by The Business Plumber Team | business process |
I do a lot of networking, at many different venues– in fact I get all my business by word of mouth. And the key to successful networking, like so many other things, is consistency. So while I am happy to visit new networks from time to time, my focus is on a few strategic networks that I attend every time they run.
But this post is about venues. Because I visit them all the time. And for venues, as for networking, the key to success lies in consistency.
Why consistency is vital
Every meeting needs a venue – and most of the meetings I attend use the same format, set up in the same way, at the same venue. Every time.
So the requirements for that meeting will also be the same. Every time.
You’d think that any venue lucky enough to have this kind of regular booking would also have processes in place to deal with them. After all, how hard could it be?
Well, for some of them it clearly isn’t hard at all.
Take the White Hart in Godmanchester, where I attend a Women in Business Network lunch once a month. The tables are arranged just as we like them, the napkins and cutlery are properly laid out, there are jugs of water on the table, the teas and coffees are ready on the side… well, you get the picture.
Then there’s the Community Centre in Needham Market, where Stowmarket Chamber run their monthly drop-in coffee and cake networking. The room is ready, the urn is full of hot water, there’s a cloth on the table, the mugs are laid out, and the teaspoons are in place.
Then there are… other places.
The monthly lunch venue where the organiser has to turn up early to re-set the room, and chase up the missing items. Every time.
And the weekly breakfast venue which never remembers teaspoons. So, yes, the organisers finally bought their own!
Not to mention the fortnightly breakfast venue where the meeting tables randomly cycle between boardroom square, U-shape, and medieval baronial. Which has now become a standing joke among attendees.
There are many more “war stories”. You may have some of your own (please share!)
Does it matter? Yes, for a number of reasons.
Venues need to make a profit…
Now I’m only guessing, of course, but I would have thought most venues were looking for more, and more profitable, business. And there is an oft-quoted saying that to make more profit there are only three things you can increase:
- orders per customer
- your customer list
- or your prices
So – how could those aims be achieved…?
Orders per customer
Rule one to get more orders from your existing customers must, surely, be to get it right. First time. Every time.
In fact every time a venue sets up a room for a business meeting, you could say it’s creating a business opportunity. A chance to demonstrate its professionalism. To show potential clients why they can – and should – book it for their next training course. Their next product launch. Or their next celebration dinner.
It’s a perfect opportunity to win new orders. An opportunity that is all too often missed.
Customer list
Every meeting, by definition, involves more than one person. With a good chance that one or more of them are coming for the first time.
So it wouldn’t hurt to impress them.
And even if it’s the same people every time, every meeting makes an impression. Good – or bad. And each of those visitors will have their own network of business and social contacts. People they talk to about – among other things – the best local venues. More potential customers – who will take the recommendations (or warnings) they receive at face value.
Meaning that every networking session is an advertisement for the venue. Just as much as (if not more than) an ad in the local paper, on local radio, or on social media.
With the added benefit that someone else is paying you for the privilege…
Price – and the buying decision
So – if a venue can’t cope with our requirements, why are we still using it?
Well, at least one of the places I mentioned earlier has lost the business. With the others, it’s a matter of balancing the pros and the cons. This venue is better organised, but parking is tricky. That venue is better organised, but they can’t offer the dates this year. And so on. It’s a balancing act between costs and benefits. But price is an item that weighs pretty heavily in that balance.
So if your offer isn’t delivering on the benefits, you’ll need to redress the balance by – yes – reducing your prices.
Every decision is based on a cost-benefit judgement, even if that is done informally. And if your offering scores weakly on the benefits side, you can – and must – redress the balance by reducing prices.
Some suppliers make the mistake of assuming they must be doing OK. After all the customer is still buying, aren’t they? And there is a certain amount of buying inertia / better the devil you know etc.
But sometimes while all looks serene on the surface, the customer is actually working quite hard to find an alternative supplier.
It makes far better business sense to offer a decent product and service; and charge a decent price.
So why are venues getting it wrong?
My belief is that the problem is twofold: firstly, these venues simply have no idea what is important to their customers.
Sounds crazy, maybe, but many of the business lunch venues produce excellent food, and seem to think that that is enough. And for many of the delegates it may well be.
But the meeting organisers need to know that everything will be well when they turn up. They need to know that they do not need to turn up early every time to sort out venue problems. They need to know that if they are held up e.g. by roadworks, the meeting room will be ready on time.
And the choice of venue is down to the organiser.
So even if the niggles seem trivial to the venue, there will come a day when the hassle becomes the last straw. And from there on it is just a matter of time before the meeting moves somewhere else.
But I believe there is a second issue, too, a surprising one. There is no recipe!
Food (from recipes)…
I am sure that in all these venues, there are clear and documented recipes for food production in the kitchen. There have to be.
The recipe will set out the list of ingredients required, which will inform the buying side, so they can keep the stock cupboard replenished.
The recipe will set out the actions to be taken by the chef and the kitchen team, and in what order, and when, so that the slow cook items are started in time, and the stir-fry vegetables are prepared and ready for when they are needed.
There will also be recipes for the preparation which detail the equipment to be used – colour-coded preparation-boards, for example, keeping meat and vegetables apart.
In many establishments there are also pictures of the finished serving, to keep the offering consistent . Whoever is on duty.
…and ‘other stuff’ (that needs a recipe)…
There will be “recipes” for the cleaning too!
Lists of items that need cleaning and the frequency required: some every day, some items every week, others every month. And details of the cleaning processes involved, and the cleaning agents. And the cleaning equipment to be used – with colour-coded cloths for different areas.
Why do they do this? To ensure a consistent high-quality result. And to pass inspection by the Food Standards Agency.
A recipe for successful venues
Just imagine how easy it would be for everyone if the venue had a recipe for setting out the room!
A list of ingredients/equipment, so the person setting the room out has everything they need to do the job. No running backwards and forwards looking for odd items, with the risk they will get distracted and forget something important (like teaspoons…)
The timeline, ensuring that jugs of water and pots of coffee are on the table when delegates start to arrive, but not set out so far ahead that the water is unpleasantly warm, the coffee is unpleasantly tepid, and the milk has curdled (yes, that has happened!)
A picture of the room set out the way the customer wants it, so each individual customer gets the layout they’ve asked for, every time.
Why do might the venue do this?
- To ensure a consistent high-quality result. And to pass inspection by the customer.
- To perform well in the eyes of attendees, ensuring that those attendees will consider the venue for their own requirements. And recommend the venue to their contacts.
- To provide a decent service – ensuring they can charge a decent price, and make a decent profit.
Help is available
Success – for your venue – will have many ingredients. So if you need help in finding them (and then creating the perfect recipe) the Business Plumber will be delighted to help. For an initial one-hour consultation just call 01359 240717. And the price? Just one cup of (good) coffee…
by The Business Plumber Team | delegation |
Are you afraid to take a holiday?
No, I’m not joking. This is a particular problem for small business owners. One actually told me that he never took a holiday himself because, in his words, ‘I was worried that I wouldn’t have a business by the time I got back’.
But it doesn’t have to be like that. At least, not if you plan things properly beforehand…
But I am the business!
If you’re a sole trader, that may well be what you think. It may even be true. But it doesn’t mean you can’t take a break. And if you’re planning on having a life – as well as a business – then you actually need the occasional holiday. (Quite aside from the needs of others around you, who might quite reasonably like to see more of you than your back, hunched in front of the computer while you catch up with your accounts…)
Look at it another way. If you are your business, then your health and welfare are important to that business. Driving yourself into the ground will benefit no one, least of all the business. (You can’t do anything for your clients if you’re flat on your back in hospital.)
Luckily, there is another way…
Planning your holiday
As an organised person, one of the first things you’ll do when going on holiday is to make an itinerary – where you’re going, how you’re getting there, and where you’re staying when you do. And the second thing you’ll do is to make a list of what you’re taking.
(If that doesn’t sound like you, then now might be a great time to start…)
But before you do any of that, use the same process to plan your holiday. Make a list of your current projects – and any (predictable) future ones. An organised list of your current clients (that someone else can understand). And a planned schedule with a good, solid, two-week gap in it. That’s your holiday, and you do NOT accept any appointments or bookings that will interfere with it. (Go on. You can do it.)
Now share all those lists with a reliable, professional, virtual assistance service. (If you don’t know of one already, I’ll be happy to point you in the right direction.) They’re the ones who will be taking your calls while you’re away. Who will be checking your emails – and sending you ONLY those that require your personal attention. Who will be setting up appointments for you on your return. And who will be fielding routine enquiries from current and potential clients on your behalf. So they will need proper instruction – hence those lists.
And if you have a business process they need to know about, write it down and share it with them. You’ll soon find you can do a lot less – and achieve a lot more. In fact you may well want to carry on using them when you get back.
Ready? Good. Now sort out that holiday (and I can point you in the right direction there, as well)…!
And if you’d like a little more guidance on outsourcing and delegation, do check out our blogs. Or give me a call on 01359 240717 and we can get together over a cup of coffee.
by The Business Plumber Team | business process, user experience, work flow |
Thinking about moving services online? Perhaps to save cost? Or time? Or – perish the thought – staffing costs…?
Surely that should be easy enough?
Well yes – and no. Because a lot depends on the nature of the process you’re trying to deal with. As many local councils have discovered.
Let’s be fair. In recent years local councils have faced enormous challenges. They have had to cut their costs. And – rightly – they have been looking at ways to do that without cutting their key services. Surely (so the logic goes) they could set up automated processes to answer common questions. And even, perhaps, to deal with the most common transactions.
Simply – as they thought – by replicating what their teams were already doing.
Ambitious plans to move services online
They started confidently enough. In 2015 GOSS, a tech company specialising in work for government sent out a survey to local councils. 66% of respondents said they’d be moving 50-100% of their services online by 2018.
That didn’t happen.
By 2019 only 11% had 50% or more of their services online, while just 46% expected to reach that less ambitious goal by 2022. (Down from 55% in the previous year.)
So what went wrong?
Keep it simple, stupid…
Many councils ran into three problems almost straight away.
- Their processes – often developed over many years – were too complex to be easily automated.
- Their systems (according to 54% of respondents) lacked the necessary capabilities
- 44% were held up by lack of resources – and 39% by lack of in-house skill
With mistrust from the beginning – understandably, perhaps, where job losses were likely – many projects got off to a rocky start. And even when they’d been implemented, the reaction from the public was often less than encouraging.
Because – all too often – an overcomplicated internal process had been made into an overcomplicated sequence of interactions. And nobody loved it. Especially when they had to enter personal information repeatedly to gain access to different council services.
A huge proportion of users failed to complete the processes online. Instead, they rang the council for help. With (perhaps) fewer staff to man the phones, they often had a long wait for an answer. if they got through at all…
So the public hated it. The staff hated it. And the councils began to worry that they had spent a sizeable amount of money on a white elephant.
Time for a change?
So what’s the answer?
For the councils – and for any organisation that wants to go digital – it all boils down to the customer experience. If your online systems are easy and intuitive to use, people will be much more willing to use them.
And you’ll get far fewer angry phone calls.
But to achieve that goal, you may very well need to review the entire process you’re trying to digitise. Because while it may function perfectly well when trained, experienced, and knowledgeable staff are running it, you can’t expect your customers to deal with it in the same way.
And if you need a little help with that, please call me for a chat on 01359 240717.
by The Business Plumber Team | business process, delegation |
Picture by kind permission of Jess Fotheringham of Pickacake – Jess makes all her own cakes and decorates them, too! See more at www.pickacake.co.uk and www.facebook.com/jesspickacake/
It’s great talking about delegation in theory, but how does it work in practice? Let’s look at an example…
Say you’re a wedding cake specialist whose business is just taking off. Which means you’re now so busy that you’re working past 11 pm most nights.
So – what could you delegate?
After a little thought, you start making a list, which includes:
- handling telephone enquiries
- handling online enquiries (via email, Facebook, your website etc.)
- taking orders
- collecting (and chasing) payment
- posting on social media
- delivering the finished cake
Those are all fairly obvious. None of this work requires your key skills, and all of it can easily be done by someone else. But you might also consider a more radical solution. Suppose – for example – that you decide your key skill is cake decoration. In that case you might consider outsourcing the actual cake making to someone you can really rely on.
How, exactly, could you go about doing that?
Start with three questions
What are you delegating? Why are you delegating it? And to whom will you delegate?
What you are delegating sounds simple – but is it? Will you delegate just the basic cake making, or the cake making and basic icing?
Why you are delegating also sounds simple – after all, you’re already working too hard. But what is your plan? Do you want to stop work earlier but still produce the same number of cakes? Or do you want to increase productivity – to make more cakes during the time you are working?
And the questions don’t stop there.
You have a good reputation, which you want to keep. So are you going to specify a particular recipe? Will you insist on free range eggs? Will you specify the source for those eggs? What size – or sizes – of cake do you want made? Are you supplying tins, or are they? How will you keep in contact with your supplier? (Phone? Email? SMS? Messenger?) And will you want them to acknowledge all your orders – in detail?
Sounds finicky? Not really. Just consider a realistic example…
You place an order for ‘an 8-inch cake, wanted Monday’. At this point you know exactly what you mean by that – but your supplier doesn’t. For instance, are they delivering the cake, or are you picking it up? Do you need it cooled before collection or delivery, or could it still be warm from the oven? Do you want it in a tin, or wrapped in greaseproof paper? And when, exactly, do you want it? By 10 am on Monday? By close of play on Monday?
There’s a lot to think about – and we haven’t even considered what’s probably the most important question – to whom?
Can you trust your new supplier?
You’re delegating a job that is vital to your business. If your new supplier gets it wrong, you will lose customers – and, more importantly, you could lose a reputation that’s taken a long time to build.
So you’ll want to spend some time checking them out. You might even consider placing a trial order to see how they perform – ordering a cake you don’t intend to sell, just to see for yourself that it’s a good cake. And once you’ve made your choice, you need to listen to your customer feedback, and check that the change works for them, too.
In short, delegation involves a lot of questions – including quite a few you may not have thought of. Because it’s all about process. And that’s my speciality.
So if you’d like a little help, why not book a chat with me today? No pressure, no fee, no obligation.
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