Now, more than ever, you better be in touch with your business

Now more than ever, you better be in touch with your business

Things are changing very rapidly as you can see with developments in the Middle East.

Last month when CNN was reporting what was happening in Egypt, one of their correspondents stated that President Mubarak was totally out of touch with what was happening in his country, and out of touch with what the average Egyptian did on a daily basis, simply to make ends meet.

He went on to say that President Mubarak doesn’t even realize that the traffic congestion in Egypt is absolutely horrendous, making our traffic jams here in San Juan very normal in comparison. Why couldn’t he even know that traffic jams exist in Egypt? Well, whenever he went out into the city, the police escorts would clear the streets of cars and he always had an open highway. He didn’t relate to a traffic jam because he never experienced one.

What happened to me these past few weeks makes me realize that the same thing happens in businesses everywhere.

I was hired by a very large company to give four speeches in four cities around the United States. They wanted to invite prospects, business owners that they want to sell their products to, to this conference where I would do half an hour of business productivity ideas and they would do half an hour presenting their latest products.

I have a contract that besides requesting a deposit, it states that one month before the date of the event, it can’t be cancelled and the full amount is due. This company had paid the deposit and when the date for the events were getting closer, we were notified that their marketing people had screwed up and that they hadn’t been able to contact enough people to tell them about the event.

Even though they cancelled three out of four, they paid my whole fee and for the last event, they only had a handful of prospects present. So, in essence, I got paid for four events and I only spoke at one.

Do you think that the President of the company would have allowed that to happen? Of course not, but he simply wasn’t aware that it happened.

These people didn’t even have the mindset to since they were already paying for me, to donate my conferences to schools or chambers of commerce or even some of their top clients. No such creativity on their part which leads me to believe that they are in a comfort zone, a very dangerous place to be.

Do you know how much would it have been worth to that company for them to have called their top client and as a good will gesture offer them a free conference that they had paid thousands to contract?

So, even though I got paid my total fee, I do feel sorry for the client and I wish that they realize that they better get their act together or competitors will pass them by.

This same company was used as an example of a company that doesn’t communicate properly in the Logistics Summit I spoke in Mexico two weeks ago. The speaker told the audience how this company advertised a nationwide special on one of their products and they didn’t bother to contact the manufacturer to tell them that they should be ready for a bunch of orders because of the special they were running. The special was launched and they soon ran out of product and when they ordered more products, the manufacturer told them that they needed a few weeks to be able to deliver such quantities. Many customers got very upset because when they went to take advantage of the two for one special, they didn’t have it, and that my friends, leaves a very negative impression on the customers.

I have come to realize that many business leaders are similarly out of touch with what’s really going on in their business. They have no idea what it is like to be a client or an employee in their company. They have no idea what their main competitors are doing, how their suppliers are being treated, or what is worse, what is the content on the company website.

Dealing with another client in the communications business, and I have to be very careful not to give out too much information that would lead you to identify the client because of obvious reasons, they are surrounded by what we call “yes” people. They have such a culture of fear that everyone around them tells the president what he or she wants to hear. They think they have all the answers and no one is allowed to speak up. Well, yes, they are allowed, but sooner or later the guillotine will fall.

These type of presidents and executives insulate themselves from reality, many hide in their office and they never go out to the field to see what is going on, to speak to people in the front lines, to talk to clients.

The front line employees know stuff that no one else knows that really affects the business and they hate it when nobody asks them for their opinion. So, the really good employees leave the company and the mediocre ones stay adopting the “I couldn’t care less what happens here” attitude until they find a better opportunity elsewhere.

There is no doubt that the best way to find out what’s really going on is for them to get out, manage by walking around and demonstrate that you care about the business and the people that work on it.

In this particular company, as I do in many others, I held two lunch meetings a month with the president and ten employees. One meeting was held with selected employees on the basis of their contribution to their own individual departments and the other meeting with ten employees selected at random so that everyone in the company has a chance to have lunch with the president. That of course worked very well.

One of my favorite TV shows, Undercover Boss has demonstrated what an experience it is to really find out how things really work inside the companies. In every single company, in every single show, the president of the company that went undercover was surprised by what he saw while he was undercover.

So, as a business owner or manager of a company, how could you go undercover to see how things really work? Why don’t you call your company as if you were a client to see how the receptionist treats you? How about leaving a message in your sales department to see how long does it take for them to call you back?

In fact, if you just went around the different departments without wearing a mask or anything like that, and you talk to your employees, you will see how beneficial that will be to you and to them.