What is the one thing that you do well in your business? When I owned the world famous Wellesley Bread Company I excelled at making bread. I was that with four simple ingredients you could create world class bread! Most people don’t realize that there are 10 stages of bread making and I wanted to master each of them. So I studied, and began learning everything I could that would make me a world class bread baker. but I also needed to run a business.
I knew early on that if I had a team of experts in place, in fields in which I knew nothing about I could focus on making world class bread and leave the other not so fun stuff to them. I am recommending that you do the same. I went around to the other business owners in town and began introducing myself and my business. I wanted the other business owners in town to know what I did and I wanted to know what they did, its called relationship building.
I wanted to get to know each and every business owner in town not only as an owner but as a person. I was always welcomed with open arms then again I usually had fresh baked muffins with me, which helps.
It was a great way for me to market the world famous Wellesley Bread Company for short money. I also made it a point to get to know my customers just the same. I wanted to know who was doing business with me and reconize them every time they walked in the door, Its called building brand loyalty.
Ironically many of the people on my team were my customers. I knew that if I was the smartest person on my team the world famous Wellesley Braed Company was in trouble. When a problem arose, I knew exactly who to call, and because I had also built a personal relationship with them, I never worried I was in good hands.
I would do business with them and they would do business with me, This also applied to my employees, I had no problem hiring people that were more skilled than I was or actually knew more than me because it was a chance for me to learn!
I hired a very skilled cake decorator that could do things with frosting that would make the Ace of Cakes head spin. Lisa’s cake decorating skills were nothing short of amazing! Unfortunately her getting to work on time skills left something to be desired, but that is another story for another time.
While Lisa was employed at the world famous Wellesley Bread Company I allowed her to own that part. When a customer would come into order a cake Lisa would consult with them, she took a lot of pride in her decorating ability and the end result was always and edible masterpiece. Lisa was happy, the customer was happy and I was making a small fortune on Lisa’s cake decorating ability so I was happy. I could never do what Lisa did and it didn’t make sense to do so, that is why I hired her. With Lisa’s expertise in place I could continue focusing on making world class bread and growing my business.
How well do you know your employees? Better yet how well do you know your customers. If you get to know them better you might be amazed at the skills they could bring to your table and possibly take your business to the next level.
What does your team look like? Do you have a Lisa, if you don’t you should. Do you know you customers, if you don’t you better and by name. They say the sweetest sound a person can hear is their own name. Do you know why a number of small business fail? Are you the smartest person on your team?
Good article on lead nurturing. Putting our constituents, whether they be business partners, employee’s, or customers on a pedestal and show casing their strengths is just plain smart because it brings out the best in everyone. Good quote from Dale Carnegie the sweetest sound to anyone is the sound of their own name. Especially when they are being praised.
- Joel
Hello Joel In my opinion Dale C knew a few things about being human and interacting. I also like, is It is impossible for someone not to like you if they truly believe you like them. I’m am very interested in the how human beings interact with each other specifically in sales. I have worked at companies where the boss believed he was the smartest person on the team and would always take credit for other peoples work.
Marc
If you’ve ever watched the movie The Pirates of Silicon Valley, I’m sure you remember the scene where Steve Jobs takes his team to Xerox and convinces the upper management to let them talk the Xerox engineering team about some “irrelevant” graphical user interface methods they were developing. In the film you can see the engineers getting angry that their bosses thought so little of their work as to let an outside company come in and put their hands all over it. The pirates made off with the irrelevant loot and the rest is history. That being said, you’ve made a really valid point about organizational culture and synergy. Organizational synergy has to begin with the attitude of the leadership toward the internal and external customers of the organization. You’ve got me thinking. Thanks again for the post and taking the time to answer the comments.
I loved that movie, Unfortunately many companies today have the same attitude. Employees are a companies biggest assist, companies that realize this and take advantage of employee brilliance seem to always fair better just look at Zappos. By the way my favorite scene in that movie is when Bill Gates sells IBM an operating system that doesn’t exist, IBM agrees and says everybody knows that the money is in the computer not the software, Brilliant!