 minutes are 100 times more likely to be contacted than if called 30 minutes later. And a contacted lead becomes a clo$ed lead, while not contacted means $0.

Help Yourself to be an Olympian

Great Britain's Jack Green broke his personal record AND qualified for the 2012 Summer Olympics back in July. What's noteworthy about that is seen in the photos of him at the starting blocks with a message boldly scrawled in green on his forearm: CHIN DOWN, FLAT BACK.
Click here to view Jack's cribnote.
I'm certain that somebody performing well enough to even get to trials for the Olympics knows the basics. So what he wrote down isn't so much to remind him something he didn't know. But still it's the basics. Jack knew that all the extra fans, and cameras, and high stakes might distract his focus from what he knew he had to do.
We all know the basics. But sometimes we think they are for beginners. Sometimes we think that we perform them seamlessly unconsciously. Sometimes we do. But most often, we are busy, we are multi-tasking, we are unconsciously doing our thing.
It's SO okay to use prompts. It's SO okay to remind yourself. You are running a race everyday and in order to win consistently you've got to do your basics. You can do them brilliantly when you attend to them.
Now I have to figure out how to pare down my basics to something that will fit on my forearm.

Yes, I Have Been AWOL

Looking at the dates between postings might make you wonder.
I've been off of writing for awhile.
Most of it has to do with my dad's failing health and following him from facility to facility and finding a place for him to exist...
Sorry that I haven't been on. It hasn't felt good to me either.
I am back.

Find and Fill in Your Gaps

If you've ever encountered a surgeon you know how extraordinarily confident (I'm being PC here) they are.

When they are going to work on you or a loved one, you want that confidence. You don't care if they are nice or funny or comforting or just human. You want them to know what to do and know they can do it. You kind of want them to be super-human.

Meanwhile, when they are working on your loved one, you are worried and waiting and wondering and wanting information and comfort and consolation.

But that same surgeon is almost always really terrible at giving understandable information or comforting or consoling.

So they need to surround themselves with those types to pick up that slack. They need a nurse or a consierge of some type to relay news in non-medical speak and update regularly and comfort and console.

It's not a bad thing to not be all things to all people.

It's bad to NOT realize where your gaps are and fill them with others who embody the talents needed.

I think that is why some organizations are so successful and others limp along. They make sure they have every base covered. They hire and train people to do all the things well. They value the different talents every day. They aren't lopsided.

Yeah, I was in the hospital waiting room again tonight and it wasn't fun and it didn't go fast and it wasn't comfortable. And the nurses acted like we were intruding on their "real" work by asking for updates. I'm not a happy camper. But I realized that hospitals aren't the only place where people don't "belong". Where we don't know what is happening behind a wall for authorized personnel only. Where a few words now and again make a huge, gigantic, comforting difference. And I might choose to come back again to that kind of place. Like the place where you work.