By Mike Myatt, Chief Strategy Officer, N2growth
Is the customer really always right? How far should a company go to satisfy their clientele or customer base? What is the lost opportunity cost associated with customer churn? Is there a point when satisfying the customer is actually harmful to the enterprise, or back to the original question, is the customer always right? In today’s post I’ll share my opinion as to the validity of this old business axiom, and also offer a few insights on where to draw the line…
“But my business is different!” Well actually, no it’s not. I cannot even begin to count the number of times I’ve had a CEO tell me that certain immutable business principles just don’t apply to his/her business because, “this business is different.” I don’t dispute that all businesses have certain unique characteristics or contextual differences - I don’t even dispute that recognizing and leveraging said differences are important. What I do vehemently dispute is the assertion a particular nuance is reasonable justification for flawed business logic to prevail. In today’s post I’ll share why most businesses have far more in common than most executives and entrepreneurs care to admit…
Visioning for CEOs is a topic that I often address on this blog. I don’t do so in an attempt to torture you with redundant thought, but rather because I believe it is a message that is often taken far too lightly by chief executives. A CEO’s ability to perform effectively is so closely tied to their ability to form a clearly articulated vision, evangelize the vision and then to execute on their vision, that no real discussion on executive leadership should take place without an emphasis on vision. Put simply, I believe that leadership absent vision is a train-wreck waiting to happen. In fact, I’d go so far as to say that you simply cannot decouple the two without causing an organizational implosion. In today’s post I’m going to share a few brief thoughts on visioning for CEOs, as well as providing you with the thoughts of others on the importance of vision…
The best leaders always have a back-up plan, so my question to you is: what’s your Plan B? My experience with most executives & entrepreneurs is they are totally committed to and focused on success. As a result, many of them tend to have a major blind-spot (translation: weakness) when it comes to the anticipation of set-backs. While this is understandable, it is nonetheless naive, and it constitutes a major flaw in the business logic of most strategic plans. This is so much the case that the most often overlooked aspect of strategic planning is adequately addressing contingencies as part of the planning process. In the text that follows, I’ll take a closer look at the value of contingency planning…
