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Digg it UP - Business Golf: The Questions Business People Should Ask Themselves
Along with conventional advertising and below the line activities, organizations and corporate bodies have come to realize that they need to invest in trade shows in order to create maximum recall for their product or brand name. There are several benefits to participating in a trade show. Some of them are:A trade show offers the manufacturer a direct platform to interact with the very people who will be making purchasing decisions. Most purchasing managers of corporations make it a point to attend trade shows relevant to their needs in order to evaluate a wide range of products and services, all under one roof. If offers them variety, at a fraction of the time regular meetings with sales personnel form all those companies ever could. If this is the reason why they visit trade shows, isn’t it obvious that your product or service needs to be showcased in the trade show as well?Two, trade shows offer all manufacturers a level playing field. Of course it may not seem like this as some manufacturers have bigger spaces with far better stalls and displays, but at the heart of it all, a trade show is where conventional competitors come together to provide the end user with the best possible information to make a purchasing judgement. Three, trade shows provide manufacturers, especially relatively unknown ones, with a ready-made audience that is focused, targeted and in the best frame of mind to make a purchasing decision. As far as targeted advertising goes, a trade show is by far the most effective way to reach the target audience.A trade show also allows for demonstrations. Conventional print advertising is not interactive and showing demonstrations on television could prove really expensive and not worth the investment. But in a trade show, a demonstrations is almost a pre-requisite. I still remember a heavy machinery trade show I had the opportunity to attend. On one hand, there was company 1 with their range of diggers, back hoes and dump trucks. On the other hand, there was company 2 with their ‘ravor’ range of equipment. Elsewhere, company 3 had lined up their state-of-the-art equipment. Being able to see all these equipment on displ
So, as you see, I had a belief in one thing would happen, which after asking why does it have to be that way, changed my belief in that it didn’t have to happen that way…a prime example of how w belief can be changed or improved.
If you are one of the many, many business people from very large companies, who answer the question with ‘there is no way I can take the time to talk to any of my company’s customers’ then you probably are spending all of your time in damage control or fixing problems instead of keeping the business under control You are not getting to a point where you are seeing the problems before they occur.
Lets take a look at this problem, because if you are having this problem of not having any time, or feeling that ‘talking to a customer’ as not being important, than you have build a belief that needs to be changes.
How do you go about getting this belief changed? Ask the questions ‘Why’.
Why is it you do not have the time to take to pick up the phone and call a customer?
Is it because you are sitting in a cubical shuffling paper doing the work of what use to take five people and have a duty that does not require any customer contact?
Is it because you are in the warehouse filling customers orders and are jumping through all kinds of hoops to get the orders filled on the schedule?
Or, is it you are actually talking to customers, but what they have to say is confirming a problem they have with your business you believe you cannot change?
See, in a way, I have asked ‘Why’ in an attempt to better understand your belief. And what I learned is that your belief is based on something that should have been done from the very beginning…getting to know your customers better.
OK, so you do own a business, or you are part of a company that needs to change its belief in how to successfully do business. How do you go about making the change?
First, when you start asking ‘How’ questions, you are taking steps to making the change in a belief. Asking a customer the ‘How’ question is the fastest way to finding out How to change yo
The first point to make is that the terms "CV" and "Resume" (with or more often without the French acute accents over the e's) are virtually interchangeable in the UK; they mean the same thing, but if anything the norm is CV. In the USA and elsewhere, the CV (Curriculum Vitae to give it its full title - literally "Life Study") is a different animal - a dry listing of qualifications and experience more suited for a university faculty listing for example.This short article by Stephen Thompson, Managing Director and CEO of Top Professional Resumes Limited in the UK (http://www.top-pro-cvs.com), is a brief introduction to writing such a document yourself.It is a fairly obvious truism that a good CV alone won't get you a job. However a bad CV will prevent you from getting an interview. Since your Resume is primarily a tool to help find a better job or career change, time spent on its proper preparation is a good investment.There is room for some creativity, but not for gimmicks. What works today is a professional, business-like style and a focus on key achievements.We believe the best way to explain the 'rules' of CV writing is to explain what you should always do and what you should never do.Do's:1. Always print your CV on good quality white or cream/buff paper or vellum. The size should be A4 for the UK, and Letter Size for the USA, Australia and most other countries or territories. The point is that it should be the size that, unfolded, will fit a standard file folder or lever-arch file.2. Have your Resume typed or word-processed, with plenty of space between paragraphs, and allow for adequate margins. There's no need to have it professionally printed.3. Use short paragraphs - preferably no longer than five or six lines4. Proof read your CV and Covering Letter (another essential document) thoroughly to check for any errors, then get another pair of eyes to give it the once-over. It is surprising how easy it is to miss obvious spelling and other mistakes when you are immersed in it for a few hours. Somebody else will see it straight away.5. Include your contributions at each one of your jo
I am not talking about your Religious beliefs. I am talking about the belief people have in something that will work, or not work.
Let’s take business practices you believe are successfully to doing business. Or, the procedures you take in doing business because you believe it will work.
Granted, there are some really sound business practices business people should follow that are more than a belief and are more proven to work, or not.
But, there are some proven business practices that could be improved.
Let me ask you a question EVERY business person should ask themselves when it comes time to improve your business’ bottomline.
What is the one thing you do that is successful in doing business?
Usually the answer will consist of several things you do to secure business because you believe you need these several things to be successful. See, you have a belief that needs improving…
Why? Well, ‘Why’ is the question you should ask yourself more than any other question. For, to understand ‘Why’ something is done builds your belief in that ‘something’.
If the answer to ‘Why’ is something you did not know, then you learned something. So, learning the answer to ‘Why’ is the first step to believing in something.
Lets get back to the original question of the one thing you do that successfully brings in business, improves your business or, even better, elevates your business’ image.
If you answered the questions with something like ‘the most important thing I do to successfully do business is to get to know my customers better’ then you have either read my book on How To Play Business Golf, or you have figured out the most important thing you need to do in business.
Now, ask yourself, ‘does knowing your customers better really make your business successful?’. The answer is simple, ‘Absolutely’. If you believe that it is the most important part of you doing business and you believe you are going to continue to make an effort everyday to talk and visit with at least one customer a day, then you have established a belief.
Now, let me answer the question ‘Why’.
Getting to know your customers is more than sending them an invoice with ‘Thank You, Have a nice day’ written on the bill, or mailing out Holiday Cards once a year.
Getting to know your customers is taking the time to personally visiting with them at least three times a year; to get to know them as a person, not as a client. Even in the legal and medical professions, there is a need to learn more about the client than their legal or medical problems.
As is the case in every business, getting to know your customer is getting to know the problem before it happens.
What you learn when visiting with a customer is their likes and dislikes. This is very important information you will need in order to do business with them. It also provides you knowledge of a problem before it gets out of hand.
Knowing your customer allows you to prepare your business to keep your customer, or to compete in the market for your customer.
Also, the time spent with your customer allows the customer to get to know you. This really pays off, especially when it comes time for your customer to decide who to do business.
On the same note, when your customer gets to know you they are more than likely going to refer their friends to you. When you let your customer know that your intentions are to get to know them better so you can better serve them they are going to pass that on to their contacts.
So, the direct answer to the question ‘Why do I need to get to know my customers’ is this..
The more you know about your customer the more you know how to do business with them. And the more you know what your customer thinks of you, and your business, the more you are prepared to improve your business.
And the best answer to the ‘Why’ is, If you are doing well with this customer he is going to let his contacts know how you do business, which brings you more business.
Now, let me take this a step further. From taking the time to visit with customers to learn what they think about your product or services you have eliminated the time you would have had to take to do damage control on the way your business would have been running. So, you get to use your time more effectively building solid business relationships instead of spending even more time constantly making apologies for the way your business is going.
Having already solved problems before they happen will open up more time to think of things to do to improve your business.
So, now, the answer to ‘Why’ has developed your belief in something.
Now lets take the other side of the coin on the answer to the original question, ‘what is the one thing you do to successfully do business’?
There are many of you who work for someone or have a position in a company that has nothing to do with customer contact. Being from that environment I can truthfully say that companies who do not support these operational employees in providing them an opportunity to periodically get on the frontline with the customers are very, very short sighted and are missing out on some great opportunities to increase their business and corporate image.
If your business has 100 employees, you have 100 business representatives. No matter if they are the stockmen in the warehouse or receptionist in the front office, they are your business. When someone asks them who they work for, they are telling that person they are working for your business. This instantly makes them one of your company’s representatives. The businesses that take advantage of this are the businesses who know how to be successful.
Every business that has employees should encourage each of them to take part in building relationships with customers.
Why do I believe it can be done? Well, that is because I know it can be done.
Many years ago, when I was stuck off in a sea of cubical, typical to corporate America workplace, I received a call from one of the company’s many disgruntled customers. How he got my office number is still a mystery, but I suspect that someone I knew personally provided him with the information. And, why he was calling me was simple, he could not get a live person on the 800# that all large companies are providing their customers to call to air their concerns.
What this very upset gentleman wanted was to talk to someone. Just anyone in the company to talk to him and hear what his concerns where. The gentleman had little expectation that anything was going to be done to fix the problem he was having, he just wanted to air his concerns in hopes that someone would understand his situation and fix the problem so more customers are not miss-communicated to…
Now, my job then was to process reports and coordinate with internal departments to make sure they got the information they needed to do their job. Usually this responsibility would take about 10 hours each day to get the work processed. So, needless to say, I did not have the time to take to talk to a customer about his problems.
But, after an hour and half of listening to the customer’s concerns I found it very disturbing what he had been told by the company’s representatives who are responsible for making customer contact. Being a good corporate citizen I needed to address his issues so other customer would not had to go through what he had to go through.
After completing the conversation with the gentleman I compiled my notes and looked for the root problem that was causing the gentleman’s concerns. What it boiled down to was there was not relationship built with the gentleman when he contacted the company to do business.
There was nobody interested in knowing that the gentleman was handicapped and was taking care of his ailing mother. Nobody even wanted to know if the services he wanted to purchase would help his situation…nobody wanted to know his likes and dislikes…
Knowing how this corporation worked I knew that getting a change made would take a long time and would not meet this customer’s needs right away. And I also knew letting my superiors know what had taken place would just be half heartily taken seriously.
I was more than likely going to be asked ‘Why’ I talked to the gentleman. It was not my job to talk to customers!, or ‘Why’ did I not hang-up on the gentleman?, or ‘Why’ did I not forward him on to someone in Customer Service?
Knowing then how powerful getting to know a customer’s needs where, I did what I thought was correct and called the customer’s sales rep and explained what took place. The sales rep was totally shocked and committed to contacting the gentleman.
What I believed to be a situation where nothing would get done to save a customer turned out to the contrary. A few days later I received a call from the gentleman thanking me for taking action and he reported that the sales rep did call and the situation is on its way to being taken care of…
So, as you see, I had a belief in one thing would happen, which after asking why does it have to be that way, changed my belief in that it didn’t have to happen that way…a prime example of how w belief can be changed or improved.
If you are one of the many, many business people from very large companies, who answer the question with ‘there is no way I can take the time to talk to any of my company’s customers’ then you probably are spending all of your time in damage control or fixing problems instead of keeping the business under control You are not getting to a point where you are seeing the problems before they occur.
Lets take a look at this problem, because if you are having this problem of not having any time, or feeling that ‘talking to a customer’ as not being important, than you have build a belief that needs to be changes.
How do you go about getting this belief changed? Ask the questions ‘Why’.
Why is it you do not have the time to take to pick up the phone and call a customer?
Is it because you are sitting in a cubical shuffling paper doing the work of what use to take five people and have a duty that does not require any customer contact?
Is it because you are in the warehouse filling customers orders and are jumping through all kinds of hoops to get the orders filled on the schedule?
Or, is it you are actually talking to customers, but what they have to say is confirming a problem they have with your business you believe you cannot change?
See, in a way, I have asked ‘Why’ in an attempt to better understand your belief. And what I learned is that your belief is based on something that should have been done from the very beginning…getting to know your customers better.
OK, so you do own a business, or you are part of a company that needs to change its belief in how to successfully do business. How do you go about making the change?
First, when you start asking ‘How’ questions, you are taking steps to making the change in a belief. Asking a customer the ‘How’ question is the fastest way to finding out How to change you
Time management is a funny thing, its basis in "to do lists" and the world and its friend claiming to have the greatest time management tool available and claim to make you work smarter, not harder etc.Only problem being is that not many of them have any practical worth in the fact that we use them for one week and then discard them. It seems to be fashionable to always be "busy". Ask anyone you know and in all probability, they will have "so much to do". Is this a social factor? Or is it that we really have too much on our plates?If we are really honest with ourselves, can we justify every waking minute and quantify it as "busy"?Beyond "To-do" lists, where do we go from to get more out of our time? Why do we feel the need to be busy all the time?Are we giving ourselves a get out of jail free card? By saying that we are busy, eventually we will believe it ourselves, even if we are not.Why can't we get the right work life balance that we all so desperately need? Is this the best we can do? Or can we do better?As Trainers, we need to design training effectively to the needs of the learners. Deliver that training and what’s more, greater pressure is being placed on us to play an active and consistent part in evaluating that training.Now given that a training session can last from one hour to several days, and its concentrated time (when you are training, you are training, you cannot do anything else). How can we be expected to perform anything else?Plan your work and work your plan Firstly, Identify the times you will be in training/designing/evaluating. Identify the time you have outside this. Tasks that can only be done by you e.g. Training delivery, design is your targeted time. Tasks that need to be done, but not necessarily by you is your maintenance time e.g. administration, evaluationTake the straight line approach Identify the quickest way to your objective and take itFocus your energies on one thing at a time A reason that we don't get enough done in a day is that we try to do so much at one time. Focus on one thing at a time and keep doing it unti
Getting to know your customers is taking the time to personally visiting with them at least three times a year; to get to know them as a person, not as a client. Even in the legal and medical professions, there is a need to learn more about the client than their legal or medical problems.
As is the case in every business, getting to know your customer is getting to know the problem before it happens.
What you learn when visiting with a customer is their likes and dislikes. This is very important information you will need in order to do business with them. It also provides you knowledge of a problem before it gets out of hand.
Knowing your customer allows you to prepare your business to keep your customer, or to compete in the market for your customer.
Also, the time spent with your customer allows the customer to get to know you. This really pays off, especially when it comes time for your customer to decide who to do business.
On the same note, when your customer gets to know you they are more than likely going to refer their friends to you. When you let your customer know that your intentions are to get to know them better so you can better serve them they are going to pass that on to their contacts.
So, the direct answer to the question ‘Why do I need to get to know my customers’ is this..
The more you know about your customer the more you know how to do business with them. And the more you know what your customer thinks of you, and your business, the more you are prepared to improve your business.
And the best answer to the ‘Why’ is, If you are doing well with this customer he is going to let his contacts know how you do business, which brings you more business.
Now, let me take this a step further. From taking the time to visit with customers to learn what they think about your product or services you have eliminated the time you would have had to take to do damage control on the way your business would have been running. So, you get to use your time more effectively building solid business relationships instead of spending even more time constantly making apologies for the way your business is going.
Having already solved problems before they happen will open up more time to think of things to do to improve your business.
So, now, the answer to ‘Why’ has developed your belief in something.
Now lets take the other side of the coin on the answer to the original question, ‘what is the one thing you do to successfully do business’?
There are many of you who work for someone or have a position in a company that has nothing to do with customer contact. Being from that environment I can truthfully say that companies who do not support these operational employees in providing them an opportunity to periodically get on the frontline with the customers are very, very short sighted and are missing out on some great opportunities to increase their business and corporate image.
If your business has 100 employees, you have 100 business representatives. No matter if they are the stockmen in the warehouse or receptionist in the front office, they are your business. When someone asks them who they work for, they are telling that person they are working for your business. This instantly makes them one of your company’s representatives. The businesses that take advantage of this are the businesses who know how to be successful.
Every business that has employees should encourage each of them to take part in building relationships with customers.
Why do I believe it can be done? Well, that is because I know it can be done.
Many years ago, when I was stuck off in a sea of cubical, typical to corporate America workplace, I received a call from one of the company’s many disgruntled customers. How he got my office number is still a mystery, but I suspect that someone I knew personally provided him with the information. And, why he was calling me was simple, he could not get a live person on the 800# that all large companies are providing their customers to call to air their concerns.
What this very upset gentleman wanted was to talk to someone. Just anyone in the company to talk to him and hear what his concerns where. The gentleman had little expectation that anything was going to be done to fix the problem he was having, he just wanted to air his concerns in hopes that someone would understand his situation and fix the problem so more customers are not miss-communicated to…
Now, my job then was to process reports and coordinate with internal departments to make sure they got the information they needed to do their job. Usually this responsibility would take about 10 hours each day to get the work processed. So, needless to say, I did not have the time to take to talk to a customer about his problems.
But, after an hour and half of listening to the customer’s concerns I found it very disturbing what he had been told by the company’s representatives who are responsible for making customer contact. Being a good corporate citizen I needed to address his issues so other customer would not had to go through what he had to go through.
After completing the conversation with the gentleman I compiled my notes and looked for the root problem that was causing the gentleman’s concerns. What it boiled down to was there was not relationship built with the gentleman when he contacted the company to do business.
There was nobody interested in knowing that the gentleman was handicapped and was taking care of his ailing mother. Nobody even wanted to know if the services he wanted to purchase would help his situation…nobody wanted to know his likes and dislikes…
Knowing how this corporation worked I knew that getting a change made would take a long time and would not meet this customer’s needs right away. And I also knew letting my superiors know what had taken place would just be half heartily taken seriously.
I was more than likely going to be asked ‘Why’ I talked to the gentleman. It was not my job to talk to customers!, or ‘Why’ did I not hang-up on the gentleman?, or ‘Why’ did I not forward him on to someone in Customer Service?
Knowing then how powerful getting to know a customer’s needs where, I did what I thought was correct and called the customer’s sales rep and explained what took place. The sales rep was totally shocked and committed to contacting the gentleman.
What I believed to be a situation where nothing would get done to save a customer turned out to the contrary. A few days later I received a call from the gentleman thanking me for taking action and he reported that the sales rep did call and the situation is on its way to being taken care of…
So, as you see, I had a belief in one thing would happen, which after asking why does it have to be that way, changed my belief in that it didn’t have to happen that way…a prime example of how w belief can be changed or improved.
If you are one of the many, many business people from very large companies, who answer the question with ‘there is no way I can take the time to talk to any of my company’s customers’ then you probably are spending all of your time in damage control or fixing problems instead of keeping the business under control You are not getting to a point where you are seeing the problems before they occur.
Lets take a look at this problem, because if you are having this problem of not having any time, or feeling that ‘talking to a customer’ as not being important, than you have build a belief that needs to be changes.
How do you go about getting this belief changed? Ask the questions ‘Why’.
Why is it you do not have the time to take to pick up the phone and call a customer?
Is it because you are sitting in a cubical shuffling paper doing the work of what use to take five people and have a duty that does not require any customer contact?
Is it because you are in the warehouse filling customers orders and are jumping through all kinds of hoops to get the orders filled on the schedule?
Or, is it you are actually talking to customers, but what they have to say is confirming a problem they have with your business you believe you cannot change?
See, in a way, I have asked ‘Why’ in an attempt to better understand your belief. And what I learned is that your belief is based on something that should have been done from the very beginning…getting to know your customers better.
OK, so you do own a business, or you are part of a company that needs to change its belief in how to successfully do business. How do you go about making the change?
First, when you start asking ‘How’ questions, you are taking steps to making the change in a belief. Asking a customer the ‘How’ question is the fastest way to finding out How to change yo
In this installment, we are going to be starting a series on DME software for medical billing. This is probably the most popular software on the market because it is responsible for billing more claims than probably any other branch of the medical billing industry.DME stands for Durable Medical Equipment. This is equipment that is either sold or rented to various Medicare, Medicaid, Blue Cross, Blue Shield and many private insurance companies including Prudential and Web MD. This equipment ranges from wheelchairs to concentrators. The amount of money involved in this industry is staggering. Because of this, there are many brands of software on the market that billers can use to bill these medical claims. Logistically, it would be impossible to review each piece of software. However, because there are so many similarities between the various brands, it is simple enough to go over the main parts that each software covers. This way you will have a decent idea of what is involved in billing DME claims.The first part of DME software that we'll be going over in detail, in a future installment, are the setup options. These options allow the user of the software to customize it to their liking. Some of this is just cosmetic, such as screen appearance. But much of the setup also involves setting up the type of DME billing that they'll be doing, including designating what kind of provider the software will be billing for, whether it be single or multiple provider.The next part of the DME software that we'll be going over is how patients, doctors, facilities, items and other things are setup in the system. There is a complex process involved in medical billing of claims that requires everything in the system to be pulled together when either printing out a paper claim or billing electronically. This is probably the most complex part of the whole system. This will be covered in great detail.The third part of the DME software that we'll be going over is how billing itself is actually done, whether it be via paper or electronically. We'll cover the various ways to print or transmit a claim. We'll also cover the legalities inv
Having already solved problems before they happen will open up more time to think of things to do to improve your business.
So, now, the answer to ‘Why’ has developed your belief in something.
Now lets take the other side of the coin on the answer to the original question, ‘what is the one thing you do to successfully do business’?
There are many of you who work for someone or have a position in a company that has nothing to do with customer contact. Being from that environment I can truthfully say that companies who do not support these operational employees in providing them an opportunity to periodically get on the frontline with the customers are very, very short sighted and are missing out on some great opportunities to increase their business and corporate image.
If your business has 100 employees, you have 100 business representatives. No matter if they are the stockmen in the warehouse or receptionist in the front office, they are your business. When someone asks them who they work for, they are telling that person they are working for your business. This instantly makes them one of your company’s representatives. The businesses that take advantage of this are the businesses who know how to be successful.
Every business that has employees should encourage each of them to take part in building relationships with customers.
Why do I believe it can be done? Well, that is because I know it can be done.
Many years ago, when I was stuck off in a sea of cubical, typical to corporate America workplace, I received a call from one of the company’s many disgruntled customers. How he got my office number is still a mystery, but I suspect that someone I knew personally provided him with the information. And, why he was calling me was simple, he could not get a live person on the 800# that all large companies are providing their customers to call to air their concerns.
What this very upset gentleman wanted was to talk to someone. Just anyone in the company to talk to him and hear what his concerns where. The gentleman had little expectation that anything was going to be done to fix the problem he was having, he just wanted to air his concerns in hopes that someone would understand his situation and fix the problem so more customers are not miss-communicated to…
Now, my job then was to process reports and coordinate with internal departments to make sure they got the information they needed to do their job. Usually this responsibility would take about 10 hours each day to get the work processed. So, needless to say, I did not have the time to take to talk to a customer about his problems.
But, after an hour and half of listening to the customer’s concerns I found it very disturbing what he had been told by the company’s representatives who are responsible for making customer contact. Being a good corporate citizen I needed to address his issues so other customer would not had to go through what he had to go through.
After completing the conversation with the gentleman I compiled my notes and looked for the root problem that was causing the gentleman’s concerns. What it boiled down to was there was not relationship built with the gentleman when he contacted the company to do business.
There was nobody interested in knowing that the gentleman was handicapped and was taking care of his ailing mother. Nobody even wanted to know if the services he wanted to purchase would help his situation…nobody wanted to know his likes and dislikes…
Knowing how this corporation worked I knew that getting a change made would take a long time and would not meet this customer’s needs right away. And I also knew letting my superiors know what had taken place would just be half heartily taken seriously.
I was more than likely going to be asked ‘Why’ I talked to the gentleman. It was not my job to talk to customers!, or ‘Why’ did I not hang-up on the gentleman?, or ‘Why’ did I not forward him on to someone in Customer Service?
Knowing then how powerful getting to know a customer’s needs where, I did what I thought was correct and called the customer’s sales rep and explained what took place. The sales rep was totally shocked and committed to contacting the gentleman.
What I believed to be a situation where nothing would get done to save a customer turned out to the contrary. A few days later I received a call from the gentleman thanking me for taking action and he reported that the sales rep did call and the situation is on its way to being taken care of…
So, as you see, I had a belief in one thing would happen, which after asking why does it have to be that way, changed my belief in that it didn’t have to happen that way…a prime example of how w belief can be changed or improved.
If you are one of the many, many business people from very large companies, who answer the question with ‘there is no way I can take the time to talk to any of my company’s customers’ then you probably are spending all of your time in damage control or fixing problems instead of keeping the business under control You are not getting to a point where you are seeing the problems before they occur.
Lets take a look at this problem, because if you are having this problem of not having any time, or feeling that ‘talking to a customer’ as not being important, than you have build a belief that needs to be changes.
How do you go about getting this belief changed? Ask the questions ‘Why’.
Why is it you do not have the time to take to pick up the phone and call a customer?
Is it because you are sitting in a cubical shuffling paper doing the work of what use to take five people and have a duty that does not require any customer contact?
Is it because you are in the warehouse filling customers orders and are jumping through all kinds of hoops to get the orders filled on the schedule?
Or, is it you are actually talking to customers, but what they have to say is confirming a problem they have with your business you believe you cannot change?
See, in a way, I have asked ‘Why’ in an attempt to better understand your belief. And what I learned is that your belief is based on something that should have been done from the very beginning…getting to know your customers better.
OK, so you do own a business, or you are part of a company that needs to change its belief in how to successfully do business. How do you go about making the change?
First, when you start asking ‘How’ questions, you are taking steps to making the change in a belief. Asking a customer the ‘How’ question is the fastest way to finding out How to change yo
An establishment that does not have its own bar coding equipment, but still wishes to have its own design for a bar code, can think of customizing bar code labels. Many companies specialize in designing custom bar code labels that depend on the requirements of their clients. They can produce bar codes in any number, big or small.Manufacturers of custom bar codes use bar code software to design unique labels based on specifications from the ordering company. The ordering company decides the size of the bar code label. The bar code manufacturer can give some color options that will be finalized by the ordering company. The same is done with the material of the bar code label. Plastic, paper, laminates and aluminum are some of the options given by bar code label manufacturers.After this, bar code software is used to make the actual format of the bar code label, which is also called a template. This template will have all the details given by the ordering company. Some companies insist their company names be printed on each bar code label. Other information that can be filled in is the name of the item that will be affixed.Many security measures can be provided by companies to their bar code labels. The material of the bar code can be metal or vinyl, both resistant to chemicals and heavy pressure. Some labels are also made tamper-proof.Customized bar code labels are sold in bulk amounts to ordering companies. It becomes relatively cheaper to order a larger number of labels. The price of the labels depends on each specification that needs to be printed on the bar code label. Bar code manufacturers may also deliver customized bar code labels within 24 hours in express deliveries.
Now, my job then was to process reports and coordinate with internal departments to make sure they got the information they needed to do their job. Usually this responsibility would take about 10 hours each day to get the work processed. So, needless to say, I did not have the time to take to talk to a customer about his problems.
But, after an hour and half of listening to the customer’s concerns I found it very disturbing what he had been told by the company’s representatives who are responsible for making customer contact. Being a good corporate citizen I needed to address his issues so other customer would not had to go through what he had to go through.
After completing the conversation with the gentleman I compiled my notes and looked for the root problem that was causing the gentleman’s concerns. What it boiled down to was there was not relationship built with the gentleman when he contacted the company to do business.
There was nobody interested in knowing that the gentleman was handicapped and was taking care of his ailing mother. Nobody even wanted to know if the services he wanted to purchase would help his situation…nobody wanted to know his likes and dislikes…
Knowing how this corporation worked I knew that getting a change made would take a long time and would not meet this customer’s needs right away. And I also knew letting my superiors know what had taken place would just be half heartily taken seriously.
I was more than likely going to be asked ‘Why’ I talked to the gentleman. It was not my job to talk to customers!, or ‘Why’ did I not hang-up on the gentleman?, or ‘Why’ did I not forward him on to someone in Customer Service?
Knowing then how powerful getting to know a customer’s needs where, I did what I thought was correct and called the customer’s sales rep and explained what took place. The sales rep was totally shocked and committed to contacting the gentleman.
What I believed to be a situation where nothing would get done to save a customer turned out to the contrary. A few days later I received a call from the gentleman thanking me for taking action and he reported that the sales rep did call and the situation is on its way to being taken care of…
So, as you see, I had a belief in one thing would happen, which after asking why does it have to be that way, changed my belief in that it didn’t have to happen that way…a prime example of how w belief can be changed or improved.
If you are one of the many, many business people from very large companies, who answer the question with ‘there is no way I can take the time to talk to any of my company’s customers’ then you probably are spending all of your time in damage control or fixing problems instead of keeping the business under control You are not getting to a point where you are seeing the problems before they occur.
Lets take a look at this problem, because if you are having this problem of not having any time, or feeling that ‘talking to a customer’ as not being important, than you have build a belief that needs to be changes.
How do you go about getting this belief changed? Ask the questions ‘Why’.
Why is it you do not have the time to take to pick up the phone and call a customer?
Is it because you are sitting in a cubical shuffling paper doing the work of what use to take five people and have a duty that does not require any customer contact?
Is it because you are in the warehouse filling customers orders and are jumping through all kinds of hoops to get the orders filled on the schedule?
Or, is it you are actually talking to customers, but what they have to say is confirming a problem they have with your business you believe you cannot change?
See, in a way, I have asked ‘Why’ in an attempt to better understand your belief. And what I learned is that your belief is based on something that should have been done from the very beginning…getting to know your customers better.
OK, so you do own a business, or you are part of a company that needs to change its belief in how to successfully do business. How do you go about making the change?
First, when you start asking ‘How’ questions, you are taking steps to making the change in a belief. Asking a customer the ‘How’ question is the fastest way to finding out How to change yo
It is no longer a question in the medical billing community of what the best method of sending claims is. Electronic billing has numerous advantages over sending paper claims including ease of transmission, lower cost, faster turnaround time and a number of other advantages. But what about the type of electronic format? The main ones today are NSF 3.01 and UB-92. So what's the difference and is one better than another? Which one should you use? Does it make a difference? Will using one format over another give you more headaches in the long run? In this installment, we're going to discuss the basic differences between NSF 3.01 and UB-92, including the pluses and minuses of each.The first thing that you need to know is that NSF 3.01 has been around a lot longer than UB-92. Back in the early days of electronic billing, it was the only option. Therefore, software manufacturers had to include it with their product if they were going to compete in the marketplace. Because of this and because everybody was creating their own NSF 3.01 package, each software manufacturer had to do the best job they possibly could. Because of this, NSF 3.01 was pretty much perfected. The only differences between the software packages was the interface for transmission. The specifications themselves were pretty solid.Today, with the two formats available and NSF 3.01 no longer being the only choice, for a medical billing agency to switch over to UB-92, there had to be a good reason. Well, there were several.For starters, because it was a relatively new format, the software was a lot cheaper than the software to send NSF 3.01 claims. For small medical billing agencies, this was a big plus, especially if they didn't have a large client base. Also, the cost to process these claims was cheaper because the format itself wasn't as popular and agencies were trying to get companies to use it. But there was a downside to all this.Because UB-92 was new, there weren't as many pieces of software to choose from. Most of them were also untested. The early failure rate of UB-92 transmission was great. The specifications were confusing and finding g
So, as you see, I had a belief in one thing would happen, which after asking why does it have to be that way, changed my belief in that it didn’t have to happen that way…a prime example of how w belief can be changed or improved.
If you are one of the many, many business people from very large companies, who answer the question with ‘there is no way I can take the time to talk to any of my company’s customers’ then you probably are spending all of your time in damage control or fixing problems instead of keeping the business under control You are not getting to a point where you are seeing the problems before they occur.
Lets take a look at this problem, because if you are having this problem of not having any time, or feeling that ‘talking to a customer’ as not being important, than you have build a belief that needs to be changes.
How do you go about getting this belief changed? Ask the questions ‘Why’.
Why is it you do not have the time to take to pick up the phone and call a customer?
Is it because you are sitting in a cubical shuffling paper doing the work of what use to take five people and have a duty that does not require any customer contact?
Is it because you are in the warehouse filling customers orders and are jumping through all kinds of hoops to get the orders filled on the schedule?
Or, is it you are actually talking to customers, but what they have to say is confirming a problem they have with your business you believe you cannot change?
See, in a way, I have asked ‘Why’ in an attempt to better understand your belief. And what I learned is that your belief is based on something that should have been done from the very beginning…getting to know your customers better.
OK, so you do own a business, or you are part of a company that needs to change its belief in how to successfully do business. How do you go about making the change?
First, when you start asking ‘How’ questions, you are taking steps to making the change in a belief. Asking a customer the ‘How’ question is the fastest way to finding out How to change your belief in being successful.
But, before you make the changes need to get to visiting with customers and asking them questions, lets talk about what needs to be done to prepare for those visits.
No matter if you are a one person business or you own or work for a company with 100 or more employees, the first thing that has to happen is in your acceptance of CHANGE. Yes, change is hard for some people to do.
Change means you will have to stop what you are currently doing and move towards doing something different. Change means you have to take some time to retool the way you do business. Change means your employees are going to have to learn something new, or learn to do something different.
What you have to understand is that change causes friction. Anytime someone has to stop what they were told to believe was the things to do to get their job done you are going to get friction. Just like when you push the brakes on your car to hard, your tires are going to screech against the pavement.
The same thing is going to happen with you and your employees. So, ‘How’ do you deal with it?
To deal with change is to expect un-acceptance of the change. If the change you have to make is that everyone in the company is going to take one day a month and take a customer out to get to know them, expect that someone is not going to be un-comfortable with this.
Think out what it is you want to change and how you want to change it. Then sleep on the changes. If they feel as good or better when you wake up the next day, then you can expect that the rejection to the change by your employees to be minimum.
The most important thing is to believe in what you are changing to will be successful. If your employees see your confidences in your words and actions they will follow. If not, then you may need to find a few new employees who are willing to make the change and believe in what your company believes in.
So, now that you have prepared for the change let’s talk about some of the changes you should make.
The direction of the changes you need to make in your SOP (Standard Operating Procedures) should stay consistent with all of your company’s policies. If your goal is have each person in your company make a call on a customer one day each month, then there needs to be a well written and though out policy you promote as part of your SOP.
Being an operations manager, I know that if you have 100 employees you are going to have 100 days of lost productivity, and you are going to have as many as three employees out visiting with customers each day. This not counting the employees who call in sick, of are on vacation.
Overcoming these logistics is why you have to plan your change. Maybe you make your policy to each employee take a customer out each quarter. This would spread out the time away from doing their jobs.
You then start asking the What if questions.
What if you do not have 100 customers for your 100 employees to call on? Then make it where employees take one day each quarter to go to a Networking Function to make new contacts for your sales force. Or, ask your employees to find a potential customer amongst their personal friends and take them out for the day to let them know what your business is all about.
I am sure you are now seeing how much more your business has already grown by doing this. If nothing else, the word is going to get around that you allow your employees to take one day each quarter to spend with customers or potential customers. When it comes time to grow your business you are not going to have any trouble finding qualified employees.
OK, so you have done all of your homework and you have walked out a number of scenarios of how you want the change to work and you have developed an even stronger belief. It is now time to schedule the change.
This might be the toughest part of the change. Anytime you ask a ‘WHEN’ question, you are asking one of the hardest questions of all.
You are going to have to face it. There is no good time to make a change. Some would thing that the first of the year is good. If that feels good then do it. If you want to wait until the summer, then do it then. Whenever you chose, make it part of your belief that it is the thing to do.
Not we get to the decision making questions. ..the ‘What’ questions.
What can I do to make the change more comfortable?
The best thing to do is organize something special. Use your imagination. Make it fun. Most importantly, present the message that gives your employees confidence that the change is for the better…
OK, you have made the announcement and the change is in place. Now ‘What’..
What are some events, functions or activities your employees are encouraged to do to purposely allow enough time during a day to find out the most they can about a customer’s likes and dislikes.
Well, have you heard about Business Golf? Yes, I have asked a Have question. A question starting with the word ‘Have’ is one of the most powerful questions that can be asked. That is because any question that starts off with the word ‘Have’ is providing you a solution, or something that could improve your belief.
Business Golf is more than just playing golf. If is playing golf with the sole purpose of building the most solid of all business relationships.
Now that you have made the change in your business to get to know your customers needs, Business Golf is a perfect business tool that offers your employees the opportunity to know your customers.
Business Golf also can be used to get to know potential customers as well. A very real simple solution to a real big problem.
So, let’s recap.
I have discussed why people believe in what they believe and how sometimes beliefs need to be improved upon. I talked about the WHY, How, What , When and Have questions in learning how to change, or improve, a belief. And I told you about Business Golf and why you should use it to enhance your belief in your business.
Now, it is all up to you.
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