The Donald Cooper April Business Newsletter
Volume 6, Issue 3 - April 2007
Donald's "Quote of the Month"
"To succeed in business today, you need wisdom, passion and focus...and 2 out of 3 ain't good enough!" |
"Greetings" and Happy Springtime to all! (and happy Autumn to our many readers in the Southern Hemisphere) I survived my two trips to Australia and New Zealand last month. In fact, as always, I came back invigorated by the magic of both of these extraordinary countries and their wonderful people. If you've not been, you should move both of those destinations way up your list of promises to keep to yourself.
We have more timely and thought-provoking articles for you this month, so read on. The whole thing will take about 7 minutes to read.
Other versions of this Newsletter: PDF
1. To succeed in business today, you need wisdom, passion and focus...and 2 out of 3 ain't good enough!
(time to read this article is about 75 seconds)
Every business is faced with increased competition, shrinking margins, more demanding customers and the challenge of finding and keeping great staff. The battle for customer "ownership" and long-term profitability is tough...and getting tougher. Mediocrity is no longer an option.
To thrive, or even survive, you need wisdom, passion and focus. First, you need to truly understand your business, your customers, your market and your industry. That's the "wisdom" part.
Then, you must be passionate. You must absolutely love what you do. You are the source of energy, passion and joy in your business, or your part of the business. Nobody will love it more than you do. Not your staff, not your customers...nobody.
Third, to be successful, you must be focused. The passionate and energized mind will constantly be seeing hundreds of new possibilities and directions. Seeing possibilities is important. In fact, the future belongs to those who can see possibilities and who know what to do with them. But, to be successful, you must focus on just a few of those possibilities and see them through.
How do you keep focused? You do it, first, by being clear about who your target customers are. If you're trying to be "something to everyone", you're doomed. Then, you must be clear about what you commit to deliver to those customers in the way of products, services and experiences. Third, you need to be clear about what the business will become....what it will look like and how it will do business in 3 to 5 years, how it will get there and how it will behave along the way.
Creating this kind of clarity about the business is what management is all about. If that seems like too much work, don't own or manage a business. You'll drag it down, lose money and ruin lives!
A business owner recently asked me to help him figure out why he and his business had "hit a wall" in the past two years. He had started his business from nothing and built it into a significant enterprise...but now it was stalled.
After listening to him describe his business journey, I said, "Here's your problem. At some point, when you started out years ago, you had passion and focus, but not so much wisdom. You worked hard over long hours and you gradually achieved a high level of wisdom about your customers, your market and your industry...and that wisdom, together with your passion and focus, made you successful. The problem is that somewhere along the way, you lost your passion and focus. For years you've tried to do it all yourself and now you're tired, you're overwhelmed, you need to delegate and you don't know how. You're frustrated and you don't know what to do next."
He breathed a huge sigh of relief. "That's it...that's exactly it. I have the wisdom, but I've lost much of my passion and focus...and I am tired and I am frustrated."
So, working together, we put into place a process that will bring clarity, focus and passion back to the business...and balance back to his life. He is also making the important and difficult transformation from being a "player" to being a "coach". To do this, he's learning two important things...
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The skills of being an effective leader and coach. |
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And he's learning new ways to feel good about himself and his new role in the business. |
In addition, he has created a Life Plan that includes doing with his wife and family a whole list of wonderful things that they've put "on hold" for years. He is back to having the wisdom, passion and focus that got him where he is today.
Do you have the wisdom, the passion and the focus that your business or job needs you to have? If not, which one is missing, and what's your plan to get it back?
2. Customer loyalty is "alive & well"...and nobody gets it!
(time to read this article is about 90 seconds)
My clients keep complaining that there's no such thing as customer loyalty any more. When I ask them why they think that is, the response is always the same, "It's because God's making people differently today!" That's what it sounds like when we don't take ownership of the problem. The truth is that people are desperately looking for products, services, experiences and businesses to be loyal to...and very few businesses understand that.
Life is now so complicated, so full of choices and conflicting information that whatever we go to buy, in any part of our business or our personal lives, we now know about 10% of what we need to know to make the best purchase decision for us...and we're desperately looking for "heroes" that we can trust to help us with the 90% that we don't know.
Think about your own life. If you were going out today to buy insurance, a computer, mutual funds, medication, a new car, or even groceries, I think you'd agree that in most cases you know about 10% of what you need to know to make the best decision for you...and you're probably looking for a "hero" that you can trust and be loyal to in every part of your life.
So, the irony is that while business people say there's no such thing as loyalty any more, customers are desperately searching for "heroes" to be loyal to.
You could read a book three inches thick on the subject of "customer loyalty" but here's what you really need to know. "People are loyal to what's best for them...or what they assume is best for them." That's it.
So, if you're not experiencing the degree of loyalty that you'd like in either your business or your personal life, it's for one of two simple reasons...
#1: You're not best for anyone yet...which means that you have work to do. Stop blaming God for making people differently and take responsibility for the problem. Understand who your target customers are and what life's really like for them. Then, create compelling value and extraordinary experiences that will "grab" those customers, clearly differentiate you from your competitors, make you "famous"...and make you money. Think WOW...think "amazing"! Remember, mediocrity is no longer an option.
#2: Or, perhaps you are "best" for a particular group of customers but, so far, you've done a lousy job of communicating your compelling value to those specific people. Once again, you have work to do.
What will you do to more effectively communicate your value? Everything we do communicates, so you could pretty much start anywhere. First, be clear about who you are, who your customers are, and what will "grab" them. Then, make sure that everything that your target customers see, hear or experience about you communicates your clear and compelling message. Remember, everything you do either creates or destroys confidence, builds or destroys relationships.
So, loyalty is not dead, unless you kill it. Stop blaming God for making people differently, take responsibility for earning the loyalty that you need to own customers and grow your bottom line...and then fix what needs fixing!
3. Will your next company or Association Conference deliver the bottom-line business outcomes that you need?
(time to read this article is about 30 seconds)
I speak at business conferences for a living and it always amazes me that, in many cases, arranging the golf tournament gets more attention than determining the bottom-line outcomes for the meeting and then selecting the best presenters to deliver those outcomes. It's sort of like how many humans pay more attention to who their pets will mate with than they do to picking their own life partner...but I digress.
If you're involved in any way with planning a business conference in the foreseeable future, you will want to read my quick thoughts on what your attendees really want and makes a successful event. To access my short article, click-here.
Our calendar is filling up quickly for the balance of 2007. Big chunks are already spoken for in Malaysia in July and then back in Australia in October. We've also just signed an agreement to deliver management seminars in China.
So, if your business or industry association has a conference coming up some time this year and you need a powerful, bottom-line message about what it really takes to sell more, manage smarter, grow your bottom line...and have a life, give the wonderful Sharen lady a call at 1-416-252-3703 or email her at sharen@donaldcooper.com.
4. What the world's water crisis tells us about creating opportunities in any business!
(time to read this section is about 3 minutes)
I've heard it said that in Chinese writing the word symbol for "crisis" is made up of the symbol for "danger" plus the symbol for "opportunity". What a great reminder that where there is a crisis, there is usually both danger and opportunity. We are often quick to see the danger...but slow to see the opportunities.
For example, the supply and delivery of fresh, clean water to much of the world's population is currently in a state of crisis...and it's getting worse. But, for businesses that have anything to do with treating, delivering or conserving fresh water, the opportunities are incredible, unless they mess up completely.
Humans can live for weeks without food...but after three days without water, you're dead. Many parts of the world are running out of fresh water. Last year I wrote an article in which I predicted that, in the next 20 years, there will be more wars fought over fresh water than over oil. Now, Egypt is threatening some of its neighbours with military action if they dare to extract water from the river Nile.
Not only is fresh water in short supply in most parts of the world, the pumps and pipes through which it's delivered in most big cities are old, decrepit and falling apart. In some of the world's cities it's estimated that 20% of the water "produced" is lost through underground leaks in water mains. In Mexico City the number is thought to be 27%. It will cost hundreds of billions of dollars to rebuild the water infrastructure and nobody has a clue where all that money will come from. But the work must be done and the related pipe, pump and contracting businesses will boom.
As an aside, the whole of Mexico City, one of the world's largest, is slowly sinking because water is being pumped out of the deep aquifers beneath it at such a rate that the land is literally collapsing.
Then, there's the issue of the treatment and management of waste water...another huge challenge that has serious heath and financial implications for much of the world. And that's another big business opportunity for those who develop effective solutions.
In the face of this looming crisis of supply and funding, it's strange that community water utilities generally do not charge their residential or commercial customers for the water they use. Sure, if you live in a municipality you pay a water bill, but that only covers the cost of treating and pumping the water to you. There's no charge in there for the value of the water itself.
That's a bit like buying a box of corn flakes and the price you pay covers the production cost, the packaging and the freight...but nothing for the cost of the corn itself. As preposterous as that sounds, that's exactly what we're doing with our water. When community water utilities come to their senses on this one, or are taken over by private enterprise, you'll see a huge increase in your water bill.
Here's a water conservation lesson that we could all learn from the resourceful Aussies. Every toilet in Australia has a half flush and a full flush button...it's the law! Most of that country suffers from drought conditions and water is a precious resource. In Melbourne, for example, lawn and garden watering restrictions are so severe that it's hurting the business of garden centers and landscape contractors are getting out of the business. Homeowners simply won't spend money on lawns and gardens that are just going to turn brown and die.
So, back to the toilets. If what you put in there just needs a small amount of water to flush it away, you press the "half-flush" button and save water. Only if you need heavy duty flushing do you press the "full-flush" button. How clever is that?
And yet, in desert cities like Phoenix, Palm Springs or Las Vegas, I've never seen these toilets in use. They don't even have to invent them. The Aussies already did. They just have to copy the idea. It ain't rocket science, but nobody has picked up on the business opportunity here.
Much of the world's water, of course, is the salt water in the oceans that is not drinkable...nor can it be used for irrigation. The conversion of salt water into fresh water through the process of desalination is big business...and getting bigger. The Dow Chemical Company supplies the membranes to the world's largest desalination plant, located in Israel and General Electric, one of the world's smartest companies, has created a separate Division to build, equip and manage massive desalination plants around the world. One such plant in Algeria, North Africa will produce 53 million US gallons of fresh water a day.
Bottled water is also big business! How big? Globally, it's up to $35 billion...and growing fast. Swiss based Nestlé S.A., the world's largest food company, is also the largest bottled water supplier. In second place is the DANONE Group, the French company best known in North America for yogurt.
But here are a few facts about bottled water that you may want to consider...
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About 30 percent of bottled water has chemical and bacterial contamination above the levels considered safe by state and industry regulators |
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Some bottled water contains levels of arsenic that pose a potential health concern. |
Your best bet for safe, clean drinking water is to put in an under-sink purifier. The reverse-osmosis type is very reliable. If you don't want to invest the money to do that, a simple $30 pitcher with a charcoal filter is better than most bottled water. This creates more business opportunities in the supply of in-home water systems.
So, clearly, where there is a crisis, there are also opportunities. What are the crises or challenges facing your community, your industry, or your customers...now and in the future? And what huge opportunities could they bring?
5. Bits & Pieces:
(time to read these bits of wisdom is about 45 seconds)
Item #1: Car facts...
Each Chrysler dealership in the USA sells an average of 250 new vehicles per year. For GM dealers the number is 288 vehicles per year and for Ford, it's 375.
I know that these numbers are averages and there are lots of big volume dealerships, but still I would have thought that the numbers would be much higher than that. When you consider that most dealerships have 5 or 6 sales people, these are not big numbers.
Item #2: By 2020, China is expected to be the world's #1 tourist destination and the world's 4th largest source of outbound tourists.
Item #3: The #1 grocery industry new product introduction in 2006 in North America, by dollar sales, was not a food product at all. It was the new Gillette Fusion razor.
Item #4: According to The Fraser Institute, a conservative Canadian "Think Tank", 45% of the average Canadian families income go to pay taxes at one level or another. 35% goes to pay for the basics of life, food, clothing and housing.
By my calculation, this leaves approximately 20% of the average families income for beer and hockey tickets.
Item #5: The average number of times that smokers try to quit before they're successful in kicking the habit is...17 times.
6. How about creating an extraordinary business by doing the right thing extraordinarily well?
(time to read this article is about 40 seconds)
Businesses in the Western world frequently accuse their Asian competitors of shady or corrupt practices but, sometimes, we need to look in the mirror.
Regulators in the European Union have recently fined OTIS Elevators, a division of United Technologies, and four other elevator makers $1.3 billion (US) for price fixing in Germany, Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands. That's not $1.3 million...that's $1.3 BILLION.
Four USA makers of diet pills have just been fined a total of $25 million for making false advertising claims about their products. And 150 cases of alleged fraud by major pharmaceutical companies are currently on the docket of the US Department of Justice. The charges range from improper pricing and illegal marketing to the payment of bribes in connection with the sale of medical devices.
It seems to me that, as business people, we all have a fundamental decision to make...
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Are we going to create an extraordinary business by doing the right thing extraordinarily well?...or, |
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Are we going to try to succeed by cutting corners, breaking the law or deceiving and manipulating our customers into buying inferior products or services at inflated prices? |
Are you building a trusted and respected Brand or are you running the risk of fines, punishment, disgrace and lost customers? Which fundamental decision have you made...and are you living that commitment in everything you do?
7. Our Quiz of the Month:
(time to read this section is about 30 seconds)
Thanks to all of you who answered our March Quiz question, which was..."Oil is the #1 most traded commodity in the world. What commodity is #2?"
The answer is "coffee".
Congratulations to Wayne Tjoelker of Deloitte, this month's winner who selected our "The Simple Truth About Business Leadership" DVD Seminar as his prize.
This month's Quiz: In 2006, China surpassed the USA as the world's second largest exporter. What country remains in the #1 position as the world's largest exporter?
Send your guess to Sharen Skene, our wonderful Director of Marketing, at sharen@donaldcooper.com. Each correct answer received within 10 days will go into the 'pot' and one winner will be randomly selected. The winner will receive their choice of any of our excellent DVD Video Seminars worth $60 to $80.
8. Update on my transformational 2-Day Management "Boot Camps":
(time to read this section is about 10 seconds)
We continue to receive requests from businesses who want to attend our Boot Camps, should they be offered in a city near them. If this program is of interest to you and your management team, please contact Sharen and let her know where you're located.
We still have a few spots open for our Saskatoon, SK program on May 28 & 29 and are scheduling Boot Camps for June and early fall in Toronto, Edmonton and Vancouver.
In addition to this being an excellent program for your management team...why not consider inviting your valued clients.
For more information on this transformational program and to register, simply email Sharen at -sharen@donaldcooper.com- or call (1) 416-252-3704.
9. That's all for this month:
(time to read this section is about 15 seconds)
"Thanks" for all of your great feedback and suggestions. We especially love to hear of your successes using our insights.
Don't forget to visit our Free Articles section on our website for lots more valuable info on how to sell more, manage smarter and make more money in your business.
Also, let us know what you'd like to hear more about...or less about. And, do send us your stories and examples of great, horrible or just plain bizarre business practices that you find in your travels.
Finally, if you know of others, anywhere in the world, who will find value in this E-Newsletter, we'll appreciate your sending this along to them and inviting them to sign up at www.donaldcooper.com.
Donald Cooper, MBA
Canadian Speaking Professional
Member of the Canadian Speaking Hall of Fame
For information about booking Donald for your company or Association, contact Sharen Skene our wonderful Director of Marketing at Sharen@donaldcooper.com.
Back Issues of our Newsletters are available on our website (along with lots of other valuable articles and implementation tools). | 