Achieving Business Excellence

I have some very strong beliefs about what it takes to run a highly successful business and right at the top of my list is: Whoever “owns” the voice of the customer and uses that information to build an organizational culture of Extreme Customer Focus will own the marketplace.

Here’s why: When you focus intensely on your customers and provide customer service that truly meets and exceeds their specific needs, you win their loyalty at a level that is nearly impossible to shake—even when that competitor down the street is offering giveaways and steep discounts, or your market is crowded with dozens of me-too products or services.

Simply put, Extreme Customer Focus produces unparalleled customer service, and unparalleled customer service creates an unfair advantage for you. And what business owner wouldn’t want an unfair advantage? Continue reading “The Secret to Owning Your Market” »

Some great, quick tips from guest blogger – Bert Doerhoff

 Your business may be successful because it makes an excellent product, has excellent customer service or has excellent employees. No matter what it is that makes your business a success, it is not enough to make your business excellent. Excellence is something that is used to describe a business that not only succeeds in one area, but in all aspects of business.

Is your business excellent? If so, what makes it that way? If not, what changes, whether big or small, do you need to make to ensure you will reach excellence? Here are some tips collaborated from the Web that will help make your business truly excellent. Continue reading “Tips for Small Business Excellence” »

Just a few weeks ago I had the great honor of presenting a program at the Apple Specialist Marketing Conference. My talk was entitled “The New Normal” and focused on how these folks, who sold such incredible Apple products, could continue to be successful as the realities of business and economics remained in constant fluctuation. The talk was even more poignant given the fact that Steve Jobs had passed away just a week earlier. Here is a very brief excerpt of some of the ideas I shared on how I feel companies can survive and thrive in… The New Normal.

PS – Do not forget that I am participating in this fantastic event…

During this week alone I will meet with eight different entrepreneurs who are all looking to start businesses. Some are building mobile apps, some are starting publications, some are going into manufacturing, and one is creating a TV show. Yet even though they’re all over the place with what they are focusing on as a business, my advice about how to be successful as an entrepreneur was just about the same to all of them. Here are some of the key ideas I shared with them for what I feel it takes to successfully create and grow an entrepreneurial business. Continue reading “How To Be a Successful Entrepreneur” »

A few weeks ago a good friend of mine that is starting up a new professional services firm asked me to have lunch with him to talk about what he would need to focus on to be successful in our town. Here is the exact memo I sent to him and I think that much of it applies to just about any business and /or any individual trying to separate themselves from the rest of the market – especially a local market. Take a look through my suggestions and see which ones might work for you and your organization. Continue reading “How to Win in a Local Market” »

Last week I delivered a workshop on the “Leader of the Future” to a group of Directors at the Florida Recreation and Parks Association annual meeting (The FRPA is my longest standing client – 17 years – wow!). Most of these folks have 20 to 30 years in their careers and I told them at the end of the workshop that there was probably very little “new” information that I taught them… but my goal was simply to remind them of the core fundamentals of business excellence and challenge them to take a long hard look in the mirror and see if they were actually living these things every single day in their organizations. Continue reading “The Knowing-Doing Gap” »

How do you build a 25 billion-dollar company? 

PEOPLE + SERVICE + CONNECTION TO THE CUSTOMER

Yes, it is just that awesomely simple!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MxIwlm8QX8Y&feature=player_profilepage

I have just returned from two days of facilitating a strategic planning retreat for the board of directors and staff of the Tree Care Industry Association (TCIA). This is a great organization that has been around for years and years, with absolutely fantastic people in the tree care industry. As part of the planning process I did a survey to more than 1,000 of their association members to ask a few questions about where they saw the industry heading and what they were looking for from their association. I cannot express to you how valuable the feedback we got from the membership base was, and how important of a role it played in setting the strategy for the next few years of the association. My point? Even though this is a highly successful organization that interacts a good deal with their membership they realized they were not doing nearly a good enough job of actually… listening to their customer. Continue reading “Would You Like To Double Your Profits?” »

I have just returned from presenting a workshop at the Apple Specialist Marketing Conference (what a great group of people, and I got to meet Steve Wozniak while I was there – a really fun and interesting guy!). The session I delivered was on “Building  Increased Accountability” and was extremely well received, so I thought I’d share a couple of the key takeaways with you here on my blog. Continue reading “Creating MORE Accountability” »

I really liked this book – thought it was full of great information. Click on the cover to learn more about “From Bud To Boss.”

.I hope you found this podcast helpful, I look forward to your comments, feedback and suggestions for future podcast topics.  Thanks so much – take good care, John