Entrepreneurship

Get the Feedback You Need from Your Customers

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Your business can’t improve operations without honest and substantive feedback from your customers. But customers can often be reluctant to provide it. Here are three ways to get the input you need.

  • Reframe customer feedback requests. When following up with customers after they’ve interacted with your company, make it clear that the organization is seeking to improve—not to be told it’s doing well. Instead of asking “How did I do?” ask “What’s one thing I could do to have served you better today?” Ask good second and third questions to encourage customers to generate ideas.
  • Focus on customer actions, not their words. Instead of tracking “sentiment,” which can be misleading, track and observe customer behavior. How often are customers repeating purchases? How frequently do they come to your store or site? What do they do when they’re there?
  • Make it habitual, not occasional. Switch up that bi-annual or quarterly survey in favor of mechanisms that are continual and can be integrated into your culture. Whenever you make a change to your operations—even if it’s small—observe how customers respond and seek honest input. Feedback from customers is not only a gift but an imperative.

Better is better than louder…

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Promo is promo even if pushed louder and louder.

Whereas creating something useful, that people like and share with others, it’s better, it’s not “promo”. It’s sharing and caring in the community.

The secret is not to focus on promo but on what you create, what you impact, and what you help others with.

So make it better, keep making it better than the previous instead of making it louder.

Monday blues…

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When I was in working as an employee, I use to always envy entrepreneurs, business owners & promotors. They never seem to have Monday blues, I use to hate Mondays. 

I am sure most of us who work in job or are employed hate Monday’s. 

So what is “Monday blues”? 

It’s a sad and melancholy feeling, starting from Sunday evening, that the next day is very stressful. Meetings, expectations, status reports, team confrontations, and never sure what kind of surprise waiting for you on Monday. In-fact sometimes we dread this feeling so much that we find reasons to skip work that day if possible. But can’t!

So how did I got rid of Monday blues? 

I came out of these Monday blues, I am running my own startup for the last couple of years. And sometimes when I remember how I got rid of Monday blues, I laugh at myself.

A simple answer is I made every day Monday, :(. Sorry to disappoint u! But there seems to be no other way. 

As a Co-Founder, every day is a Monday with lots of stress. Days are not so different now, be it Sunday or Monday or Tuesday, every next day is going to be a blue day. Yes once in a while you have golden days but those are few counted once.

It’s like to kill fear, be with fear, and u will get use to the fear.

Unfortunately, there is no other way to kill Monday blues, unless you run off and live the life of a saint alone in forests.

So enjoy your Monday blues, and be grateful you got only one blue day in a week :). 

Solve complex problems or solve consumer problems?

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As a technologist or product owners, we have a choice – Solve complex problems or solve consumer problems? Believe me, there is a huge difference.

Being techy it gives us people a thrill to solve complex problems even if the problem has zero correlation to a real consumer.

As long as its complex we want to solve it :). Let’s not get into why of it? Maybe it gives a mind thrill or gives a good massage to our ego.

But then what’s the point of product & technology, if it does not solve consumer problems? or real-world problems?

I would say this is one of the biggest learning for me, now that I have my own startup. And I can safely say this makes a huge difference between a successful techy and an average one. Anyone who gets this prospective can not only deliver things much faster but adds tremendous value to the product.

I learned it the hard way, here is how it happened:

Initial days as a techy I had very little interaction with clients who were using our software. But one day I had a call with one of our biggest clients to explain (We use to provide a platform for sellers to sell their items and ship it to the consumer, something similar to eBay) why a major release got postponed leading to shipping & tracking problems. The Client was losing a lot of money because of this issue.

I was dreading the call and was ready with all the tech explanations why it happened, what are we doing to fix it, etc, etc…

The call started, my sales colleague did a quick intro along with the business side updates and handed over to me …

I started with all sorts of technical jargon and then tried explaining that the architecture of the dashboard was scraped and rebuilt for scale…blabbering as much as possible to convince him.

Off-course he couldn’t understand a single word.

But here comes the surprise:

Me – “Sir, the release got delayed because blah blah…we are working day and night to get it live by next week and again blah blah blah more jargons”

Client – “That’s fine but can u please enable my shipping address in the success page”

Me – After long pause….“Sorry, didn’t get, Please tell me again..”

Client – “You guys have removed my shipping address from the success page to make it more prominent on the next page, and hence my customer couldn’t find it easily. ” Client Continued – “Because of this, my customers are not able to understand and have been canceling orders. Also, I need to coordinate with every customer on the phone/mail and losing money…”

Me – Again a longer pause, but some sense of relief and guilt for making this guy and others suffer for our favorite “Dashboard Release”
“Sure Sir, I am sorry for the issue it might be a product bug let me fix it asap”

Client as politely as possible – “I am not much concerned with when the dashboard goes live but please fix this asap and I am more than happy”

Me – Now with more confidence, since its just a shipping address to be added to the success page.
“Sure Sir, I assure you, we will release it by tomorrow”

We fixed the shipping address display issue in the success page, The Client(s) was happy and we released our dashboard in next two weeks (BTW – there were very few usages of the Dashboard but that’s a different story)

This was a life-changing moment for me, I couldn’t understand what happened for some time, why is the client not bothered to use Dashboard built with great technology and supposedly help him so much.

Later I figured that most of the clients had a simple system to show the shipping address and get their team to process it thru excel. Why would they want their team to learn Dashboard and make it difficult, learn a new skill set and invest more?

If we would have understood their problem a bit deeper and had integrated excel into it. It would have been much easier to implement, much faster, and would be very helpful to them. But we were solving a very difficult problem of integration of data from different sources into a single Dashboard and was being proud doing it.

Remember 80-20 Rule

To all the techies and product folks, remember – 20% of product & product features are used 80% of the time hence if we can hone this 20% we are winners. Of course, it’s difficult to identify the 20% and that’s where our focus should be.

So next time if you see a complex problem to be solved, first raise questions what & why, is it really helping someone? and if it does not go solve a complex puzzle to massage your ego 🙂 but please ignore the complex problem.

Effort and value…

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One of my blogs took more than a week to write, 4 hours a day. Another took a total of 3 hours. Both attract the same traffic. The quicker one outdid the other 20 to 1 in traffic.

2 years of product work solves almost exactly the same problem as a one-month product work.
The effort of something is largely irrelevant, people are paying attention to its value.

Your customers don’t care what it took for you to make something – Effort. They care about what it does for them – Value.

You Can’t Over Prepare for a Presentation…

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Writing a speech or presentation is challenging, and memorizing it takes even more time and effort. But whether you’re speaking at a conference, setting a direction for your team, or persuading upper management to greenlight an idea, it’s important to know your presentation cold.

Transitions can be especially tricky, so break your talk into sections and rehearse the shifts between the sections. Note any troublesome segues and practice them repeatedly. Then, spend time each day memorizing your speech. You might consider recording and listening to it whenever you’re driving, exercising, or running errands. Or you can rehearse a portion of your script right before bedtime or multitask as you brush your teeth.

Finally, have a plan for any slip-ups. Prepare two or three go-to phrases, such as, “Let me refer to my notes,” or “I’m struggling to remember my next point. Let me take a moment and step back.” The lapse will be less awkward for everyone when you don’t panic and do what you need to move on.

Keep Writing Simple…

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When you’re writing for work, it can be tempting to rely on industry jargon or big words to puff up your ideas. But overblown language doesn’t make you sound smart, and it can be off-putting to readers.

Most people are drawn to a more conversational tone. So, choose shorter, more familiar words and explain things in a way that anyone could understand. For example, write “things that could affect the merger” instead of “issues potentially impacting the successful completion of the merger.”

Also, whether you’re writing an email or a formal proposal, make sure that your content is glanceable since it probably will be read on a screen — and these days, often a phone.
Assume that your readers will be distracted, busy, and on-the-go.

Formatting can help: Try using subheads, bullet points, diagrams, and tables to highlight your key takeaways. Short sentences and short paragraphs help too.

A good rule of thumb is “one thought per sentence.” If there are too many linked ideas in one sentence, your readers may get lost and just give up.

Focus on the Positives…

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Any situation whether its career-related, personal or social we tend to focus on negatives.

“Oh! I don’t know this topic what will happen in Job Interview? “, “let me skip this interview”

“I am not good looking enough to meet her/him”

“My English is not good enough to speak”

There are many such statements that goes in our mind. The main reason to focus on negatives is our ego, in other terms fear of failure. It pushes us to edge, why this happens to me? “The Ego Ahem”

As an intellectual, we always turn to logic in failures while in the success we assume it’s because of self. Whereas this might not be always true.

In any environment, there will be positives and negatives, it’s our choice to focus on one. So which one to focus? Why?

There is a 50% chance of success or failure whether you select positives or negatives. Our best bet is to focus on positives because that’s where we are good at!

Also focusing on positives makes us happier and we are willing to work harder.

Hence let’s focus on positives, be happy and achieve success more often than failures.

Should You Disagree in a Job Interview?

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When you express your honest opinion during an interview, you present yourself as you are, not as who you think the employer wants you to be. But disagreeing with an interviewer isn’t always easy because of the imbalance of power. Navigate the potential downsides by doing a few things before and during the interview.

First, research the company. Is the culture one where people are receptive to new ideas? Are the organization and its founders are known for inclusion and open-mindedness or do they have a slow-moving, legacy mindset? During the meeting, if the interviewer asks a question that gives you pause, resist the urge to answer immediately.

Take time to formulate a thoughtful response. And ask for permission to provide a different viewpoint. Say something like: “I see this differently. May I share my perspective with you?” Of course, follow your gut. If you think disagreeing won’t be well-received, then bite your tongue.

If the interviewer made you uncomfortable — if you felt dismissed or unheard — trust your instincts. When expressing differing opinions isn’t welcomed in an interview, it probably won’t be encouraged once you’re part of the company.

In the Cocoon…

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We all have our “Wall of Safety” that gives us a comfort zone.

For child, its the parent that doesn’t allow risking.

For adults, it is the social norms that doesn’t allow risking.

For poor, it is the daily wages that doesn’t allow risking.

For richer, it is the steady income that doesn’t allow risking.

It’s a cocoon to protect and allow us a path. On introspection, there are a lot of cocoons safeguarding us. While it keeps us comfortable it creates restrictions and boundaries.

Unless we break out, we will keep continuing what we are. But there is always a choice to explore, be different, perhaps better. Or be in the cocoon.