I’ve recently experienced this as a customer with my cell phone carrier company.  I switched cell phone providers – rolled 2 out of 3 numbers over to a new provider and cancelled the last line.  I’d talked to this company 2 times on the phone to verify that the last line was cancelled and that the old account was closed out.  But somehow they kept billing for that last line that they couldn’t figure out how to cancel.  They kept saying that it was a glitch with their system.  They’ve had great customer service and empathized with me on the phone, but they have a system issue.  And the system issue was wasting my time and creating a lot of frustration for me.  After this experience, I’ll never use their services again.  And I’ll never recommend anyone else do business with them either.  I can only imagine how frustrating it was on the employees’ end to want to provide excellent customer service, but not being able to deliver.

Employees, wanting to deliver on their job expectations, frequently create manual workarounds to avoid system issues.  These workarounds can create a lot of busy work that’s adding to your labor costs.   These workarounds become undocumented work processes, or “tribal knowledge” which may or may not get transferred to all required parties.  What is the impact of these workarounds?  Does the manual work introduce mistakes?  Are different people using different workarounds?  If so, you’ve got inconsistent processes which will lead to more mistakes that will impact the customer and cost the company money.    

So, take a look at how well your systems are working.  Is your system effective in helping you run an efficient business that’s producing a consistent high quality product/ service/ experience for your customer?  What is the impact to the customer?  What is the impact on your employees?  What are your customer service and/ or warranty costs?  How do your labor and material costs compare to industry leaders?  After you identify areas for improvement, put together a plan to shore up these weaknesses.  Standardizing and improving processes and fixing system issues are a critical component of running a competitive and successful business.

“No, you may not participate in that activity that would provide development for you and visibility for the company.  You are paid to be available.”  This individual was driven and independent.  What he heard was, “we don’t value your development or see potential for you to have increased responsibility or advancement here.”  This individual promptly developed his plan for going out on his own and left the company shortly thereafter.  Management’s shortsightedness, of only seeing his current value to the company and ignoring his potential future value, cost them a valuable member of their team.

Here’s another one, “You’re closer to being fired then promoted.”  If this was meant to spur the employee on to increased performance, it backfired.  The employee was shocked to not be recognized for the gains that had been made, and found the one sided criticism to be unfounded when lined up with the facts.  The employee at the receiving end of that comment immediately started a job search and shortly after left the company for a significantly better job, much to the great surprise of the manager. 

This one is a bit trickier… “That’s great that you successfully completed that project that saved the company millions.  If we would have hired an outside firm to help us with that, we would have had a six figure bill.” The employee’s internal response was, “I’m underpaid and undervalued by my company for the contribution I bring.  Maybe I should be out on my own doing this, and get paid what I’m worth.”  He valued monetary advancement and saw his manager’s comment as an indication that his current situation wouldn’t provide that.  And that comment may cost the company a valuable and talented employee.

So to help you managers out there, I’ve provided a few tips to help you avoid some common pitfalls that cause good employees to leave.

Have clarity on the direction you’re driving your organization.  Make sure every employee is aware what results they are accountable for and how it supports the company’s overall objectives.  Organizations that are getting things done are fun to work in.

Be a resource for your people.  Ask yourself, “What does this employee need from me to do her/his job better?”   If an employee needs support or development to better do their job, providing that opportunity can pay off big in your employees’ productivity and your company’s bottom line.

Say what you mean and mean what you say – always.  Give thought ahead of time to what you will say in one-on-one mentoring and team meetings.  Managers that “shoot from the hip” often say things that come out wrong, are misunderstood, or are just plain not helpful.  And when you say something stupid (it happens)… apologize.  Don’t worry; they already know you’re not perfect and they’ll respect you for being authentic.  Then, clarify and say what you should have said. 

Know your people – what makes them tick, what drives them, what inspires them, what will turn them off.  Talent assessments are an easy and powerful way to have insights on the strengths of your people, effective ways to manage them, and pitfalls to avoid in managing them.  Look for ways to match up their job with their passions and strengths.

Think “Sandwich”, when providing helpful criticism.  Good – Bad – Good… Tell your employee what you see that they are doing right.  Follow that with what you would like them to work on and perhaps do some brainstorming with the employee on ways to improve or have them come up with an action plan.  End with affirmation on their value to the organization and your commitment to their development and success.

Managers play a critical role and can be the make it or break it factor in keeping your best people. Having managers that are skilled at motivating, communicating and tapping into the individual strengths of their employees are critical to keep your best employees.  Otherwise your best employees will be walking out the door… or worse, walking across the street to work for your competitor.

Evidence of the need for process improvement is as close as the local grocery store

So when you’re looking at optimizing your operations – make sure your optimization efforts not only improve your efficiency, but also result in a positive customer experience. What makes for a positive customer experience? What do they want? Can you cut out steps and activities that they don’t care about? When you utilize the concepts of lean and process improvement to produce customer focused efficient processes and train your people to deliver a positive customer experience, you’ll be stealing those customers from your competitors.

Grow your sales to correspond to your capacity.

If you’re looking at increasing your capacity, make sure that you’ve considered how you’ll generate the additional sales corresponding to that increased capacity.  We’ve seen businesses acquire a bigger space, new equipment and recruit talent to provide key production capabilities.  But if there’s not a plan for bringing in the sales to take advantage of that increased capacity capability, it’s just increased overhead; a fixed cost.  And if there’s anything that will hurt your cash flow and bottom line, it’s high fixed costs.  Some questions to ask yourself are:  How much market share is out there for the taking?  Do you know what makes you better than your competitors?  Do you have an executable sales plan?  Do all your sales people have the talents and training to be a top sales performer?  Make sure that you’ve laid the groundwork for getting that additional business so you’ll be reaping the benefits of your increased capacity in profits.

Know your optimum capacity and the effect of quality.

Another common mistake is assuming you know your optimum capacity.  Typically businesses have an idea based on their existing operations what their ideal capacity is.  But before you base your target business goals on that optimal capacity number you’ll want to ask a few questions.  What effect does quality have on your capacity?  Has the waste been cut out of your operational processes?  Have you defined value in the eyes of your customers?  Every time a mistake is made or things aren’t done right the first time at any step in your process, that translates into wasted material, labor and time, which results in decreased capacity.  In our experience, businesses that have gone through the exercise of improving their quality and cutting the waste from their processes, their optimum capacity significantly increases – often by 50-100%.  And by coupling improving quality with increased capacity they are able to retain current business and gain new business.  These businesses can produce more in less space, which allows for opportunities of either staying in current facilities, instead of moving to larger facilities or reducing the amount of space needed, sometimes allowing businesses to reduce the number of building required, reducing the fixed costs of the business.

Leverage your optimized capacity, high quality and sales for increased profitability.

By utilizing a multi-pronged approach of optimizing your capacity, focusing on quality and executing a sales plan to increase sales; you are in position to operate more profitably. You can leverage your optimized capacity by lowering your prices, having a higher profit margin, investing in innovation, research and development or increasing your flexibility with customers.  Increased flexibility with customers can translate into options in lot sizes, model types, multiple features or colors. Consider your market and what sets you apart from your competitors in choosing how you will leverage your optimized capacity. 

Keeping your organization focused on the goals of target sales, optimized capacity, high quality and service enables your business to maintain competitiveness and increase profitability.

By Julia Robinson, Managing Partner Steller Solutions

So… Why should you celebrate?

Reinforces the cohesiveness of your team

Everyone wants to be on a winning team, right? Working together is fun when you’re accomplishing your goals and have wins to celebrate. Celebrating team accomplishments together reinforces the cohesiveness of the team and helps keep everyone engaged. It can also provide another venue for good communication and coordination that improves or maintains your team’s performance.

Recharges your team for the next challenge

These days we’re requiring more from our workers than ever before. Celebrating together can recharge your team so they’re ready for the next challenge. “Okay, we accomplished THAT project – what else can we accomplish? What other gains can we make?” Getting a history of wins behind you lays the groundwork for working on future big wins.

But… What if you don’t have a fat entertainment budget?

Get creative on a small budget

There’s always ways to have fun that don’t cost a lot of money. Find the “fun-factor” person in your organization and do some brainstorming with them. One organization’s celebration event featured the management team performing a reenactment of a famous music video – it brought the house down! For those of you who have to know more about this and/ or want to be mindlessly entertained here is a how-to clip, footage of this at a wedding, footage of this in a movie. (You’ve been warned – don’t blame me if you want those minutes back!) Of course, you’ll want to keep in mind what would be a good fit for your team and the culture of your organization.

Thank yous are free

Sometimes the best celebration is a handwritten note articulating a team or an individual’s contributions to the company wins. Knowing that those contributions are noticed, appreciated and recognized can go a long way in keeping your people engaged and happy. And engaged and happy employees stay with you, work hard and help you keep customers!

So get celebrating!

Make your list. Check it twice. And go celebrate the wins!

by Julia Robinson, Managing Partner  Steller Solutions

Change your focus from cutting costs to intentional spending
One of the concepts that surfaced in the discussion was intentional spending.  In an environment where profits are down and cash flow is a problem, it can be easy to just focus on cutting cuts.  But the question, “Where do we need invest?” is equally important.  To be positioned to be competitive when the market rebounds, what changes do we need to make now so we can move forward quickly?  How can we use the slow times to make the changes in the organization that need to be made?  One leader even went so far as to say hesitating on making necessary changes was a missed opportunity to move the company forward.

Some questions to ask include:
Do we need to change our business model?
Do we have the right people?
Are they a fit for their jobs?
How can we be intentional about upgrading our staff?
Is there training we need to invest in?
Are our customer’s demanding more flexibility in lot size and variety?
Do we need to invest in improving our lead times and quality?
How we can keep costs down and still maintain high customer value?

Don’t let this be a time of missed opportunity for your business
It can feel like you either have time or money.  When times are good, you’re busy making money and don’t take the time to make changes in your business to improve.  When times are tough, it takes courage to get out of “hunker down mode” and make those decisions that are necessary to stay profitable and competitive.  Don’t let this time be a missed opportunity to position your company for the future.  Exercising intentional spending – making the tough decisions to cut in some areas and spend in other areas that will position your company to move forward and be competitive in the future is what smart leaders are doing.

So one Saturday afternoon I arranged to go ice skating with some friends. I spent the whole time trying not to wipe out on the ice. I could barely get around the rink without gripping the bar around the edge. I was thankful to escape the experience with only sore ankles and without a trip to the hospital. That afternoon, I crossed the “bridge of discovery”. Suddenly I knew that my vision of gliding, spinning and jumping wasn’t just a matter of going to the rink and skating a few times. I had moved into the stage of conscious incompetence – I knew I didn’t have the skills to skate the way I wanted to.

About 10 years later, one of my daughters wanted to learn to ice skate. So the two of us enrolled in 12 weeks of ice skating lessons together. We learned to glide, stop, fall, turn, skate backwards. During those 12 weeks, I crossed the bridge of learning. This bridge of learning is a tough place to be. What do most people do in this stage? Yes – they quit. It can be uncomfortable to learn new skills and adapt to change. But the learning must occur (add a lot of perseverance at this stage) to develop the needed competence – which brought me to the stage of conscious competence.

Okay, so maybe I wasn’t THAT competent, but I could get around a lot better then I used to. I was very aware – “I’m gliding… okay, now I’m going to turn”. I knew how to execute the basic skills. After a lot of practice, using those new skills became a habit, which brought me to the stage of unconscious competence. I must refer to those more proficient then me to REALLY demonstrate unconscious competence on the ice. I looked to my instructor who never had to think twice about maneuvering through the rink. I see this demonstrated by the pros that make it look so easy. But even the pros, who so easily demonstrate this unconscious competence, if they don’t continue to stay at the forefront of their sport, are left behind. Twenty years ago performing double jumps in the Olympics was enough difficultly level to win the gold. Now doubles are commonplace, the routine must have several triple jumps and be skated flawlessly. Becoming satisfied with the current achievement and not keeping up with the industry takes one on the bridge of complacency which can land you back in unconscious incompetence.

So what does this have to do with businesses in today’s current environment? Well, where is your business in the cycles of change? Do you not know what you don’t know? Have changing times or changing technologies taken your business, which used to be thriving, into the stage of unconscious incompetence? We’ve seen this in the printing industry – digital printers and accessibility to printers online have dramatically changed the current market for the printing industry. There are many examples of how technology has sped up these changes. Have you figured out what your business needs to do to adapt, learn and improve in order to be competitive and thrive? Or perhaps you’ve figured out some areas of improvement, but you’re not sure what the most effective way to bring your company through that learning stage and habit forming stage to bring your business to unconscious competence.

We’d be happy to have a conversation about the cycles of change as it relates to your business. We partner with businesses to help them through these cycles of change as quickly and effectively as possible. Give us a call to start the discussion how we can help you accomplish the change that you’re looking for in your business.

Julia Robinson
Steller Solutions

Focus on the Right Things.

How do you ensure this happens with everyone throughout your organization? It all starts with that strategic plan! And is that plan being used to provide every individual within your organization the focus to execute their piece of that plan? Do you have measurements in place so you know whether you’re on track with your plan?

Focus on your Customers.

Without customers, no company can survive. Adapting a strategy of “wowing” your customers can be a very successful strategy. Improving your customer retention by 10% can result in doubled profits. What’s the secret to developing loyal customers? It all has to do with the experience they have – yes I’m going to say it – the emotional experience they have in their interaction with your company.

Focus on Efficiency and Quality.

If your competitors can provide your product or service faster, with higher quality, and at a more affordable price point, what’s that going to do to your market share? Companies that want to stay competitive, utilize Process improvement to stand out in their industry.

We’d be happy to talk with you about how to best utilize focus to improve your business results.

Because… We’re focused on Your Success!

Julia Robinson
Steller Solutions

To contact us to schedule a complimentary consultation call 425-485-4250 or email us.

There’s nothing like rising gas prices, an erratic stock market, sagging sales, and gloomy economic projections to get everyone worried about a potential economic slowdown or imminent recession. What’s a business to do? Here are 5 tips to prepare your business so it’s well positioned to weather whatever economic storm may be ahead.

Check your strategy

Is the key focus of your business lining up with your customer’s needs? Are you focusing on your strengths, taking advantages of new opportunities, and making sure you’re not vulnerable in your weak spots? Refreshing your current strategy will ensure you don’t grind to a stop in the wrong place.

Play to your strengths

Identify your team’s personal strengths and utilize them accordingly. Getting the right people in the right seats on the bus as Jim Collins says in “Good to Great” goes a long way in improving your organization’s effectiveness and consequently your organization’s profitability.

Don’t compromise on quality and customer service

Customers will always remember a bad experience. Some of your customers may switch for low price, but when they suffer from bad quality and poor customer service, they will be looking to take their business back to a company that meets their needs. Companies that sacrifice on quality and customer service will suffer in the long run. Companies with consistent quality and customer service will regain those disenchanted customers.

Be prepared for growth when the market recovers

Make sure that you haven’t allowed slow times to cripple your ability to act when the market rebounds. Companies that make permanent decisions to shrink in down times often get bought out or run out of business when the market rebounds.

Check your Processses

Look at your business processses: do you have duplicate activities, unnecessary steps, high inventory, lots of paper, high wait times, customer complaints? Engaging in business process improvements can be a great opportunity to lower your costs and allow you to be competitive in tough times. We’ve seen business process improvements improve efficiency from 50-700%. This is a quick way to get the edge on your competition.

So don’t become one of the nay-sayers about the economy. Figure out what you’re going to do to stay nimble and thrive in any market. We can help you identify the most effective ways to maximize competitiveness for your business. Contact us for a complimentary consultation at 425-485-4250 or info@steller-solutions.com.

To Your Future!

Julia Robinson
Steller Solutions

Similarly, when my carpet falls victim to some sharpie marker toddler artwork, I call my favorite carpet cleaner. He’s not the cheapest, but he’s great at carpet restoration (and cleaning nearly any surface), My carpet is rescued AND looks newer and cleaner then I thought it could ever look. I get excellent service every time and on top of all that, he’s super patient and very nice to my curious kids. These businesses have succeeded in developing loyal, satisfied customers.

Businesses that make it a priority to develop loyal, satisfied customers have a powerful competitive advantage. Loyal customers always return. They brag about their positive experience providing work of mouth advertising. They are willing to pay more for the product or service, and when there is a mistake, loyal customers are more forgiving.

In today’s tight economic environment, many businesses are looking at ways to maintain sales and differentiate themselves from their competitors. Many companies monitor metrics like gross sales, and profit margins to determine how they’re measuring up to where they want to be. These metrics are important- sales and profit margin data are an indication of your past success. But what about measuring your future strength? If you could measure your future strength, what would that do for your ability to compete? One measure of your future strength is your ability to develop loyal customers.

Let’s look at some facts from “The Loyalty Effect” by Frederick R. Reichheld, Bain & Co.

Raising customer retention rates by 5% could increase the value of an average customer by 25% to 100%.

A 5% improvement in Customer retention translates into a doubling of margins.

Loyal customers always return and become a dependable lifetime sales stream.

So some questions for you… Do you measure customer satisfaction or customer loyalty? Do you know the difference? How often do you measure it? What are your latest measurements? How would you rank your organization’s customer focus on a scale of 1 to 10? What would it take to get you to a 10? What would that increase enable you to do? What happens if your competitors get to a 10 before you do?

We’d be happy to talk with you to determine if a strategy of developing customer loyalty is a good solution for your organization. See how improving your customer loyalty can make the future brighter for you.

Julia Robinson
Steller Solutions