Category: meetings

Just one customer

Posted on by Steve Sammartino

If we had just one customer how would we treat her?

If we had just one customer what would our business relationship be?

If we had just one customer at what lengths would we help her?

If we had just one customer we’d hope she told others good things about us.

If we had 1 million customers it would be different. We’d be too busy to do any of that stuff. We’d have projects and financials and meetings and someone answering our phone and daily issues to resolve….right?

As far as she is concerned, we only have one customer.

So it must be true, we only have one customer. We ought treat her that way.

Vicious circle

Posted on by Steve Sammartino

Do we…

Work in a job we don’t like

To buy things we don’t need

To impress people we don’t like

?

 

To be really happy we need to ensure one sub optimal arrangement doesn’t feed another. This holds true if we run our own business or hire our time out to a company (have a job).

Simple motivation

Posted on by Steve Sammartino

After a few wins in a start up – one buddy emailed this image to another buddy with the obvious inference that he was “On Fire”

 fireman.jpg 

It didn’t cost anything. It only took a tiny effort, but it helped both buddies stay pumped and work harder on their start ups.

The Pitch

Posted on by Steve Sammartino

A colleague has left the safe confines of his large conservative leading architecture firm to start up his own – K2LDC. So now his new job role isn’t CEO, rather ‘salesman’.

 

So how does an architecture differentiate themselves with their pitch? here’s a tip – it’s not through anything to do with power point slides or boring details. Especially as it concerns visual services such as architecture. It’s about creating theatre, sparking imagination and getting the client into your mind.

 

So K2DLC did this: After a brief discussion at the pitch they left the client with a deck of cards (samples below) with their pictures and thoughts on how to approach the design.

design-process-cards1.jpg

 design-process-cards2.jpg

Result: The client considered what the firm was trying to achieve.  They played with the cards. They put them on their fridge. They put them in their order of favorite. They had an in depth discussion. They took themselves on a visual journey. They loved it.

 

K2DLC won the pitch.  

The 5% rule

Posted on by Steve Sammartino

Five percent of the people we meet simply like to be difficult. They can’t be sold to, convinced, enlightened, managed or taken on any kind of journey. They might be customers, consumers, buyers, retailers, developers, employees, colleagues or anyone in our start up value chain.

Words to describe these people often include:

Obstinate

Arrogant

Rude

Apathetic

Dismissive

(insert negative adjective here)

No change in approach will change this fact. We didn’t make a mistake, we weren’t unprepared. It just is. We need to accept it and move.

Success is about people and numbers.

What we need to be aware of is if the 5% grows and becomes 10% or even 20% of people….. then it’s time consider whether we are on the wrong side of the 5% rule.

The truth about social networking

Posted on by Steve Sammartino

 

The old fashion methods of social networking have always been and will always be, the best way for making connections.

 

Sure, I’ve got a facebook and linkedin page. But the reality is this:

 

Unless we have a persons phone number in our cell,

their email in our address book,

we would say ‘hello’ if we passed them on the street,

or we could comfortably have coffee and chat,

they are not a ‘real’ contact.

 

This is not to say that we should limit ourselves to who we already know, but to nurture our current ‘real’ relationships, which will lead to more ‘real’ relationships. Repeat.

Facebook et al are a great way to ‘re-find’ people, but can we imagine going to meet someone we’ve not been introduced to the old way and have a valuable business meeting with them? Can we imagine meeting with a random social network inviter and becoming close business or personal associates?

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Old in the new New.