Want To Be A Nightmare To Compete With? Part 2

Imagine this, you’re up in a hot air balloon, looking down at your business. What do you see? If you know every part of your business, every plan, every step, and every nut and bolt, you should be able to look at your business from any kind of perspective and know what’s happening.

This makes you a nightmare to compete with.

Being a nightmare has everything to do with details and looking at your business from the perspective of a hot air balloon.

Most owners live on a figurative step ladder, hovering just over their business, looking for the next problem to deal with, the next issue right in front of them. They live their life going from problem to problem. As time passes, those owners feel like they’re succeeding because they’re so busy every day, but you have to learn to change your perspective.

You’re too close to have an objective view of your business, you need to zoom out. Get on a step ladder, then get on an extension ladder, but even that’s not high enough.

Get on a really tall building, and then get in a hot air balloon and fly above your business. From there you can study the architecture of your business. Does your business even have architecture? Build every department of your company and look at everything from a wider perspective. It can be fun, you can do it quick, and you’ll learn things about your business.

You don’t have to be perfect; you just have to make progress.

Every time you engage with a customer, every time you reach out to a customer, those touches need to be planned out in your architecture so you can “wow” your customer to the best of your ability.

In my window cleaning business, we created the Customer Life Cycle document (I wrote a blog post about it, take a look!). It’s a visual graphic that lays out the cycle of gaining a new customer, starting with when the business and customer first make contact, up until they end up referring us to another potential customer.

All of these steps are documented and “architectured”. This ensures that these things are done at a consistently high level every time.

 

Step One

What the office manager says, how they say it, their tone of voice, what objectives are discussed, are all documented and scripted out in the Customer Life Cycle document.

Step Two

 At the first estimate, from what the sales guy says and what he’s wearing, to if he’s on time is all scripted and documented.

Step Three

When the customer calls back to schedule an appointment, again, everything is documented and scripted. Efficiency is the key.

All of this is planned out while in the hot air balloon so you can view your business like an outsider.

There are specific steps that have to happen when people do jobs. All of these steps can be planned in about a week or two and it makes a huge difference. After implementing specific steps and strategies, your business will begin to run like a well-oiled machine, giving you further freedom to step back and continue to improve its function.

Once you’ve accomplished this, you get out of the hot balloon, down the step ladder and now you’re a nightmare to compete with.

Take care and may God bless the work of your hands.