Quality for a lifetime
February - March 2008
Entrepreneurship
Persistence through all travail
Customer Relations The silent customer
Investing wisely
Has your business expired?
Human Relations Appreciating your staff
Quiet Time
Healing a nation from the heart
Managing Editor Wangari Kimani Advertising Executives Frederick Mwarangu Nahashon Mithanga Contributors Winnie Mwangi Design and Photography Frederick Rukungu Nahashon Mithanga Distribution & Circulation Eagle Afric Holdings Ltd. Published by: Eagle Afric Holdings Ltd. P.O. Box 24329, Karen 00502 Tel: +254 020 3597825 E-mail: info@esteemedonline.com
Copyright Information Esteemed is a bi-monthly magazine published by Eagle Afric Holdings Ltd. Views expressed in the articles and contributions are not necessarily those of the publisher. All rights reserved. While every reasonable effort has been made and precautions taken to ensure the accuracy and integrity of the content herein, neither the Esteemed team, nor its advertisers, nor printers can accept responsibility for any damages or inconvenience that may arise there from. The views expressed within the publication are those of the authors exclusively and not necessarily those of the Esteemed owners. Any material sent to us will be treated as unconditionally assigned for publication and may or may not be acknowledged as receipted. This material will also be subject to scrutiny for unrestricted editing and commentary at the discretion of the Editorial team.
Hi, Welcome to this edition of Esteemed. First we thank God that we as a world, continent, region, country and as individuals have gotten into the year 2008 with grace and good health. As Kenyans, we have gone through one of the most challenging political events some of us have experienced and to see peace, we appreciate that it doesn’t come easy; and we should never take it for granted. At Esteemed, we are proud to have more than a business in our hands. We have a family working together with passion and dedication, knowing that it is to benefit generations to come. Esteemed has taken a trip to Seychelles - God’s paradise on earth, we have watched people work in big corporations, seen head hunting at its best. Bottomline, we have had a rollercoaster time in the past three months. We have also gone through some restructuring and look forward to giving you an improved Esteemed for us all to enjoy. In this edition we get in touch with the working mother who has to be a mother, wife, employee and entrepreneur all in one day, every day. Our human relations and customer relations segments are full of good tips that would apply to any business and our quiet time is heavy with a message of forgiveness and reconciliation. This country is more than just a few of us and our individual ambitions. We take this opportunity to wish you all a wonderful new year. May your resolutions and desires come to fruition. Where success comes our way, let us grow more; where failure opens its door to us, let us walk away from or through it with invaluable lessons learnt. Where opportunity knocks and lingers, go for it with all that you’ve got. Enjoy being Esteemed!
Wangari
All content, including adverts created by Esteemed are Copyright of Eagle Afric Holdings Ltd. and may not be recreated in part or in whole without prior consent of the publishers. Copyright ©
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Employment vs. Entrepreneurship
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Principles of success
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Investing Wisely
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Perspectives Human Relations
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Customer Relations
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Quiet Time
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Entrepreneurship vs. Employment
Strength of purpose reduces incidences of discouragement
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omen are said to be very strong people. Not in terms of physical strength, but in terms of the heart and the ability to take some of life’s beatings. I have to say, its not all women but most of them. A look at what a day in the life of such a women blessed with strength and grace, allows you the opportunity to see women differently and you just can’t help but admire them. Esteemed took the time with one such woman for one week and it was a big challenge to fit it all in one page. It is our hope that you will learn the place of persistence and self encouragement in the quest for success in life and business is out of this world. Peris Gathoni is a 35 years old married woman. She is a mother of two adorable children - ages 4 (Susan) and 5 (Kariuki). Her husband, Joe is in the transport industry with two canters and two prime movers acquired by his own sweat on the road. Gathoni is employed by a local NGO as a community based nurse and at the same time is a business woman. Her side business involves selling jewellery and beauty products sourced from Dubai, hand bags, bed sheets and clothes sourced from neighboring Uganda and Tanzania. Their’s is a comfortable family. Not super rich but they hold their own ground in making ends meet. We spoke to Peris about her life and truly it is the heart of the African woman - faith in God, strength , diversity, grace and hard work are her pillars. Esteemed: I have spent time with you long before this interview and the first question that comes to mind is - Is this a full life for you, everyday? Peris: I love my life, I love my family and nothing gives me greater pleasure than to serve wholeheartedly. Esteemed: Where do you get the strength to leave your warm bed and go down on your knees at three thirty in the morning? Peris: In God. When you spend time with God in the morning, He takes charge for the rest of the day and even things that would normally be difficult to achieve, He makes it possible. There are days I used to start my days with a five minute prayer as I shower. Nowadays I wonder how I ever survived without intense prayer like I do today. Esteemed: Is prayer that effective? Peris: Are you kidding me? I do not know anything more sure than the answer of prayers made. The steps I have made in my life, the joy of my family and the success we have with my husband is not an easy portfolio. It came through many hours on my knees in addition to working hard and working smart. Esteemed: You are a mother, wife, community health worker and businesswoman. That is a mouthful! Peris: Tell me about it! Every morning I have to make sure I talk to God, my children and husband are prepared for school and work. By midday, I will have shared a shoulder to cry on, sympathy for a terminally ill person, reports, and so much more. It is definitely not a walk in the flower garden, but I manage. Esteemed: What drives you? Peris: A lot of things but bottom-line there is Passion, Desperation, Hope for the future, and the innate desire to be of service and make a difference to people around me. Esteemed: Please expound Peris: Let me tell you my friend, the day that this world writes you off, that is the day that God ratifies to you that He is in control and those that have written you off will witness your rise from one level of success to another. I always wanted to be a doctor and I had the qualifications, but our family was poor and we could not afford the related education. I was the shame of the community as I worked as a housegirl to ensure my survival. Then my mother passed away. No one wanted to associate with such lowliness, but God is great. I met Joe in the church I used to attend and years later, here I am. Esteemed: That sounds like the beginning of desperation Peris: It was the beginning of desperation and dissolution. But God made me realize that He wanted me to be desperate in a holy way!
Esteemed: What is that? Peris: Desperate in a holy way simply means that you will give up everything including your comfort zone. Fight to get rid of any comfort zone and fight to achieve great heights of success while still working within God’s limits. Desperate times call for desperate measures and desperate people are dangerous people because whatever they set their minds to, they will achieve. Desperation made me realize that five minutes of prayer in the shower while thinking about the day was not going to help me accomplish anything. For sure, Jesus did not get the power to cast out demons through a 10 seconds prayer. If you want to succeed beyond your wildest dreams, get desperate! Esteemed: I guess that means hope will always be in you? Peris: True. Hope must stay alive, otherwise, you will die. Desperation without the hope and belief that it will all work is torture and it doesn’t make sense. You would rather drown in the misery of a comfort zone. When I work, I commit it all to God and I keep my hope alive that He will raise me from one glory to another. And that is why I had to start a business. On the one hand I serve God, but my service to Him is not foolish. I need to have a source of income through which I can get money to build His church and feed the hungry, and do more than my current job will allow me to do. If I only rely on my salary, it will mean that I will comfort someone with empty hands. With my extra income, I can buy a fruit for a malnutritioned child and I don’t feel the pinch at all. Esteemed: Selfless service. What’s that all about? Peris: This world has too many selfish people, I think we could use a few more generous and service oriented people. How many people are unable to get out of bed, yet all they need is someone to hold their hand so that they can stand up? How many women are suffering in their houses from domestic violence and all they need is someone to speak to? I like knowing that God can use me to deal with people. Empathy is a great thing for me and I serve with no great expectation just a knowledge that I have made a difference to someone. Esteemed: Passion? Peris: Whatever your hands find to do, do it with all your might to the glory and honor of God in heaven. That’s my motto. If I am going into something half hearted, trust me, I will leave before it even starts. Passion for the work of your hands is like the oil that lubricates a set of cog wheels. If it is absent, they will grind to a halt. Esteemed: Tell us a little about your business Peris: I was introduced to the business by a friend. She insisted that we go to Dubai with her but I could not afford it. So she brought me some stock, and I made a handsome profit - almost 200%. Instead of going to Dubai, I sampled some things from Uganda and Tanzania and it has been a moderate performance since. Esteemed: How do you get your customers? Peris: Opportunity does not hang on trees like mangoes! You have to grab it when it comes. In my work, I meet with ladies and gentlemen who contribute to our community. I form a good rapport with them and give them quality. These are busy people with no time to shop around. So I learn their tastes and pitch for a sale with them. Some have actually got to the point where they ask me if I have a particular shop. Esteemed: So what is your secret? Peris: I know I am not at the top yet. But that is where I am going. I have dedicated this business to God and soon, it will be the foundation of a charity organization, a home for “the written off” women and you will come back for another interview. Esteemed: Your talk is so sure. Do you have it documented? A business plan, a road map or something like that? Peris: I don’t have a business plan. But I do write memoirs and I have stacks of books that comprise my journals. Even if I die today, my children and my husband can pick up my dreams and hopes for the future because through my words they will read what I want. I may not have very great business knowledge but the much that I know has constituted one thing. Whatever business you are in and whatever plans you make, write them down. Your writing them down is a subconscious commitment to them. It is signing an agreement with yourself Esteemed: I love your inspiration and your enthusiasm. I look forward to seeing you soon for a bigger interview.
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Business Principles It is our sincere hope here at Esteemed that the input we have given into your business for the past ten months, through these pages has been of great help. In 2008, we are taking a turn and seeing ourselves (you our esteemed reader included) at the position where growth and development is a must. We have established the business. We are diligently adhering to honesty and treating our customers like kings, offering a little more than the competition, our staff couldn’t be prouder working for us and we are doing well. Somehow with all these things happening, we have forgotten that we have the envy of other people and they are now beginning to apply the same principles you applied in the beginning and soon they will catch up with you. It is time to shift into another gear. At this level, you need to deliver MORE profits, sales, productivity, customers and quality. You have got LESS or the SAME money, staff, time and machinery/ equipment. It sounds easy and complicated at the same time. Easy because you know it is possible, complicated because the “how” bit is far from being present. Not to worry, Esteemed is here to give you some insight. There are six areas for you to work on: § Understand your operation - do you know your operations/ company/ organization/ business/ firm well enough to improve it? Your operations consist of three basic things - Inputs, outputs and the process that transforms the inputs to outputs. Your output depends on the input you give and the process you take it through. Your processes ought then to add value if they are to be profitable. Through customer and employees feedback, you can tell what you are doing right and what is amiss. Ask yourself several questions: Who are my customers? What do they need? What is my product/ service? What are my customers’ expectations and measures? Does my product/ service meet their expectations? What action is required to improve my processes? Ask the same of your suppliers (including your staff): Who are our suppliers? What do we need from them? What are our expectations and measures? Do the resources supplied to us meet our expectations? What is the process of acquiring the resources? What action is required to improve the processes? Do we understand our suppliers’ processes? What can we do to help them improve on their processes? The bottom line is to keep customers and suppliers happy. § Set the right objectives—Do you have the right objectives to steer improvement? Even for a small firm, there are departments - sales, operations, finance, customer service etc. Imagine if each department set its own objectives independently without considering the others. The best you can get from such a business is lousy customer service, inadequate financial results, a work attitude of “us vs. them”, lack of accountability, no sense of direction, communication breakdowns etc. The entire team must realize and embrace the very simple fact that we work in the same organization and for the same customers. Whatever objectives you decide to have for your business, they must be: a) consistent and forming a basis for departmental objectives b) SMART - Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, and Time-bound c) Customer Driven - Base your objectives on the basis of quality, speed, dependability, flexibility and cost d) addressing the following question - if we meet/ exceed all our objectives, what will actually happen? Will the customer be more impressed? Will we be more efficient? Will we be more profitable? Smart objectives drive success § Improve work processing—how can you identify nonvalue added (wasteful) activity? How can you remove it? According to Customer Services, Lead Body, UK Systems (processes) should be designed to meet the customer’s needs rather than the bureaucratic needs of the organization. In the business you are running does work flow smoothly through all the stages of your processes? Are all the steps necessary? Do you suffer from complexity, duplication of effort and work, er-
Conceive, Believe & Achieve rors, repeat jobs, inflexibility and high costs? All these in relation to Customer Needs, Organization Needs and Employee Needs. Efficient processes add value with each activity done. Nonvalue-adding activities (NVA) need to be eliminated because they are time and effort wasters. To identify if the process adds value ask two questions: Does the customer value the activity? Does the activity get it right the first time? Eliminating these NVAs involves the use of Operations Flow Charting (OFC) and this will go the extra mile in helping you design more efficient processes. The OFC is simple, classifies activities as Delays, Operation, Inspection, Transportation (movement) or Storage (filing etc), quantifies time spent on each activity and quantifies the distance involved. § Increase capacity - are you meeting demand? What action (s) can you take? How efficient are you resources? Capacity is said to be the maximum achievable output over a period of time, given a known level of available resources (people, materials, information and facilities). Your processes must have sufficient capacity to meet customer demand. Forecasting demand allows you to plan the right levels of resources to process your workloads. Work with the 5Ws and 3Hs (What, When, Why, Where, Who, How, How much and How many). Identify patterns/ trends - highs, lows, periods etc. Have a sound understanding of the demand for your product/ service Effective forecasting can provide that understanding but remember, the further ahead you forecast the greater the potential for error. In deriving your capacity needs remember too little capacity means people are overworked, shortcuts, overtime, sickness and machine breakdowns will be the order of the day. Too much of it also means boredom, complacency, absenteeism and poor maintenance. Result? Reduced quality, delays, missed deadlines, reduced flexibility and ultimately you lose customers, revenue is reduced, costs increased and profits slashed. Deal with these by considering what can be changed/ manipulated - demand, resources, or both. § Continuously improve - do you have a systematic approach to constant improvement? The Japanese call it Kaizen (continuous improvement) and it is a vital sign of life for any business. Why, you ask. Because competitors are coming in all the time; new products and innovations are there daily; customers become more demanding; costs must go down and revenues increase; technology influence, pressure for more with less. The one thing that remains constant in business is Change. It will and must always be there. Continuous incremental improvement as a culture ensures that cost savings are felt for years to come and costs do not creep back into the business. Incremental change is not likely to meet with much resistance, is cheap to implement, easy to manage and consolidates everyone’s input. Plan - Set out what you are trying to achieve and why. Do - Implement your plan successfully Check - evaluate actual performance against set objectives and investigate any divergence Adjust - If your plan worked successfully, lock your performance to that and set it as your new standard. If not, revise your plan and repeat the cycle. Continuous improvement means getting your hands dirty and going where the work is to identify the actual action area. § Check customer perception - how effective have your efforts been? Can you tell? Improving efficiency should result in greater customer satisfaction and this is measured through customer surveys. Surveys should give you the valued customer feedback which tells us if we are on the right track. Remember, If you are not willing to listen to your customers, then you can bet your competitor is and will listen to them. We don’t want that at all. Remember the following points: The customer’s perception is their reality and all that matters Open and honest analysis helps us to better understand our customers and operations The customer’s experience of the product/ service is critical to your improvement effort Tap into your customers’ ideas for improvement
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Oh God of all creation, bless this our land and nation, justice be our shield and defender, may we dwell in unity, peace and liberty, plenty be found within our borders Let one and all arise, with hearts both strong and true service be our earnest endeavor and our homeland of Kenya, heritage and splendor, firm may we stand to defend. Let all with one accord in common bond united, build this our nation together, and the glory of Kenya, the fruit of our labor fill every heart with thanksgiving
I have taken time to go through the map of this world. I have noticed one thing. There is no other country that has our flag No other country has our geographical shape, No other country has our cultural heritage and there is no other country I can comfortably call home!
I don’t know about you, but I have chosen peace Peace to preach Peace for our sanity Peace for our motherland Peace to become a prosperous nation Peace to become a prosperous people Surely, we have been a haven of peace for other people, if we run, where will we be running to? It doesn’t make sense to break God’s law for a reason that will be forgotten in another six months Be at peace with yourself and with your neighbor.
Investing Wisely Do you know the lifespan of your business?
In investing wisely, we believe it is time we tackled the important subject of the expiry date for your business. Everything has an expiry date, even your business. You may argue that some businesses are hitting a record of 100 years. I agree, but if you look at the history of such firms and companies, the leadership always invented ways of making sure that they renew their lifespan.
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hat’s your curve?
Change
Consider this, you have started your own hotel business from scratch (point (a) in the graph below). Progressively, you grow with your customers being happy and satisfied with your service and at some point you are the fame of the town. Everyone wants to eat at your restaurant. Then one day as you bask on top of the world (point b), someone who has been watching you, comes into the picture! Competition! A good thing because it can make you give your customers something different thus retaining them and even growing to develop another outlet. A bad thing because, you believe they will not target your customers, you believe that by the time people get to know their food, it will mean that you have lost customer loyalty but the turnover shows what loyal customers you have If you go with the second option you will more likely than not end up where you began in the first place (at point C).
Change is the constant factor in every business. That may sound like a contradiction in terms but it is not. To remain relevant in any business you have to keep changing. How you handle that change will determine your move to the next level. That’s (b) and (c)
If everything is going right then you know for certain something must be wrong - Murphy's law Change will always be met with resistance and you have to be wise to show your team why the change I necessary. A season with a challenged government department will show that a change introduced all at once with a bang has negative impact. Time for adjusting is more and it may not be very successful. However, piecemeal change, where possible, can yield more fruits than you expected. A good example is your initiative to train your employees. Assuming that that is the booster for your business to the next level, you will train an employee and two months later, he or she leaves for the competition. It is a terrible loss for you but that way, you will learn that next time, you will train someone and peg it to something close to them. Then they will stick around long enough to the implement what they learn. For instance, you have a manager who wants to get a master’s degree. Offer him a company loan with little interest rate or agree with him that while he is taking himself to school (paying his own fees), you will facilitate a home mortgage package for him. Whatever the package, you have glued that person to you because he knows, if he dares leave to another company, the mortgage is gone.
(b)
(a)
(c)
Truth be told, you have to be a foolish entrepreneur to let that happen.
To do list so that you avoid the expiry date for as long as possible. 1.
Let us go with the more positive light of you being an intelligent businessperson. This is what your curve should and must look like.
Good profits
2. (c)
(b)
3. Change arena
(a)
At point A you begin your business and grow to a level where you are for sure breaking even by a very wide percentage. Then you realize that to sustain this good income and profits you must begin to do things a little differently. This may include a change in your policies and procedures, investing in relevant training for your staff, extra capital expenditure, re-investing the profits into the business.
If you fool around with a thing long enough, it will eventually break - Murphy's law
Involve your team through continuous improvement Instead of bombarding your staff with how they should improve in their work, encourage them to generate ideas of how to improve. A waiter is more likely to serve with a fake smile if she is told to do so, as opposed to her taking the self initiative to do so. As the ideas come through and they are implemented, reward those who contribute. It will encourage others and your business will continuously be improving Take a proactive rather than reactive approach to improve your business - There are people who wait until it is really bad to change. If your roof looks like it will give in when the rain falls, don’t wait to see the leak for you to repair it. If you see a process will eventually be a burden to a customer, change it before the ultimate happens Don’t expect magic overnight - Exceptional business operations do not happen overnight or at the wave of a magic wand. They take investment of time and attitude, skills and finance. Your attitude has to be right, you have to be consistent with the service you give. If you could smile at one customer, surely, you can find in you a smile for everyone who is spending his/ her hard -e ar ned money on your product or service! Stay the course, it will eventually pay off.
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Perspectives
Human Relations
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the barriers and get the employees and managers working together, everyone begins to understand how his/ her contribution is so invaluable towards the achievement of the company’s strategic vision and objectives. A successful organization recognizes four key elements to its survival and growth organizational communication, people skills, Now put a twist to it and imagine it is your motivation (not necessarily financial), and staff who do that. People with whom you people empowerment. entrust your most valuable customer, people who you bank on to bring you that six Communicate Needs figure income and be glad to share the sucCommunication is a two way street cess with you. and a shared responsibility. Employees have just as much responsiI purpose not to be that kind of an em- bility for speaking up, for setting expectaployer. I would like my staff to know that I tions and requirements, and for communiam their leader and we work as a team. It cating barriers and opportunities as does may be my name on the company owner- the management team. It is through such ship but it sure is the whole team including that people understand each other’s roles in myself, that makes it stand and do some- the organization, set clear and reasonable demands within the prevailing constraints, thing everyday of its existence. budgets and expectations. After all, if your organization wants to proSo what do you do when your staff are duce results that leave your customers and giving you silent treatment? organization stake holders wanting more of We thought a few of these ideas may help you, everyone has to understand what it you change the office aura and deal with will take. this dangerous monster! ave you ever walked into a room and everyone went quiet? Then they shifted from all they were doing prior to your coming in? Yet on the other side of the door, you could hear sounds of laughter, and freedom? It is the most annoying feeling not to mention heartbreaking that they can’t be that free with you.
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Kill the knowledge thief syndrome There are some people for whom sharing their knowledge is a no go zone. You would imagine they swore to withhold all information. For such people, you need to make them understand that most of the time, sharing knowledge is actually an opportunity to gain even more. No body knows everything. I am yet to hear of another Solomon in our century.
Encourage communication not for you but for the business From time in memorial, communication between managers and employees has always a been a “them versus us” issue. Employees want guidelines from their supervisors, and the management staff wants input from their team; and just like climbing a tree, information coming downwards has no problems. You wait until it is time for information to flow upwards. Then While most people are knowledgeable and you will see what happens! skilled in their assigned duties, many managers are un-aware of their employees' If you observe many companies, too much skills. The danger with this is that a lot of it of what should be said goes unsaid because either goes to waste and rots in the brain most of the staff will stay quiet about what due to non-utility or, it ends up straight in they need and even what they know needs the boardrooms of a competitor who realto be done. As a result the individuals and izes that your staff has skill that you are not company miss great opportunities, delayed exploiting. The other end is that the staff projects become the order of the day and fails to share it with you and he would failed initiatives mark the beginning of a rather improve on his life with that knowlhuge labor turnover. edge while you are still paying him that small salary for only that knowledge that But why would your staff keep quiet you are worth having from him!
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even if you treat them well and your company is a great place to work in? A couple of reasons - some employees will reason, "Who am I to offer ideas to management?" or "I don't want to appear incompetent" or “my supervisor will think I want his job and will make my life in the office uncomfortable”. Someone once asked me, “what difference will it make? After all they are too busy with long-term planning and strategic initiatives!”
Your best shot at dealing with this is to build a quality interaction between the staff management team. Break the “we vs. them” mentality. When you break through
Encourage your employees to educate you about their job specifics. Ask them to explain what goes into each successful project not because you want to replace them but because it creates a window of opportunity for you to see how much more they can give the firm and get compensated for it in more ways than one. Discuss which ideas and actions have worked in the past. Go over survey results, customer satisfaction ratings, complaints, feedback etc. Ask questions to get your employees to offer suggestions about the present situation. As you listen to the feedback, offer your thoughts— and not in a imposing way where it will be said, “the boss said this is the way and he
shot down my opinion”. This will prompt them to get involved in the decision process. Create a Motivation Cycle Make communicating with management easy. This is because your input plays a big part in motivating employees to communicate with you. They need to see a leader, not a boss. Some suggestions to consider include:
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Call for a brainstorming session when embarking on or stuck in the middle of a project (that you started together) or when doing a strategic plan.
Send employees a personal thank you note for a job well done, complete with the management team's signatures. Even something as small as a pen from you is a great booster.
Set aside time to officially conduct round table discussions with employees to address their concerns. For instance you could say, every Friday afternoon, with no fail, you will be holding a session with each and every employee one on one sessions
Do not have such stuck up management that cannot go for team building sessions with the rest of the staff. Attend the sessions so that it is a team effort in the office. When the employees see you and other managers taking an interest in their responsibilities, they'll be excited to complete their tasks to the best of their ability. You get full dedication. Staff will actively be innovative and creative to advance the organization and will share those ideas with you. The result will be a greater increase on the organization's success. Empower your staff Empowerment is about setting expectations. You and your team need to have a common understanding. Like Ken Blanchard's One Minute Manager, write a one-minute goal and the requirements in 400 words or less (half a page). Discuss the goals and measurements with everyone involved before you begin delegating tasks so that as a team you can make the needed tradeoffs to ensure a successful outcome. When everyone knows what is expected of him/ her, you are then on a higher g r o u n d (empowered) to create the desired results. The bottom-line for this interaction is comand munication, the quality of the communication determines how empowered you and your team are.
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Consultants you can afford to deal with!! At Esteemed Royale we will sit and talk with you. We will help you find a solution to your problem Integrity is our guide We offer complete business solutions for your SME World class PowerPoint presentations; Business Nurturing ideas, Human relations issues in the workplace, Customer relations for the SME Document Management, Report writing and presentation, Sourcing funds and how to manage the funds Talk to us Tel: +254 020 3597825/ 0720 838446 E-mail: wangarikimani@esteemedonline.com URL: www.esteemedonline.com
Esteemed Royale is a part of Eagle Afric Holdings Ltd where we offer Quality for a lifetime
Perspectives In customer perspectives this season we feature an article sourced from www.psychotactics.com/ Do you have customers that leave suddenly? You were doing an outstanding job for them, lavishing them with truckloads of service and yet they disappeared without a word. The key operating factor here is 'without a word.' That's the scary part! The silent ones are always the most dangerous. If you would like to learn how to keep your customers, you've first got to keep them noisy. Read this marketing article to find out just how you can make complaining clients one of your biggest assets. Imagine you run a pizza parlour. You have all these neighbourhood families that pop in at least once a week for some pizza, garlic bread and Coke. On an average, one customer spends about $30 per week. But let's assume they spend just $20. Imagine you did something that bugged this customer, but he or she never told you about it. What would you stand to lose if they left? Its simple math: You lose $20 x 50 weeks. That's equivalent to $1000 a year. If you lost just 10 such customers per month, you'd lose about 100 clients a year. That's $100,000 that could be in your back pocket if you were a little complaint-conscious. That Doesn't Happen in Our Business: The Denial Syndrome Overtly it won't. In a Bain & Company survey of major corporations, they found that on average, U.S. Corporations lose half their customers in five years. Notice, it wasn't 'one year' or 'suddenly'. Clients have a tipping point. They get unhappy bit by bit and then its camel-back-breaking time. So, if you think that all your customers are happy with you-they aren't. It's a basic fact of life. What's really weird is that you can't measure how much business you're really losing. A study was done on a bank, they found they had as many accounts as they had a year ago. What they failed to measure was how most of the people had 'silently' transferred the money out into other banks and the closure of the account was a last measure, somewhere down the line. The same thing applies to your customer. Like a patient Buddha, they will seemingly appear to put up with everything, till suddenly you find they don't use you anymore. This is a classic flight of business. You hear nothing of it, till it's almost gone and it takes a mammoth effort just to hold on to the business. If you look at it from another perspective, you might even be getting equal to or slightly less business from your customer. Naturally this doesn't ring any alarm bells. However, if you've been watching carefully, your customer has probably grown bigger and richer in the past few months or years. If your business with them has not grown exponentially, you are actually LOSING OUT. No matter how successful your business, you will always have scope for improvement. Best of all, you will always have com-
Never Trust a 'Silent' Customer By Sean D'Souza
plaining customers. Don't deny the fact. Accept it and then do something about it. The Real Reason Why You Lose Customers Last month we went to KFC to pick up some chicken and chips for dinner. On the way home we discovered that the chicken and the chips were soggy and tasted terrible. How would most customers react? It would depend on their history with the product, but most people would grumble and simply not go back. We complained. We picked up the phone and called the toll free line at KFC. They asked us to place our order. We said we didn't want to place an order, we just wanted to complain. They said, "We don't take complaints on this line. You'll have to call the manager at the branch where you bought it and talk to him." Now Why Would I Bother To Go Through All That Trouble? It's easier to never go back. All that money that KFC spends trying to get new customers is going down the drain and out the back door because they don't have a complaint line. Most companies act precisely in the same manner. For one, they have no real complaint department. If clients are unhappy, they feel embarrassed to complain and because no route has been cleared to vent their feelings, they avoid it completely. Then they leave. Obviously, you can't wait for something to go wrong. Your job is to find ways to get the client to complain. If they complain, you are getting feedback that is extremely valuable and is probably relevant for all your other clients as well. Best of all, empowered with a complaint channel, a well-trained client will complain at every juncture giving you the opportunity to fix the problem and regain their trust. How Companies React to Complaints Virgin Airlines CEO, Richard Branson, sometimes makes an appearance at the gates when a flight is late, apologizing profusely to all passengers as they check out. How mad would you continue to be if you ran into a situation like this? Yet most companies detest complaints. Living in their ivory towers, they refuse to believe that any of their clients would leave. So they never ask for feedback. On the rare occasion that clients get mad enough to put it in words, it's too late. Even then, a complaint is treated with nuisance value. The first step a company takes when dealing with complaints is that they fix it. Yeah, Right! Because of their crummy service, the plane took off without you, you missed your meeting and lost more than just your temper. Do you think, just replacing something is going to erase all that trouble? It's going to take much, much more. A simple replacement is never the answer. It has to be a heck lot more than just a numb 'sorry'. You've got to woo the customer back like you would with the girl that you had your eye on. Going down on your knees and begging for forgiveness is a start. Then you've got to lay it on thick and the thicker the better.
The Problem With Zero Defect Lots of companies ran themselves into the ground trying to achieve zero defect. In an unpredictable world like ours, that goal is unreal. Even the best of intentions aren't much use if you run into a flash flood. Clients recognize that. However, it's up to you to have a disaster recovery plan in place. When I say that, I don't mean a grandiose 'in case of a nuclear attack' plan. At Nordstrom stores across the U.S., salespeople are empowered to do 'whatever it takes' to fix a problem, even if it means going to the store across the street and buying the product at a higher price. It's called the art of immediate recovery, and it assumes that something will go wrong and you will have a Plan B to fix it. The more you prepare yourself for this inevitable event, the less chance the client has to complain. More often than not, a complaining client is complaining about everything but the product. Ever see people complaining about the food at a restaurant? The principal purpose of the restaurant is food, yet people leave because of loud music, bad service and everything else. Your job is to assume you're a restaurant and find out what your 'everything else' is. Getting Complaints is Like Winning Lotto! 1) What you need to do to ensure a regular stream of complaints. Dump the feedback form and go out and ask your customer's face to face. Do it regularly and have them know whom they can complain to, if anything goes wrong. There is no such thing as a silent customer. 2) Complaining customers are always very precise. They eliminate the vagueness of feedback forms. Listen to them, act on their complaints. It's not that they want to leave. They want to be wooed back. Fix the problem and then let them know how you fixed it. 3) They're giving you free feedback that would cost a fortune at a research company, so reward them. They've been inconvenienced on top of getting a bad product or service. That inconvenience factor deserves payment in the form of a reward over and above just fixing the problem. Customers who are bought back from the brink are extremely loyal and extremely 'noisy.' Treat them like the asset they are. 4) Remember, it costs eight times as much to get a new customer, than it takes to keep an existing one. Keep them at all costs. Atone for your sins. 5) Rule #1:The complaining customer is always right. Rule #2:When in doubt, refer to Rule #1 Š2001-2005 Psychotactics Ltd. All Rights Reserved. Wouldn't you love to stumble upon a secret library of small business ideas? Find simple, yet electrifying ideas, on copywriting, public speaking, marketing strategies, sales conversion, psychological tactics and branding. Head down to http://www.psychotactics.com today and judge for yourself.
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The strength of a nation derives from the integrity of the home Confucius
Are we asking for too much when we ask for peace? I don’t think so! And it can only begin with you and me
Quiet time
I
n truth, quiet time is very difficult to write this season. Why, you ask. Just take a look around our country. We have people who have lived together for like twenty years turning against each other. And for what? Just because one man feels that he was cheated out of the second most powerful position in the country. I say second because the highest office in the land of Kenya is God Almighty.
by Wangari Kimani I would like all of us sober minded people to consider a few things with all that is going on a) Get rid of all that hate and negative emotion
Love doesn’t just sit there, like a stone; it has to be made, like bread, remade all the time, made anew Ursula Le Guin
I have been trying to figure out how a friend we have lived with for years can wake up, grab a machete and come to my house, hack my family all to death and feel zero about it. If you ask them why they do that, it is because they want that mkikuyu arudi kwao. For a moment I posed to wonder, what if for sure, they succeed in wiping out the Kikuyus from wherever they are. What next? Will they go to the next tribe or ethnic group which they feel have wronged them.
They have destroyed our country just because of power. We can’t allow them to destroy our souls and destinies as well. Nothing drags us back as much as hate and jealousy does. Anyone who wants to get rich, wealthy and successful in this fast world needs to do the following: Wake up in the morning and pray to God that He may richly bless the work of your hands. That is His promise in the Bible - His Word. Work hard and work smart. Get focused The history of free men is never really on what you want to achieve and strategize written by chance but by choice; their smartly on how to achieve it. Otherwise you will keep running around and won’t have choice! anything to show for it. Dwight D. Eisenhower Concentrate on what is important for you. Why are you looking at other people and comparing yourself to them? God did Truth be told, Kikuyus do not bear an untainted fame. They are branded and stereo- not intend you to be like them. Fight to discover what makes you special. If God typed as thieves. I remember when I went has put you on His green earth, it is beto Seychelles someone asked me after incause He has a purpose for you and you are troducing myself by the baptismal name better suited fighting to accomplish this only, “are you Kikuyu?” Confidently I said yes. “Eh, you know we hear Kikuyu are very purpose rather than fighting your neighbor dangerous people.” Now I wonder if it was a because you are not like them. crime to be a Kikuyu but for sure, I have never been prouder to be one. Not because Love doesn’t just sit there, like a stone; it has to be made, like bread, remade that is what defines me but because even as we talk and emphasize on the need to be all the time, made anew Kenyan first and ethnic second, there is Ursula Le Guin nothing I can do about it. I am not successful because I am Kenyan or because I am a Kikuyu. I am successful because I have God’s grace to work hard and see the fruit of my labor. We all have that. Whatever our ethnic background, wherever we were born in this country, it doesn’t matter. The point is, everyday, God gives us all equal wealth of brains, ability and privilege to go before His throne committing our works to Him for blessing. So where does someone come off branding me the Kikuyu who has denied him/ her his/ her wealth and share of the national cake. Our politicians who are agitating for the violence we are seeing in this country. Please answer these questions. When I am sleeping scared that my neighbor will come to hack me as I sleep because I do or do not support you, where are you? When a mother is burnt alive in God’s holy sanctuary because the people doing this believe they are fighting the battle for you, how do you sleep at night? How do you look at yourself in the mirror and kiss your grandchildren good morning over a breakfast of fruits, cereal, bread, bacon, sausages and tea when a child’s head is smashed against a wall in the name of fighting your battle? May God in heaven forgive you.
b) Don’t give up on this country just yet. If God hasn’t written us off yet, it ain’t over! If anything, we are just going through a maturation period. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe once said by nature we have no defect that could not become a strength, no strength that could not become a defect. We always watched other countries in war and we wondered what was wrong with them. We placed ourselves on a high pedestal thinking, that we were too civilized to be that animalistic. Yet here we are. But all is not lost! We have known our weaknesses, we have known our strengths. We have seen people remove rails of a 50 years old railway. That is a strength which when put
Make this declaration like Og Mandino has done: My days of whining and complaining about others have come to an end. Nothing is easier than fault finding. All it will do is discolor my personality so that none will want to associate with me. That was my old life. No more
to good use can do much. The men could be good for the construction of our bypasses. I believe from the bottom of my heart, that what this country is set to see in the next few years to come has got no comparison in the past in terms of success. My advice, place yourself strategically in the way of this river of success and opportunities. It is coming for sure; buy the shares, assess purchasable land, do whatever it takes but set yourself for what is coming. c) Forgive. Vengeance belongs to God I remember initially when the chaos broke out. My brain immediately went into overdrive remembering how people die in movies. I wished a combination of all these on every single person who I thought responsible for the chaos we are experiencing. Then I read God’s word. He says He is the husband of widows, the father of orphans and vengeance is His. Me forgiving those people
Life isn’t about waiting for the storm to pass. It’s about learning to dance in the rain who have done destruction to lives, stemmed from the knowledge that no man worth his salt will stand and watch his wife being raped and murdered like a chicken without doing something about it. No father can bear see his child brutally killed and his/ her life ended even before it begins. How much more God’s own people. I realized that what God has in store for anybody who is responsible for these is inconceivable by the human mind. If we thought Sodom and Gomorrah is just another story to keep us in line, you wait for what God will do to avenge all the lives lost and most of all for the mudslinging and mockery some people have made of His name and His word. So because the worst I can do is dot for God, I would rather forgive and let God handle it. d) Choose to be a pawn that has a life! In a chess game, the pawn is used for all manner of things, it can even be sacrificed if the knight is in danger, or the king or the queen. The pawn has got no say in it and it can only move in a particular direction. These guys fight, scream at each other, insult each other and behave like they would kill each other at the earliest opportune moment. Yet without the cameras around them they are good buddies as ever. Choose to make a difference. Refuse to be the pawn they use to fight each other. Be courageous enough to fight your own battle and say no to someone else’s battle whose extent and impact you cannot even comprehend. Eleanor Roosevelt once said:one’s philosophy is not best expressed in words; it is expressed in the choices one makes. In the long run, we shape our lives and we shape ourselves. The process never ends until we die. And the choices we make are ultimately our own responsibility.
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One day a young boy came home from school. Extra tired and with tears in his eyes Not even his mother’s chapatis could do it for him. What’s wrong my son? Mama asked. “Mum,” the boy began. “I missed the badge by just two marks.” The bewildered mother tried to remember which badge she had bought that was so precious. “Which badge?” she asked concerned and looking forward to say that it would be all okay. “The Kilirama badge that reads - Best Student in Class 3!” My best friend in his school has all these badges. I wish I was in his school, then I can even get a badge that says Number 2 in class 3. before I get another for being number one. Mummy can I change schools so I can get a badge? The next day in the headmaster’s office, the young boy’s mother articulated it very clearly. “Contact Kilimara Investments and order for the badges. Your school should not be the only one without the badges. Here are their contacts …” Kilimara Investments Mr. George Kimani P.O. Box 24979 - 00502 Tel: +254 020 2099502/ +254 733 549099 E-mail: kilimara@gmail.com Nairobi, Kenya