Week of September 25, 2006
Friday, September 29th, 2006Hey everyone, here we go. . . . . .
IN OUR WORLD: This was a week full of meetings. We are working with our strategic clients on 4th quarter ideas and getting ready for 2007. We had great news from two clients and now have strong projects ready to role in the first quarter of 2007!
I have very mixed feelings about the effectiveness of meetings. Most think that meetings are doing and sometimes they are. But, most of the time they serve a very different end. Just for a moment, think about the last few meetings you attended, include conference call’s in that grouping. Could the same end product have been achieved through different means? How much time was not directly associated with the goal of the meeting? Was there a real agenda and did it show forethought and was it managed to achieve the best use of everyone’s time?
I know the necessity of moving projects through the idea, planning, progress and completion phases, but I remain amazed at how little thinking goes into meetings.
In our world we NEVER have a meeting or participate in a conference call without the use of our 3 part planning forms. These are simple in-house tools we use to prepare for our client interactions. Prior to a meeting we fill out the 3 core elements of our needs. We use a different colored pen to record everything from the meeting and at the end we know, from the CREATIVE VENTURES perspective, what’s “on the table” as actionable items.
Simple thing, but it makes all the difference in the world
THINGS YOU SHOULD KNOW: There continues to be a phenomenal push towards the critical nature of “service” in business success. It is again making its way to the top of topics written about in the media. We have always put our program – A Step Ahead, as a key idea for our clients, but it is now gaining momentum to mimic the push in business America.
Here is an idea. With our BENDING (taking trends, other industry practices and BENDING them to meet new opportunities for our clients) techniques we have found a huge opportunity in shifting from a service (technical) to a hospitality mindset.
This comes from industries like hotel, food and beverage, and transportation. It deals with the powerful, emotional side of customer interaction. It involves both a contact and recovery strategy.
Mistakes happen, especially when you consider all the customer interactions that happen on a daily basis. Think about a doorman at a luxury hotel. He comes into contact with hundreds of people everyday. Take a success rate of 95% percent and he will have damaged his client’s customer relationships by 5 people for every hundred he contacts.
Those 5 damaged people (following the physics concept of precession – bodies in motion effect other bodies in motion) will tell their friends and associates and like a wave crashing on the shore, it will impact an entire invisible population of potential customers. That’s why you have to have a recovery strategy in place and it deserves a balance of the same attention you put on the point of contact. In fact, a recent study at the Wharton School of Business showed that more customer loyalty is developed when a service failure is followed by a remarkable recovery.
Focus strategic attention on customer service and watch the culture shift to caring about the emotional connection between you and the client.
Need some help making this a substantive part of your 2007 strategy? Give us a call!
MOVIES: The Guardian hits the theaters today. It is the new Kevin Costner movie about Coast Guard rescue swimmers. Our friends got a sneak preview and loved it. I have a new respect for Costner when I saw him on Inside The Actors Studio (great show that interviews actors and directors from a college campus). His insight into his art was fantastic.
NetFlix Fans: Try Dark City. This is an odd but fascinating movie that makes me stop every time I see it on the satellite. Part mystery, part fantasy and part sci-fi. A really interesting choice.
BOOKS: When clients see our storyboarding process they always ask, “Where did you learn to graph and sketch ideas?” If you want a way to visualize your ideas in something other than words get The Creative License by Danny Gregory.
I am behind on my fiction reading as my time has been consumed by both magazines and internet publications. I did enjoy my first Repairman Jack book by F. Paul Wilson and will get another one as soon as I get to the greatness of Borders or Half Price Books.
MUSIC: I love the song One World by the New Orleans based band, The Subdudes (from the Behind the Levee CD). Also try Everything by Stereo Fuse. Both are available at iTunes.
SOUTH OF NORMAL: It’s not just young, hip entrepreneurs that occupy the various businesses populating South of Normal. So move over you flip flop, jean and t-shirt, iPod listening (hey, that’s me!) kids, we baby boomers want some South of Normal real estate!
Jeff Taylor, the creator of Monster.com has developed a little piece of the internet just for us. Eons (www.eons.com) is a web based social community for us 50+ members. It is a celebration of life with the site divided into 7 categories such as, fun, love and money.
The site is exploding in popularity and provides a unique connection opportunity in the ever expanding social networks evolving on the internet. Most of the cool gang find it hard to imagine a bunch of what they term “old folks” could give them a run for their MySpace money on the internet.
She confessed that when you lay your dreams to rest, you can get what’s second best, but it’s hard to get enough.
David Wilcox
Drop me a note with your comments at creativeventures@nova1.com.
Thanks for stopping by and until next time, Adios and Aloha.