They just want to be heard and valued.

Something unfortunate happens when some are given the title Leader – they begin doing a lot of talking and not enough listening. One of the most important responsibilities of a leader is to motivate and inspire those he or she leads. It’s difficult to create an environment for motivation and inspiration to take place when you have no idea what motivates or inspires the members of the team.

I’ll let you in on a little secret: EVERYONE wants to be heard and valued. The leader has to be intentional about listening to the members of the team – discovering what they care about (personally and professionally). If you show me a leader who understands what’s on the minds and in the hearts of people in the organization, I’ll show you a leader who has a chance to really lead. Show me a leader who is preoccupied with talking (stuck in the leader knows best trap), and I’ll show you a leader whose failure is right around the corner. Be careful not to hang on too tightly to this leader. His or her fall will take you for a long ride – downward.

No time to play it safe.

The prolonged downturn in the global market is having a profound impact on careers. Many are plagued by fear and spending lots of time hiding – that’s right hiding. Those who once leaped at an opportunity for the truly challenging and invigorating assignment are now keeping their heads down and trying to hang on ‘til the war (the economic war that is) is over.

Hey! The best opportunity to make your mark is when others shrink back and the competition is less intense. Find the new and exciting opportunity. Go find it if it hasn’t found you and keep growing and expanding your skills. This is no time to play it safe. The time out is over…Let me in coach!

Give More to Get More - The New Paradigm

A lot has been written about customer satisfaction, customer loyalty, customer engagement, customer experience, customer relationship management and other terms that attempt to capture the notion of improving the value derived from relationships between a provider of products or services and a buying customer. While a lot has been written, I am convinced that when you 'boil it down to a low gravy', real success can only be achieved in the business-to-business relationship (two companies doing business with each other) when the product or service provider does the unthinkable - focus its attention on giving more to the customer before thinking about how to get more in return...a familiar truth that also works in business.

Before you rush to the comment section of the post to unleash your various forms of capitalism-based retorts, please hear me out. I am not talking about philanthropy or unprofitable business ventures. I am talking about an approach to running a business that leads to unprecedented levels of customer engagement and sustained profit growth. Yes, the kind of business every company desires to have.

But, in reality, here is how the process typically works in most organizations. I am sure this sounds familiar to many of you.

"Let's see how much profit we can make from these customers to reach our profit targets for this year's budget. Or, maybe we can replicate the high levels of customer profitability we enjoy with our 'best' customers. By the way, what can we do to get more of these high profit customers? Can we get a price increase and take out more costs?" Yes, this seems to be the conversation of the day and it is an important conversation.

But, can you imagine a different conversation that begins with the customer's profitability at the center?

A conversation that goes like this..."How can we help customers make more money by doing business with us versus our competitors? What are the specific things we can provide that are valuable to the customer (from the customer's perspective) and can't be matched by our competors? Let's measure the financial impact of what we provide...how does it impact the customer's bottom line and how do we continuously improve the impact over time? Maybe this will help us make the right investments, trim costs without hurting the business and continue to outpace our competitors by taking profitable share."

This second conversation uncovers and acknowledges something we already know: all products, services and customers are not created equally. However, most approaches to managing customer relationships seem to omit this fundamental truth. Again, before rushing to the comment section of this post, I invite you to answer the following questions about your business (or some other business if your business has this new paradigm in place and firing on all cylinders).

Does your organization know specifically how you help customers make more money?

Does your organization understand specifically how it will make customers more money in the future?

Does your organization measure and track how much more money customers make doing business with you relative to competitors?

And, does your organization measure and track how much money customers make doing business with you over time?

Hey, the new paradigm of business success is simple...you have to 'give more to get more' one customer at a time. I would love your thoughts.

d keith pigues
"Helping people get more out of work and life than they ever thought possible."