Real Returns by Dan Mikulskis

The one thing … all category of one companies have in common is that they talk about the same things over and over – that’s how culture is created. Say it simply, don’t hide your mission away in corporate language.

2. Greatness is a decision

Greatness needs to be a decision –  to do what it takes to make it happen. It’s not easy and it does require complete commitment to make the changes needed. A commitment to do the heavy lifting of prepration and research. It’s much easier to do something superficial, but ultimately you get what you want most. It’s a moment-of-truth type moment, but you have to get to a gut-level decision (rather than an intellectual decision) to go. Many get the intellectual decision not the “gut level commitment”.

3. Be ok with change, focus on fast decisions, rather than correct forecasts

Today, major changes don’t happen  occasionally, they happen all the time. It’s more difficult to see them coming. You have to be willing to be wrong in your forecasts. It doesn’t mean you shouldn’t forecast, it means that instead of success being based on getting things right it’s based on being able to move from one decision to the next.

How to change effectively? Be ok with not knowing what’s going to happen next. It doesn’t mean you’re frozen into inaction, but it means that you know you can make the necessary adjustments when the time comes.

4. EVERYBODY says that their people are the differentiator…

But if in fact your people really are the differentiator, and you can say that about ALL of them, then this is indeed a powerful advantage. So the challenge becomes to create that advantage and then to prove it. It’s not an easy thing to achieve. But you must be able to explain the benefit of the benefit.

5. You brand is not your logo or name – it’s what resides in the mind of your customers

what they think of you, what your promise to them is and whether you’ll keep it. To maintain strength requires focus from everyone in the organisation. Inconsistency is a brand killer. You can advertise 24 hours a day and have some superstars. but if you have some people in the organisation that do not fulfill the promise then that could be a critical weakness to the brand,

6. Accept that quality product, service and price are all a given. Service and experience are primary competitive factors

A quality product, good service and a competitive price are all at the commodity level. If you have those then you are “a pound of nails”. To transcend commodity you have to go to the next level and the best way into that level is knowledge of the customer.

Price and quality are not the primary competitive factors – these are assumed. Service and experience are the primary competitive factors.

Great service is a very powerful competitive and loyalty factor indeed, but is hard to achieve. So many companies will take the easier route and go for gimmicks rather than do the hard work needed to get service right (which is why we have hotel origami).
“At Les Schwab Tyres they RUN to the car!”

7.  Follow the Customer rules (the single greatest advantage in business)

1. Know more about the customer than anyone else

2. Get closer to the customer than anyone else
3. Emotionally connect better than anyone else

If you’re successful it means you know what used to work.

the new reality is that you have to meet a whole load of customer experience benchmarks that have nothing to do with the industry that you are in. it has to do with the business someone else is in. customers remember an experience from one domain, and it becomes the baseline for all others.

8. What’s your tiebreaker

what’s your tiebreaker? what’s the one thing that will close the deal in you favor and your competition can’t match.

eg – Be extremely easy to work with
Return calls and emails immediately
Resolve issue in favor of the client whenever possible
Keep expenses as low as possible
If I’m not the right fit for the job, recommend a competitor
Free shipping on orders and returns (Zappos)
No change fees and a ridiculously easy to use website (Southwest)

9. Design the experience

The customer’s experience of doing business with you has become the new competitive factor.

Does your customer’s experience emerge bottom up from a disparate and assorted series of transactions, interactions or was it designed to be that way with each interaction set up to deliver the experience?
It’s great to receive some positive feedback about a particular member of staff in a store who went out of their way. What’s better is a letter that says that whichever store a customer goes to the experience is always the same.