Message #657
Thursday, July 25, 2002
"First, say to yourself what you would be; and then do what you have to do."
Epictetus (Discourses, 2nd century)
TODAY'S MESSAGE:
Spend a few minutes this morning thinking about how you can think more like a customer and act more like a boss … and your path towards the top will become much shorter.
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IF YOU WANT TO BECOME THE BOSS ONE DAY, THINK LIKE A CUSTOMER AND ACT LIKE AN OWNER
We've talked a good deal about how you can elevate yourself
to the top position in your business. I've recommended that you:
* Get to work earlier than everyone else.
* Develop a network of
support both inside and outside your business.
* Get out of secondary lines of work and into work that is critical to the success of the business. (For example, go from customer service to customer sales.)
* Focus on how to make your business work better, not how to promote your own career. (Because the powers that be will notice -- and reward -- the person who helps what helps them.)
* Work a bit (or a lot) longer than expected.
* Besides doing a good
job on what you've been asked to do, volunteer to do more (and more
responsible) work.
Recently, I came across a bit of advice that incorporates all those specific
suggestions into a single phrase: If you want to become the boss one day, think
like a customer and act like an owner.
How Do You Think Like a Customer?
Let's start with the obvious: Your customers are interested in what's good for
them, not you. They don't really care how hard you work or how much more
complicated your business is from those of your competitors. They don't care
how much you spend on overhead or what regulations you suffer through. The only
things they care about are what you can do for them and how much it will cost
them.
By focusing on your business from their point of view, you will be able to
discover what is right and what is wrong about your sales program. By keeping
your eye on your customers' changing needs and developing desires, you'll be
able to create new projects that will appeal to them.
To think like a customer, you have to be able to put yourself in his shoes. And
that may very well mean posing as a customer to your own staff and developing
an honest and deep understanding of what it's like to do business with your
company.
Here are some questions you can ask yourself:
* What do our customers want from us? (Go beyond the
obvious.)
* How can we give them more of that? In other words, in what other ways can we reinvent, replicate, reproduce, renovate, refine, and renew the fundamental benefits of our business?
* What are the primary "hassles" that come with
the benefits of our business? How can we reduce or eliminate them?
How Do You Act Like an Owner?
What is the difference between the actions of a boss and those of an employee
(assuming both are acting in their own best interests)? The short answer is
this: Since the boss's rewards are tied more directly to the future of the
business, he thinks more directly about the future and benefits of the
business.
In terms of thinking, we might say that a boss is more likely to ask himself
the following questions:
* How can I get this business to make more money?
* How can I get this business to have more customers?
* How can I grow this business faster?
And then, that one very personal goal:
* How can I make my life less stressful?
So, if you want to be the boss one day, focus on finding answers to those four
questions. Show your boss that you are ready to take the stress out of his life
and make him richer by making his business run:
* more smoothly
* more efficiently
* more quickly, and
* more profitably
As an employee, you have a distinct advantage over your boss: You are closer to
your customers and can therefore more easily think more like them (if you try).
When you come up with ideas on how to provide more and better benefits to them,
you will be creating new and supplementary streams of income for the business.
Your boss will see you as someone who can make his dreams of having more and worrying
less come to fruition.
If your boss has been a boss for any
length of time, you also have another advantage: You can see what he has done
and not done -- which means you're much more likely than he is to come up with
truly innovative ideas. He's already spent most of his piggy bank of good
ideas. Yours is brand-new and receiving new deposits every day.
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* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
WHAT TO DO WHEN YOU'VE MADE A HARSH AND UNWARRANTED COMMENT
Asking forgiveness is more difficult and more rewarding than simply saying you're sorry. So says "Z," Executive Leadership's 25-year-veteran corporate executive. "Once you've acknowledged to yourself that you've made a mistake, act fast and make the first move," he advises. Acknowledge that what you did was wrong or inappropriate and then ask, "Would you forgive me?" At worst, you'll get "grudging acceptance" -- at best, a "new level of trust."
* * * * *
According to Senior Job Bank, a nonprofit referral service:
* 75% of 50-year-olds have less than $5,000 in the bank for retirement.
* At age 65, 45% of Americans depend on relatives for financial support, 30% depend on charities, 23% are still working (most work until they are no longer physically able), and only 2% are self-sustaining.
* Between 1995 and 2005, the number of workers 55 and older will have increased by about 31% -- from 16 million to 21 million.
* There are now more than 33 million people age 65 or older living in the U.S. By the year 2030, it is expected that this population will exceed 70 million.
* * * * *
"Churlish" (CHUR-lish) is most often used to describe someone who is boorish and unrefined. It can also mean "surly" or having a bad disposition.
MMF
Copyright ETR, LLC, 2002
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