Starting out

Hello

How are you this week? I have been dashing around the country visiting family and friends, and attending networking events. So plenty to keep me busy! Its so easy not to "find" time for these things, but they are all important and helpful. And when you go networking you just never know who you might find. Yesterday I met someone who offered to help out with a website, and I was at a property event. Just goes to show, you shouldn't restrict yourself.

So, onto the ezine, this week we a have tips on the customer perspective - how often do you look at it? Plus an article on Kaizen, and how to implement it in your own business

Tips for your Business

Find out what the customer sees.

When was the last time you checked to see what you put your customers through when they order something from you?

It's too easy to focus purely on the end result (usually getting the cash in!!) and ignore all the steps and processes in between and yet, as a part of the customer's buying experience, this is equally important.

If you sell by phone ring up yourself (or ask someone else to do it if you are a small company) and go through the order process. What did the person answering the phone sound like? Helpful? Friendly? Unapproachable? Were the steps clearly explained? Did you finish the call knowing exactly what was going to happen next?

If you sell over the web, get your credit card out and order something. Did each step work, or did you get 'lost' in the system? Were all your links active? Was the loading time between pages quick enough? Were your order or acknowledgment messages received or were you left in the dark as to what was to happen next?

Set some time aside in your diary for this exercise. Its worth spending the time experiencing your business from the customer's perspective … you may be shocked what you find out!!

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Article

Kaizen - Can you use it?

In Japanese Kaizen means frog - but since this implies being capable of making small jumps, it has become synonymous around the world with the idea of "continuous improvement"

Although it started life in Japan, many companies have proved that it works equally well here in the UK

A Kaizen is an (often) small and (always) low-cost improvement that succeeds by harnessing the creativity and enthusiasm of staff - and not by buying expensive machinery and equipment.

Crucially Kaizen is not just about having an idea - it is also about being given responsibility for making your own idea happen, and that is where it differs from most conventional suggestion schemes. The people with the ideas are allowed, encouraged and expected to make them happen.

Example: Nuts kept falling off the bumper cars on a fairground ride. Not noticing that they were missing made the cars dangerous, finding them was difficult since they were the same colour as the floor of the ride, and even when you found them you couldn't tell which car they came from. So a fairground worker came up with a Kaizen to paint all the nuts the same colour as the cars they came from - making it quick and easy to spot them and know which car to put them back on to. And the Kaizen was complete when the fairground worker who had the idea finished painting the nuts.

Here is a simple nine step model for using Kaizen....

• Step 1 - Launch the Kaizen scheme - perhaps with a presentation to staff explaining that it is a tough competitive world and that their jobs depend on everyone pulling together to make the business ever better equipped to compete

• Step 2- To prove they are committed, senior managers/ business owners also carry out the first Kaizen

• Step 3 - Senior managers then play no further part (other than to encourage, support and congratulate).

• Step 4 - Whenever they have a Kaizen idea, staff discuss it immediately with their team leader (experience shows that 80% of staff will get into the Kaizen habit fairly quickly - the other 20% will take much longer to win round)

• Step 5 - If the team leader agrees that it is a good idea, the staff member who had the idea is authorised to make the Kaizen happen and raise a Kaizen form to explain the problem

• Step 6 - Once they have made the Kaizen happen (ie they have implemented their idea) the Kaizen form is completed to show what they did, what happened, and how well it worked.

• Step 7 - The team leader decides how much they should be paid as a Kaizen Award (eg. £5 to £15 - it is suggested that all awards should be of this modest non-taxable size)

• Step 8 - Senior management read and sign the completed forms so that they are kept abreast of what is happening and can congratulate their staff. They then pass it to accounts to pay the Kaizen Award

• Step 9 - A league table of completed Kaizens is drawn up and extra recognition is given to the people who complete the most Kaizens. This helps to create a game that people want to play.

How about trying it in your business? Let me know how you get on!

Many thanks to all of you who have passed this ezine on. That is how we grow so please pass on to any friends or colleagues who might be interested and ask them to sign up for their own copy. Subscribe here

If you refer 5 people you can claim your free copy of the Ebook "52 Reasons Why Some People Are Much, Much More Successful In Businesss Than Others" Just email me the names of the 5 people and make sure that they have signed up.

Recommendations

If you are interested in property investment at all, have you considered looking at my Professional Property Investor website?

It has some useful links and details of some courses I have found useful which are also reasonably priced ! And you have the benefit of knowing that it comes from a real person who is actually buying and letting property not some guru offering to make you millions overnight!

I hope you like it.

In this section I aim to bring you useful resources, websites, people, books and anything else which might be helpful to you. Do you have anything, or anyone , that has inspired you or made you sit up and think? If you have anything you would like to recommend please email me . Especially something (or someone)that really inspired you in your business.