Worst practices in business: Who DOES that?

You’ve heard of business best practices, of course. They are the subject of books, articles and seminars nearly every day.

Far less often do people talk about the all-too-common everyday worst practices that can annoy your customers and vendors, slow your progress, squander your opportunities, and eventually, lead to serious harm or failure for your small business. You may have experienced many of these either from the customer or vendor side.

But who on earth would routinely behave in ways that could have such a negative impact on their business’ short- and long-term well-being? In fact, these everyday “worst practices” are surprisingly common:

• Fail to provide project or delivery updates when your customer requests them

• Turn in projects late or incomplete

• Over-promise, then under-deliver – and deliver when it’s too late for the customer to request changes

• Cut corners in quality and refuse to make good when requested to do so (or at best make good reluctantly)

• Don’t return phone calls or respond to emails from business associates in a timely manner

• Don’t show up when you say you will; make them wait

• Forget you asked for a meeting at your office, and be out at another meeting when your guests arrive

• Take the attitude that if they want your business, vendors should be available to answer your calls 24/7, holidays, weekends and late nights included

• Argue about price, even if the price you’ve been given seems fair (you can always save a little more, right?)

• Demand that vendors rush to do your work – every time

• Then, don’t pay the vendors for a long time – and make them inquire repeatedly about payment

• Lose your vendors’ invoices – every time, if possible

• Refuse to track your time, expenses, sales, and work product, and then blame everyone around you for poor profits

• Insist that you’ve “always done it this way”

• Think of business as a “zero-sum-game” – one person wins and the other must lose

• Assume that everybody else does business just the way that you do, and that you can go on this way indefinitely

In fact, you can get away with some of this for some period of time. One day, however, your customers may wander away, your vendors fail to jump to attention, your employees bail, and your profits vanish.

Before that happens, if you have an inkling that some of this sounds just a little like you, keep this list handy, and cross off each behavior as you eliminate it from your own everyday practices.

 

How to ramp up marketing for a recovery

We're seeing a difference in the way our various clients are marketing right now.

The entrepreneurial, smaller to mid-size companies are continuing to put up a good fight. They're either marketing aggressively and continuously, or adding new capabilities such as Web sites to augment their sales efforts. Our largest corporate clients are, in some cases, a different story. More oriented toward detailed budgeting and do-or-die profit projections (as well as being observed by anxious shareholders) their marketing has been somewhat more cautious, with projects going on hold or reduced in scope, and decisions put off by higher-ups until the next quarter or so.

As marketers, of course we're pro-marketing. You can't hide your way out of a recession. Silence is NOT golden in this case. However, as strategists, we're also sympathetic to the way different organizations must do business.

So... what's quick, affordable and can yield results exciting enough to stimulate the next activity?

Create a single initiative to motivate your customers. Run an End the Recession Promotion. If customers buy a particular new product or open an account, you give them a related gift or incentive... or perhaps a second product free.

Get people together. There's no better way to laugh in the face of adversity than to make clear that your company is not taking part in any further downturn. Mind you, this get-together is special. It's one in which you make your new energy, direction or differentiation clear either through an important announcement, an incentive toward buying your newest and greatest offering or a funny and motivational speech directed toward the audience's interests. Build relationships, and then follow up after the event.

Call the media! Do you have a new product, market or major initiative? Celebrate it with a press conference. Include (as appropriate) product demonstrations, a tour of the manufacturing facility or an introduction to the creative force behind the new idea... you know, like meeting Steve Jobs.

Do it online. Spring clean your Web site. Does your Web site bore even you? Does it look like your Uncle Leon designed it? The Web is very important now as your public face. Use it to inform, inspire, communicate, and (yes!) perhaps even sell. It's an investment that will pay you back.

Become a thought leader. Write a bylined article (or we'll do it for you) about where your industry, or its technologies, or consumer demand is going. Publish it in publications that your prospects read. Reprint it and send it out to prospects. Let your salespeople hand it out as yet more evidence of your expertise.

Start a GOOD newsletter. Let it convey what's new, why customers are lucky to work with you, why now is the time to invest in what you want to sell. Do it at least twice a year. E-news or print... it's up to you.

Partner with another company. You sell window treatments, they sell windows. For a limited time, customers who buy windows get a 40% discount on any of your fashionable designs!

Add your own idea here. Inaction isn't useful, but daring outreach is. You'll be glad, whether in three months, six or a year that you moved aggressively while others did not. What will work for you?