Customers – Grandpa Bob Encouraging Leadership

You Can’t Delegate Your Influence

A professional manager understands that managing is an active role. It requires proactive effort, not just sitting back and overseeing tasks. A good manager knows how to delegate responsibility and authority. It’s a key skill that helps multiply their impact and develop the next generation of leaders.

There’s no shortage of books and articles that dive deeply into the art of delegation. Many are worth reading and putting into practice. But here’s the thing: no matter how much you delegate, you can’t delegate your influence. That personal touch—the way you listen, share your perspective, and guide the conversation—is something only you can bring to the table.

Managers have a unique viewpoint. They understand the critical questions facing the organization in a way others often don’t. Their value lies in their ability to communicate directly, to really hear what’s being said (and often what isn’t), and to guide the organization toward the right path. That’s what makes their influence so crucial.

Now, picture this: a manager sends one of their team members to a meeting with internal customers. The goal? For the subordinate to represent the manager’s ability to listen, understand, and guide the discussion. Sure, it can work if that person has full decision-making authority and can make agreements that hold the manager accountable. But that’s rarely the case.

So, we come back to the reality: a manager has to prioritize where they spend their time and energy, making sure they’re showing up where their influence is most needed. It’s not just about sitting in meetings or making decisions on the fly—it’s about really understanding the dynamics in play, both spoken and unspoken.

A manager’s influence over the direction of projects, processes, and people can’t be handed off. At best, subordinates can carry a “shadow” of that influence. It might get the job done, but it’s not likely to push the organization in the bold direction it needs to go.

In the end, while delegation is a powerful tool, influence is personal. And if you’re serious about leading, you need to make sure you’re showing up where it counts.

Photo by Katja Anokhina on Unsplash

That’s all great. But, what does your customer think?

The customer is the only reason we exist…

“We had an awesome meeting yesterday. We finalized our growth plans for next year. We’ll be presenting them to the CFO next week.”

“That conference was amazing. The speakers really hit the nail on the head about what’s coming in our industry.”

“We finished all the employee reviews before the deadline. We start every year with this fire drill! I’m glad that’s behind us!”

“This new software update will finally fix our scheduling problems.”

“The year-end financials are done, and our tax filing is happening on time this year.”

“Our new branding colors are excellent. They really pop on our mobile app!”

“The holiday party committee met, and we’ve got our recommendations for the venue and party theme this year. When can we meet to finalize the plans so we can put money down on the venue?”

What do all of these have in common?

They’re all statements I’ve heard, or said, during my professional career. I could’ve rattled off 30 more sentences just like these. All would have represented important activities, milestones, discoveries, inventions, process improvements, or events within the companies I’ve managed (or owned).

But, none of them represented what our customers think. The customer, in this case, is the person or company that’s paying us for our products and services.

None of the sentences describe us communicating directly with our customers or our prospective customers.

None of them focus on why our customers use our products and services.

None provide a greater understanding of how our customers relate to us.

None help us understand how important we are (or aren’t) in their life.

Are we just a faceless machine that delivers something our customer needs at this moment? Are we merely a utility to them?

If we disappeared tomorrow, would they miss us?

Do they know who we are as a company? Do they know anything about our values? Do we know what our values are at this company?

Do they care about our branding colors, or that we’re having a nice holiday party this year? Probably not.

Even when we fail to ask, our customers have powerful ways to tell us how we’re doing:

When they continue paying us, we know that they value what we’re doing today. They haven’t found anyone else who does it better, cheaper, or both. They haven’t found anyone that they think cares more about them than we do. We’ve won today.

When they call or write to complain or ask for something new and improved, we can infer that they care enough to ask. They trust that we’ll listen. Our response lets them know whether their trust is well-placed, or not.

Winning today is nice. Winning tomorrow, next week, next month, and next year is far more important when it comes to customers.

While we take care of all the tasks associated with keeping our organization afloat, it’s easy to forget why our organization exists in the first place: to serve our customers and attract new ones.

The customer is the only reason we exist.

Something to keep in mind the next time you put off calling your customer back until after you’ve finalized your company’s holiday party plans.

P.S. This riff about customers applies to our internal customers as well. After all, our internal customers are often the ones who deliver service to our external customers. If we fail to serve our internal customers, you can easily guess what’s going to happen to our external customers.

Photo by Tyler Nix on Unsplash

Service…It’s Everyone’s Advantage

Customers always have an alternative. If your organization isn’t committed to making their experience an excellent one, they’ll figure it out quickly and choose an alternative. It’s that simple.

Take a good look at that picture. Let it burn onto your consciousness.

As the world becomes smaller, and yet, more remote; as customers become closer, and yet, more distant; as you begin to blend in with everyone else…

Service is all you have to actually differentiate yourself.

When anyone can provide what you provide, do what you do, be what you want to be, your focus on service is all that matters.

How does an individual compete against a huge, well-entrenched company? By providing better service. Being more responsive, more flexible, and more personally accountable.

How does a huge, well-entrenched company compete against the scrappy upstart individual? By providing better service. Being more responsive, more flexible, and more personally accountable.

Sound familiar?

Who has the advantage in this battle to provide the best service?

The one that actually lives a service-first mindset. The one that considers the customer’s perspective before their own. The one that delivers excellent service…every time. The one who knows that no company can survive or thrive if it forgets about creating an excellent experience for their customer.

It all comes down to execution, which comes from your uncompromising mindset toward service excellence.

Service is your only advantage. It’s the same advantage everyone else has if they choose to execute on it.

Photo Credit: Unsplash.com—Mike Wilson

The Most Important Question…

If the customer is so important, why are urgent things getting in the way?

I’ve found an interesting theme among those I’m coaching lately. When I ask about customers, I get various versions of blanks stares, or platitudes about how they are trying to stay focused on their customer.

Rather than customers, they are usually focused on some sort of internal organizational issue, the latest restructuring project, the next budget presentation, or hitting the number (whatever number it may be). Don’t get me wrong. These are important; at least urgent.

But, this blank stare when it comes to customers is interesting. After all, isn’t the customer why we’re in our business in the first place? We have a product or service that our customers need or want (hopefully both). We may be the only source for our customer. Or, more likely, we’re one of many providers of the products and services they want.

If the customer is so important, why are urgent things getting in the way? Simple. It’s easy to get caught up in the urgent, often internal, issues. Being busy can feel rewarding.

It’s harder to remember that your organization only matters if your customers think it matters.

Sounds harsh, but that’s all there is…you and your customer.

See if you can answer these questions about your customers. Before you jump ahead, there’s one rule. Write your answers in the form of direct quotes from at least five of your customers:

How do your customers use your products and services?
Why do they use your products and services?
How do your products and services make them more successful?
What worries your customers?
What are you doing to help with the things that worry them?
What do they see in their future?
Will you be a valuable part of their future?
How can you help your customer get to their future faster?

And, the most important question of all:

Does your organization really matter to your customer? Why? (Or, why not?)

What’s Your Personal Net Promoter Score?

Consistent excellence (awesomeness) drives higher NPS…

A customer is the most important visitor on our premises. He is not dependent on us. We are dependent on him. He is not an interruption to our work. He is the purpose of it. He is not an outsider to our business. He is a part of it. We are not doing him a favour by serving him. He is doing us a favour by giving us the opportunity to do so.

–Mahatma Gandhi

By now, you’ve probably heard the term Net Promoter Score (NPS). It’s a system that focuses on the answer to one simple question:

On a scale of 1-10, where 1 is not likely and 10 is very likely, would you recommend this company/product/service to a friend or colleague?

That’s it. One question that sums up a customer’s entire experience…and also measures their loyalty. A person who responds with a 9 or 10 is a promoter, 7’s and 8’s are passive, and 1-6 is a detractor.

Promoters are not only loyal buyers, but they go out of their way to spread the good news about a company they like.

Passives are just that, passive. Their loyalty is weak…a fair-weather friend. They can be swayed easily to switch to another company if an alternative presents itself.

Detractors will go out of their way to spread bad news about a company. They’ve had a bad experience, and are happy to tell everyone about it.

Thousands of companies monitor their NPS. Perennially high NPS companies include Apple, Starbucks, Nordstrom, USAA, Amazon, and Trader Joe’s. Each invests time, energy, and money to deliver excellence, above all else, to their customers.

Consistent excellence (awesomeness) drives higher NPS.

How much time are you investing in your personal NPS? Are you paying attention to the impact you have on those around you? Are you consistently delivering excellence to those you care about the most?

How would the people you serve (family, friends, co-workers, employees, managers, strangers) answer this question about you:

On a scale of 1-10 where 1 is not likely, and 10 is very likely, would you recommend ______your name here_______ to a friend or colleague?

More importantly, how do you answer this question about yourself?

Are You Asking Strategic Questions?

If your company stopped delivering its products and services, who would miss it?

It’s strategic planning season. Companies of all shapes and sizes are dusting off their strategic plans from last year, looking into their crystal balls and determining what they’re going to do next year. How can we extend our products or services within our marketplace? What will it take for us to keep up (catch up) with our competition? How can we squeeze an extra point of profitability from our existing revenue streams? Can we raise our prices a few percentage points without losing too many customers? Do we need this many people?

If the previous paragraph sounds familiar, your organization isn’t doing strategic planning.

Strategic planning isn’t just an annual event. Strategic questions don’t come from a defensive posture. They shouldn’t be about tweaking at the margin. Strategic questions definitely shouldn’t focus on ways to play “catch up.” These questions may be important, but they aren’t strategic. They’re tactical.

If your company stopped delivering its products and services, who would miss it?

What do your customers, or prospective customers, really want? What are they trying to accomplish? Your organization’s value comes from helping customers hit their strategic targets. Otherwise, you’re merely a commodity, a convenience to be discarded whenever possible.

Many organizations fool themselves into believing they do strategic planning. Sadly, they’re only going through the motions, “challenging themselves” to answer the easy, tactical questions…year after year.

That is, until their customers find another way to meet their strategic goals.

The Perils of Over-thinking

Here’s a little over-thinking on the topic of touch-free paper towel dispensers…

To demonstrate how over-thinking can produce results that are the opposite of stated goals, here’s a little over-thinking on the topic of touch-free paper towel dispensers.

There are two main goals associated with touch-free towel dispensers in public restrooms:

Dispense a pre-defined quantity of paper towel, minimizing paper use.

Allow patrons to get their towels without coming in contact with someone else’s germs.

Simple, right? Well, not so fast.

How much paper does a patron need to achieve proper hand drying? If we use inches of dispensed paper as the measure, is three inches of paper enough? Six? Twelve? What’s too much? If the goal is to minimize waste, one could set the dispenser to only three inches. Theoretically, this would minimize paper use. But, if it’s not enough, the patron will stand there and dispense another three inches. Possibly, another six inches.

To get the additional inches of paper towel necessary to achieve proper drying, the patron must wait for the machine to cycle. This second-and-a-half cycle time can seem like an eternity. After all, we’ve all got other things to do with our time. The patron vigorously swipes their hand under the machine. After one or two wand-like swipes that yield no additional paper, they often resort to hitting the machine where the sensor should be. Oops, there goes that goal of not touching someone else’s germs.

Which setting will yield the least overall paper use (our first goal)? The first-level thinker would say the lowest setting will do the trick. But, we’ve established that the lowest setting is probably not enough. The patron will merely wait for at least one more cycle to get the paper they need.

The second-level thinker would say that dispensing more from the beginning will yield less overall paper use and waste. If the proper amount is dispensed from the beginning, the patron will be less likely to wait for another cycle. Don’t even get me started on battery use differences associated with the two options.

Why does any of this matter? Why think so deeply about touch-free towel dispensers?

To illustrate how easy it is to get wrapped up in meaningless minutia and forget about providing the patron (our customer) with an excellent experience. How much minutia are you focusing on while ignoring your customer’s experience?

The Last Mile

The telecommunication provider has a tremendous amount of control over everything in their network…except the last mile, where the end customer is.

The last mile describes the final leg of a telecommunications network. It’s the part that actually reaches the end customer. It’s often the most difficult and uncontrollable link in the network. This is where most of the bottlenecks occur. The simplest of networking processes can be complicated by the wiring and equipment in the customer’s home.

Telecommunication networks exist to serve end customers. Without the end customer, there’d be no one to pay the bill, or finance the network’s creation and maintenance. The telecommunication provider has a tremendous amount of control over everything in their network…except the last mile, where the end customer is.

The customer’s experience comes from the last mile. They don’t need to know or understand the engineering and infrastructure that goes into operating the massive network. They don’t care about the traditions and history of the telecommunications provider. They only care about the cost, speed, and ease of use they experience in their home.

The same is true for nearly any business. The last mile drives the story your customers will tell. How much attention are you paying to the last mile?