Results tagged “interaction” from stevenfeinberg.com

What’s the biggest hidden killer of business?

It's central to leadership, sales, influence, persuasion, marketing, performance, doing more with less, getting stuff done on time, taking the right tack, and outwitting your competition in the midst of economic uncertainty.

This is not a trick question.

It’s knowing how to manage interactions.

The road to hell is paved with mishandled interactions.

Sticky problems become stickier when you don’t handle interactions skillfully.

And it doesn’t have to be that way.

Your interactions with customers, colleagues, and especially with your competitors' strategy make a huge difference.

Jan Carlson, president of SAS Airlines, turned an ailing airline, SAS, around from $20 million in the red to $80 million in earnings by managing interactions. Specifically, he identified 5 significant "Moments of Truth" – the points of contact in your business interactions in which you create advantages or disadvantages. Like baggage handling, seat selection, boarding, and departing from the plane etc.

Carlson asked the question, "What business are we really in? We are not in the business of flying airplanes. We are in the business of providing for the transportation needs of the traveling public. Therefore, our real assets are not the airplanes, but the passengers. We have to focus on giving them quality service for repeat business."

And Carlson got to work influencing customer perceptions by managing the interactions. On average there were 10,000 daily passengers experiencing 5 Moments of Truth each flight. That’s 50,000 Moments of Truth each and every day.

Carlson was an Advantage-Maker. Shifting interactions changes the game. And furthermore, he shifted structures to accommodate to the new interactions with the customer. By shifting structures you shapes behavior with less resistance.

How many moments of truth does your business have?  Have you identified them?

Do you know how to manage those interactions?

Are you skillfully shifting the structures to shape customer behavior or aligning employee actions?

Advantage-makers spot opportunities in problems - and a recession can be a real problem. And there's the opportunity. Everyone wants their problems solved. 

Most people think about taking advantage of an opportunity, shift to focus on how you can take advantage of a problem. 

People became millionaires during the Great Depression.  And while I don’t know any personally, I don’t think they were all robber barons. Some businesses typically do fine, such as automobile and truck parts.

Be an Advantage-Maker inside your organization. You can either create the horse to ride or pick a winning horse. Your choice. Finding a horse to ride may be faster, simpler and easier at this time.

The first Advantage-Point: 

Adapt and Stretch - the person with the widest range of responses wins. Non-adaptiveness is costly. 

It's not the best who wins, its who is most adaptive

While most people are engaged in cutting and reducing, Advantage-Makers put their attention on creating more value.  Now is the time to distinguish yourself in the marketplace compared to the cut and reduce crowd.

Dr. Fleming discovered peninsulin when a pesty mold killed his bacteria culture. Not a good thing. Fleming made a dimensional shift in his thought process and saw the mold not as a problem but a solution to another problem - that of ridding unwanted bacteria. Solutions are waiting to be found in the recession. Shift your efforts to providing targeted advantages for your customers.  

A person with attention deficit disorder takes his malady - short attention cycles and becomes a master at disaster recovery – ever ready to multi-task and fix things rapidly. 

What solution is looking for the problem you face?

Money is on everyone's mind now. 

Use the code of the advantage maker: time, interactions, perceptions, structures. (T.I.P.S) with the two main problems people are concerned with: surviving and/or saving money. Focus on shifting one or a number of the T.I.P.S. and you may find your opportunity knocking.

For example, shift payments into the future, it will reduce resistance and accelerate sales. Speed is also a time shifting advantage. Taking too long will undermine your responsiveness to customers. Remember customers are really willing to leave now, applying the different shifts can create new value. 

During the recession efficiency becomes the catchword.

There is nothing more efficient than creating an advantage.