What Customers Want, What Customers Need
May 2006
Interviewees:
- Karl McKeever, founder of brand delivery consultancy Visual Thinking,
- Sukhi Ghuman, managing director of international security firm Octavian Security
Key Messages:
- Key is to differentiate what your business does from others. Try and punch above your weight. Convey the perception that you are a bigger company than you actually are.
- Early in your career you act on impulse and take bigger risks. As you get older you become more risk averse.
- It all comes from within (SG)
- Read, look, listen, probe, nosiness – sniff things out, get a gut feel, be curious, trust your instinct. Ask why?
- Restlessness – never satisfied, always looking to reinvent self, always reading, listening to the news. SG reads 4 newspapers a day - constantly cutting things out.
- Businesses need fewer, but more flexible people. Flexible roles, best people, flexible and fluid, highly motivated, work across all aspects of the business. Need to harness the potential entrepreneurs within businesses. Incentivise people. Be honest and open with them. Give them the bad news. Keep your promises.
- Look at own weaknesses and get others to cover these. Surround yourself with people who complement rather than duplicate your skills.
- Leader must keep people interested. People bounce off you - they need confidence in your vision.
- Create your own luck. Doggedness is key. Determination, tenacity, don’t accept "no" the first time. How you deal with such set backs is key to building your own strength of character.
- M & S said "no" to Karl 5 times before they said "yes" to appointing his company - people and circumstances change over time. Keep going back. He applied for and was rejected 5 times by NEXT before getting his first job there. Its like gardening –sow some seeds, nurture them and they will come to fruition.
- Have faith – Karl’s business operated for 6 months before it got its first customer.
- "Stress is good, anxiety is bad".
- Sukhi – "I have no interest in our competition. We provide a premium service that is not available elsewhere".
- Advantage of providing a service is that you can tailor it according to a customer’s needs. If you manufacture a single product you don’t have this flexibility.
- Find a new market. Markets in the UK are more sophisticated than elsewhere. Take your product to a different location. However, decide if you are bold enough to see it through.
- At the first meeting don’t try to oversell. Gauge who you are dealing with - find out what they are like as people.
- I wish I’d had more advice on
- Pricing
- Contracts – tying people in
- Protecting ideas
- Bad advice
- Logo
- Web site design
- Get a suit
- Know when not to take advice