Blog
Fair Weather or Foul? You owe it to your customers to survive the storm...
You've all heard the expression 'cobbler's children' meaning that you provide an excellent product or service to your customers, yet are not providing the same excellence for yourself. I was reminded today of a similar expression, 'an excellent plumber with a dripping tap at home'.
Some of the howlers I see are quite frankly breath-taking. I can only assume it's because of this old adage, business owners are so busy fixing other people's businesses and helping clients succeed that they fail to see their own, let alone start to repair them.
They do themselves and their clients and customers a great injustice, because customers want suppliers and partners who are healthy, ship shape, robust and able to prosper in fair weather or foul storm.
In my every day business life I spend my working days meeting with, observing and working alongside businesses of all types and sizes. Most are really good honest businesses with a good product or service; some have called me in because they have some real pressures which may sink them and others are just plain confused and lost.
They've come through another generation of business, the world has changed and the economical landscape is hard to read at best and at worst confusing.
Yet in all my clients I see excellence of service, happy clients, wonderful hard work and a real commitment to delivery time and time again, day after day, no matter what the pressures and concerns of the individuals at the top.
Then I have to ponder, why is it that these businesses, all of which have such a dedicated focus to delivering excellent quality goods and services on time and to budget, have some gaping holes inside the structure which would sink the Titanic.
Time out to analysis (going into the business equivalent of the 'dry dock' may not be suitable as no business can afford to stop completely) but taking time out to analyse, rationalise, repair and work out a sound strategy for moving forward is to do everyone a favour and your business can only prosper and run smoothly rather than continuing to 'lurch' along.
