Grow From Here

From miracles to what goes bump in the dark to what swims in the seas, our communication journey continues.

Learn why Jaws was not a good communicator in this latest episode…

Communication, Fun, Video Tips

A great quote I came across this week:

An entrepreneur tends to bite off a little more than he can chew hoping he’ll quickly learn how to chew it.

-Roy Ash, co-founder of Litton Industries

It made me laugh, but it’s so true – how can we ever make progress if we don’t do more than we know we can?

At our team meeting this week we were talking about being extraordinary.  Today is not a day for clear answers – rather it’s one for good questions, but biting off a little more than we can chew is often not a bad idea…

What successes have you found from biting off more than you can chew?  And what has made you smile this week?

Business Growth, Communication, Fun

Continuing on our obsession with effective communication, we move from working miracles to shining a light on dark places with tip #2.   Unexpected things happen when people are kept in the dark.

Communication, Fun, Video Tips

There have been a few examples recently of potential vendors who waste their opportunities to do business with us. It got me thinking about what makes for a waste of time.  Because I really do want to do business with other companies, but I want them to make it easy for me and to show me how great they can be.  (I know I sound curmudgeonly as I write some of this, but it’s from the heart…)  So here’s what I do and don’t want, and then what we commit to for our potential customers.

The biggest errors from potential vendors to us in the last few weeks have been:

1) Lack of clear message

I was at an event where a series of presentations were made. One of them looked interesting – an opportunity to support a group I would like to help by using their skills. Unfortunately the presenter didn’t know his core differentiator or how to describe his offering clearly – or if he did, he wasn’t able to articulate it to the group. During question period attendees asked ‘but what do you do?’, ‘what can you do for me?’, and unfortunately the answer was essentially ‘almost anything you want’. Instant loss of credibility when talking to a business.

2) Process for the sake of process

A company I was interested in doing business with sent me an introductory questionnaire, including questions that I didn’t even understand like ‘A story about your relationship with this industry or company’.

I’m sorry – what relationship with what industry or company? Not only is the question impossible to answer, but I don’t see how it will move us closer to doing business together.

On top of that, the questionnaire had lots of deep probing questions about our business strategy, marketing strategy, etc. Again, none of those will help move us closer to doing business. All they do is take up my time filling in the answers or make me think that you don’t know what you’re doing and so are asking lots of generic questions that are really ‘fishing for a problem’ so you can propose a solution.  They don’t tell me what solutions you offer or help me narrow in on whether I can use one of them.

Lastly, the questionnaire asked for our company’s address, website, phone, email, fax, social media links, my name, phone, email, etc in great excrutiating detail. Again, a waste of my time. Ask me for our contact us page & maybe my contact details (if you don’t already have them) & then go do the research yourself. Until I have decided to do business with you, ask me only what you need to know to help us both get closer to a solution, and please help me understand how answering the questions you do ask will benefit us both.

3) Meeting mania

You’ve learned that a meeting will get you to get closer to doing business with me. That’s fine. But make sure the meeting provides me with value and is not just to ‘move the sales process along’.

If I take the time to meet with you, please come with an agenda, a plan and a clear way that we will each benefit from the time. Once you have established that rapport, please try to send me what you can by email, with any questions clearly phrased so I can respond at my convenience. Please don’t ask for frequent meetings so you can build rapport – if they’re not adding to my perception of your value in a tangible way, I will hesitate to do business with you because I’ll be afraid that it will take too much face time.

4) No clear qualification process

One vendor I met with recently (yes, a meeting first!) asked me lots of questions about our business and our needs, said that he would go away and find out how they could solve our problems, set a follow-up meeting time, and then never showed up. My assistant followed up with his company to see whether he was just running late & apparently they couldn’t reach him. We never heard from him again.

I have no idea whether he decided our needs weren’t big enough for the service they offer, or were too hard to solve, or whether he just forgot. But I’m guessing that it’s the first one – we don’t need a lot of his solution. If so, that’s fine, but I really appreciate vendors who pre-qualify clearly. If you say to me ‘we want to work with company of size x-y’ and if I’m not in that size, then neither of us is wasting time exploring options, and goodness knows we both have lots of other things to do!

Which leads to my commitment to our customers & potential customers

1. We will tell you what differentiates us.
   1. If it’s not clear enough, please let us know! We’ll fix it.
   2. If the message has no value, please let us know! We’ll fix it.
   3. If you couldn’t care less about what we think differentiates us, please let us know! We’ll fix it.
2. We will not ask you for information that we can find on your website or through a little research. We value your time and respect the great things you are doing.
3. If we ask you for any information where you don’t see the direct benefits to what we are asking, please let us know. We don’t need to know everything about your business plans and strategy – we only need to know what may have an effect on what we are doing together.
4. Especially in the first phases of getting to know each other, we want to help you quickly either rule us in or out as a potential vendor. If you’re not going to work with us, we know you have other business strategies to move forward.
5. We will absolutely respect your time & do as much as we can to move things forward without your involvement.
6. We will come to each meeting or conversation with a clear agenda and goals to achieve. If you want to change that on the spot, feel free.
7. We will not ask for meetings to make us feel good; warm and fuzzy is lovely, but if it’s not moving your business forward, we have no business taking up your time.
8. We know what qualifies companies to work with us and helps them get the most value. We will not be afraid to tell you what it is. We will tell you if you do not fit that criteria; not to offend you but to save your time. And if at all possible, we will suggest other companies who do work with your type of business.
9. We will not miss scheduled meetings or be late without letting you know. We are proud when our customers laugh at us about how prompt we are to scheduled meetings. Every minute you spend waiting for someone to arrive is a minute you are not making money – we want you to make money and grow your business.

If we miss the mark on any of these, please let us know.  And feel free to share with us anything else we can do to be better prospective vendors for your company.

Best Practices, Business Growth, Communication

Communication can sound fuzzy, but a team with solid communication can accomplish miracles.

At Open Box, we’re all a little obsessive about communication - what works, what doesn’t, and how to have fun doing it.

Nothing can be as exciting and good for a business as good communication where people building on ideas and creating together.

And nothing is as destructive as bad communication – passive aggressive, stonewalling, talking at cross purposes…

We have created a series of short videos about the communication game – we hope you enjoy them, and do suggest more ideas for great communication tips – all suggestions gratefully welcomed

Business Growth, Communication, Fun, Video Tips

… and what makes it scary

I just relearned a lesson that I have learned before – asking for feedback is a huge winner for me and for our company.

We talk a lot about feedback at Open Box, both internally with each other and externally with customers and partners.  We try to end every project with a request for feedback on how the process went and whether it reached its business objectives for the customer and what we did well and what we can improve.  Last year we reached out to past customers asking if we could shoot some video about their experiences working with us.  Then in July our company was nominated for an award that also relates to the personal values of the entrepreneur running it, so I reached out to people in the community that know me well enough to comment on my values and how they have affected the community around us.

It makes me wonder why we don’t do this more often…

I think sometimes we see the little glitches and magnify them mentally so we are afraid to ask.

I think sometimes we are too busy to remember to ask.

I think sometimes we are afraid that if we ask for feedback, then we will need to do something with it, and maybe we feel too busy to want to take that new stuff on.

I think sometimes we take for granted the things we do really really well and forget the impact they can have on customers.

Every time we’ve asked for feedback, the results have been amazing; touching, humbling and very affirming about where we excel.  Feedback

• invigorates the team
• reminds us that we are providing the kind of value we want to provide
• remind us that our vision (setting people free to be their best using technology) is not just words on paper, but actually takes life in the projects we do
• gives perspective, encouragement, validation and fresh energy.

I shared this idea with one entrepreneur I know a while back when she was struggling with how to market her company, and her past customers came through big-time; giving her phrases that were much stronger and more powerful than anything she would have come up with on her own.  So there’s another benefit – getting great marketing content and materials.

What have you learned through asking for feedback?

If you want to learn more about the type of feedback we’ve received, check out our customer testimonials or our videos (all done thanks to the amazing feedback we’ve received).

What have you learned through asking for feedback?  Did it hurt?

Best Practices, Business Growth, Communication