It’s Cold Outside!

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Oct 102011
 

The skies are grimly grey. The wind is giving the trees a workout. A jogger goes past wearing a woolly hat. It’s cold outside. Wrong! The visual clues communicate cold weather, and although it isn’t exactly balmy, it isn’t really cold. A classic case of perception v. reality.

First impressions count. You’ve heard it dozens of times I’m sure. And they do. They are the foundations of our perceptions. But as we have already seen, perception and reality are often significantly different. Shiny on the outside doesn’t always equate to a great experience once we progress beyond the glitz. And a shabby exterior can often mask a great customer experience. But it’s more complicated than that.

A shiny exterior – shop, website, whatever it might be – can give off different signals. Or to be more accurate, we can perceive different things. (1) It looks posh, therefore it must be expensive; (2) It looks inviting, I want to go in.  If we perceive it to be expensive, we may be attracted because we think good service will be on offer, or we may be deterred because we think we can’t afford it. I told you it was complex!

It’s a bit simpler if the exterior looks uncared for. We won’t venture any further. That is unless something/someone has told us not to be put off by the exterior.

You may have perceived that I am talking about buildings, websites, organisations; after all those are the clues I’ve given you. But what about people? If you are interviewing someone for a job or considering hiring them to do some work for you, you are likely to make the same judgements, which may or may not be correct.

So what is the answer?  How should we present ourselves? You could try tossing a coin. Or you could think about your target customers and ask yourself what they might expect to find. And remember that it is usually wise to be slightly over-dressed rather than under-dressed. Which can apply to buildings as much as to people. But maybe most of all you should be you. The real person/business that the customer will experience. After all, they’ll find out eventually, so why not be consistent from the outset?

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Build A Chicken Shed

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Aug 202011
 

In a post last October on Inspirational Buildings I mentioned the effect that Frank Gehry’s Guggenheim Museum had on transforming the fortunes of Bilbao in northern Spain. Earlier this week I watched a Channel 4 programme that put the case against buildings such as the Guggenheim. It suggested that many post-Guggenheim buildings are more about show (and the architect’s ego?) than functionality for the people who use them. I am a passionate believer that buildings can have a powerful effect on the way we feel, how we work, how creative we can be. But I would readily agree that some creators of modern buildings do not seem to care about the users. An obvious example is the many people who are not comfortable with heights. Despite this, architects put glass lifts up the outsides of buildings and escalators that run up through space. They design buildings that rise to unnatural heights … and then give them glass walls!

The trouble is that many of us get so caught up in what we are doing that we often fail to understand what our customers experience. We may not be asked to design an iconic building but all of us have the opportunity to do something worthwhile, something that can make a positive difference to our business, the organisation for which we work, our community, or just to an individual. All that is required is an understanding of what the end user needs, rather than what we want to give them. Maybe over the weekend we can reflect on one thing we can do next week that will start to change something.  Another eminent architect, Frank Lloyd Wright said, “Regard it as just as desirable to build a chicken house as a cathedral”.

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Birds Read Blog

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May 302011
 

Yesterday I commented on the local blackbirds’ lack of enterprise at the bird feeding station. Rather than attempt to hang on to the wire cage holding the fat balls they would try to hover while grabbing a beak-full of food. What I hadn’t realised was that one of them is a Random Ramblings reader. Shortly after the article was published, one of the blackbirds started hanging onto the feeder. And it managed to do it quite successfully.

For more thoughts on personal and business development, whether you are a bird or a human, I hope you’ll flutter this way again.

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Business In A Flap

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May 292011
 

There is a frenzy at my garden bird feeding station. Up to a dozen birds at a time are feasting from the various feeders. Tits, finches, dunnocks and a woodpecker land on the feeders and enjoy themselves. Woodpigeons do not have the ability to do this so they pick up the scraps that fall. The blackbirds do it the hard way. They fly up to the fatball feeder and manage to hover briefly whilst grabbing a beak-full. I am curious as to why they don’t attempt to hold on to the wire cage containing the food.  Maybe their claws are not well adapted to the task but surely they’d do better than by trying to imitate a Harrier Jump Jet? To make their lives even more challenging, there is hostile competition between two pairs of blackbirds. They spend a great deal of time chasing each other around the garden. Guys, there’s plenty of food to go round. While you are doing two laps around the garden you could both have made a couple of trips to the feeder.

Could it be that some businesses act like blackbirds? Unwilling to try a new approach and hell bent on seeing off the local competition, they miss opportunities that would make their lives easier?

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The New Industrial Revolution

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May 162011
 

Recently I visited a couple of the industrial museums that form part of the Ironbridge Gorge complex. Ironbridge is often considered to be the cradle of the Industrial Revolution. When you visit the various sites scattered along the leafy Severn valley it is difficult to imagine why the diverse industries grew up there. Of course, the answer is the availability of natural resources.

In the UK resources are now often intellectual rather than physical. But the same concept can apply whereby people with complementary skills can come together to develop projects. There is often a reluctance to share ideas in case they are hijacked. Or, if the other person is in a broadly similar business, there is a fear that they will steal your customers. However, if you take the time to develop a personal relationship, this is unlikely to happen. I would suggest that the benefits outweigh the risk.

Over the past few months I have seen several instances of coming together to provide a more comprehensive service than could be achieved individually. In fact, now I think about it, that is exactly what I’m doing with Successful Speaking!

So don’t be afraid to share your ideas or to suggest ways that you could work together with someone else in your sector. Take the plunge and participate in the New Collaborative Industrial Revolution. When I said take the plunge, I didn’t mean into the Severn or any other river! In fact, you don’t have to be located by a river at all - you don’t even need to be located close to each other. But it does help if you are both rowing in the same direction!

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