A Feather In (My) Cap
I heard the owner of a
small business make this comment some time ago after winning a particular piece
of business. I’ve been wondering why it
bothered me. After all, he’d just won a
new contract that looked as though it would pay well, so what was wrong?
When it comes to small businesses, the owners are usually
the salespeople for their business. They
know their market, understand the customers and how to appeal to them. They’re usually the ones to go out and get
the sales.
Then it came to me…
Like many salespeople, business owners can forget that, once
they clinch the sale, someone else makes things work. This is where the reputation of the business is
won or lost: not by slick sales, but by people making sure that customer needs
are met and exceeded. One of the reasons
behind the winning of the new business that I mentioned above was the
reputation that the company had built for its quality of service. The business owner set the standards (and,
occasionally, enforced them), but it was the team that did the job that built
its reputation.
We can forget, as business owners, that our success depends
on the hard work and loyalty of others.
As some of us may have heard, ‘There’s no “I” in team’. If the owner had said, “It’s a feather on our
cap.” That would probably have made more sense.
We need to remember the team and the part that they play in
our business’ success. How we talk about
our business tells our customers more about us as a person than we may realise.
Labels: Leadership, Selling, Strategy, Teamwork
posted by William Martin @ 13:56
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