A Quote by Douglas Merrill
You're the key barrier to your organization's innovation, because you are serious and you believe you know what your customers want.
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Products, profits, and paychecks are not enough anymore. These days, society cares how you treat your own workers. Customers want to know you promote the same values inside your walls as you do outside; job hunters want to know you care about them before they send in an application. Your culture is your brand. You need to create an organization where your employees believe in what you do.
It's very hard to establish an economy of trustworthiness. The key is continuing to innovate and to keep your customers through innovation, because the customers can leave. But once you are a dominant player that continues to innovate and provide a good deal, customers will stay with you.
Often people say they can't base their strategies on customers because customers make unreasonable requests and because customers vary too much. Such opinions reveal serious misconceptions. The truly outside-in company definitely does not try to serve all the needs of its customers. Instead, its managers are clear about what their organization can and should do for customers, and whatever they do they do well. They focus.
"Do not believe anything merely because you are told it is so, because others believe it, because it comes from Tradition, or because you have imagined it. Do not believe what your teacher tells you merely out of respect. Believe, take for your doctrine, and hold true to that, which, after serious investigation, seems to you to further the welfare of all beings."
I am thankful the most important key in history was invented. It's not the key to your house, your car, your boat, your safety deposit box, your bike lock or your private community. It's the key to order, sanity, and peace of mind. The key is 'Delete.'
Your mom is the first person you fall in love with, so it's loaded forever and carries all this baggage. There's almost always a communication barrier in place. In my case it's a language and cultural barrier, but other times, it's because your mother's love is conditional or because you're fundamentally different.
If you wait for customers to tell you that you need to do something, you're too late. Good business leaders should be half a step ahead of what customers want, i.e. they don't actually quite know they want it. That's what innovation's about. With Plan A, we didn't wait for the consumers to tell us.
If your incentives are set up wrong - if for some reason you reward people for behavior that's actually bad for your customers or your organization - then you're going to encourage that behavior.
Not being in tune with your customers is like living in an alternate reality; the way you think your customers feel about your product is not always the same as what your customers really think about your product.
I think every leader has an obligation - the absolute obligation - to treat everyone fairly. But they also have the obligation to treat everyone differently. Because people aren't all the same, and the last thing you ever want to do, in my opinion, is let the best in your organization be treated like the worst in your organization. It does nothing for your future.
If your employees are disengaged, and they don't take care of your customers, it doesn't matter how good your strategy is - your customers will still go somewhere else.
Your customers are only satisfied because their expectations are so low and because no one else is doing better. Just having satisfied customers isn't good enough anymore. If you really want a booming business, you have to create Raving Fans.
Know what your customers want most and what your company does best. Focus on where those two meet.
We can believe that we know where the world should go. But unless we're in touch with our customers, our model of the world can diverge from reality. There's no substitute for innovation, of course, but innovation is no substitute for being in touch, either.
Customers are a great way to finance a business for many reasons. First, customer financing is typically non dilutive. They want something from you other than equity in your business. Customers also help you fit your product to the market. And customers will help debug and improve the quality of the product.
Every decision in your life is controlled by your beliefs and values. You may not realize it, but you have the power to choose what you believe about your life, people, money and health. You can either choose beliefs that limit you, or beliefs that empower you to move toward success. Your beliefs energize you to create the world you want to live in right now. The key is to be aware of them because what you value determines what you focus on.
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