cost Archives - Dennis E. Gilbert

21
Sep 21
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Valued Services Are a Measurement Of The Customer

Tags : cost customer service services value

Do you deliver valued services? How do you know?

In business, people often express that they deliver excellent products or highly valued services. They believe that what they deliver is very good.

It begs a two-part question, compared to what and defined by whom?

When you build a product or deliver a service you can certainly express that it is of great quality and of high value.

Often those producing the product or service will take great pride in their work. They may spend long hours and work extra hard.

Does that make it more valuable?

What about professional services? Are you willing to pay a more experienced or more educated medical doctor more? The same may be true for an attorney, a carpenter, or a consultant.

Who decides the value?

Valued Services

The truth is that the buyer or the customer decide the value.

When a business owner tells you that they have exceptional customer service you may want to ask how they know. In response, they may say, “because our customers tell us.”

Does every customer tell them this, or is it really only a special few?

Often businesses judge their product or services value based on their own opinion. They haven’t really studied it and they choose to ignore any naysayers.

It is hard to completely please everyone, and at some level you probably shouldn’t get too hung up on those few who decide what you provide is not of great value. However, totally ignoring it could sink the business.

Have you ever been served a beverage in a glass in a restaurant and there is someone’s lipstick on it? Is the floor dirty? Did you feel ill a few hours after consumption of the meal? Some things cannot be ignored.

Remember that the creator of the product or the person providing a service does not define the value. They may set the price, but the customer or client always defines the value.

-DEG

Dennis E. Gilbert is a business consultant, speaker (CSP^TM), and culture expert. He is a five-time author and the founder of Appreciative Strategies, LLC. His business focuses on positive human performance improvement solutions through Appreciative Strategies®. Reach him through his website at Dennis-Gilbert.com or by calling +1 646.546.5553.

03
Sep 21
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Value Add, Free, Or a Hidden Cost?

Tags : cost free profit margin raw cost value add

What is your value add? Many businesses strive to deliver products or services that claim to have a significant value added. Does this cost the business or is it more of a goodwill intangible kind of value?

You may suggest that it depends.

It depends on if the value add is a tangible item or not. It might also depend on if the value add is service on a product, or a product offered with a service.

Economies today are experiencing a shift in marketing approaches. The concept of free has never been more prevalent.

Join the free webinar, get a free order of French Fries, or signup now for a free t-shirt.

It may cost nothing for a business to add your name to their email distribution list. If they add your name to their postal mail, there may be hard costs.

If you join in the free webinar, are you a potential customer or are you the product? If a popular webinar gains more and more followers for free, how is the cost of the webinar being paid for? (You just might be the product.)

Are you paying for value add? Does free stuff cost?

Value Add

Consumers are often paying for things that they don’t realize.

Free technical support feels good, but most people quickly realize that is part of the cost of the product.

What would the product cost if technical support was only found on YouTube? YouTube videos created by people at their own expense?

Is that a value add to you? Or is it a really clever way for the product developers to achieve more margin?

Value add and the concept of free has never had more hooks. It’s an intricate web of people, technology, and pyramid style events (different from illegal scheme) that shifts the costs and the benefits of value add.

Some things in life might be free, but the odds are that it is costing someone.

Someone might just be you.

-DEG

Dennis E. Gilbert is a business consultant, speaker (CSP^TM), and culture expert. He is a five-time author and the founder of Appreciative Strategies, LLC. His business focuses on positive human performance improvement solutions through Appreciative Strategies®. Reach him through his website at Dennis-Gilbert.com or by calling +1 646.546.5553.

10
Nov 20
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Stopping Pain Always Directs What Happens Next

Tags : cost customer service decisions pain points problems solved

You may not even realize it, yet it is part of the goal. Stopping pain is what businesses do for their customers. They do it internally for the greater good of the organization, and if they’re really generous they do for their community too.

What are the problems?

They are the areas of pain. Often, they reoccur, stop the flow, and make managers and the CEO lose sleep.

The customer purchase is likely connected to an emotional choice. Rooted deep in their decision there are often some pain points. Even when the product or service delights there is almost always room for more.

New features, bugs fixed, or a problem solved.

The goal for most productive things in business then might be classified as stopping the pain.

How would you stop the pain? A miracle drug? An underground top-secret cure?

Stopping Pain

You can start by asking the right questions.

What keeps you up at night? (an oldie but a goodie)

What would make you use this product more?

Does it help you achieve your goals?

Stopping pain is your first priority. It what makes dreams come true. It builds success and shares in the process of what you tell yourself about what comes next.

You may also want to understand how it helps others. How it might change the outlook for families, financial futures, and make everyone look good.

It’s always connected to emotions and sometimes to social norms. People like to look good, feel smart, and be thrilled.

It is exactly why cost or price should be the last part of the discussion.

-DEG

Dennis E. Gilbert is a business consultant, speaker (CSP^TM), and corporate trainer. He is a five-time author and the founder of Appreciative Strategies, LLC. His business focuses on positive human performance improvement solutions through Appreciative Strategies®. Reach him through his website at Dennis-Gilbert.com or by calling +1 646.546.5553.

14
Sep 20
-

Pressure Decisions Often Result in Costly Outcomes

Tags : cost decisions time under pressure

Do you make pressure decisions? Those that are hurried while being supported and cheered by peers? Will the outcome be good?

People often hesitate to make decisions. They’ve been burned before, slipped up, and didn’t think things through completely. Now, they hesitate.

There are at least two time factors connected to decisions. The assumed cost of making the decision too fast and the assumed cost of making the decision too slow.

Everyone making an important decision faces the analysis of the short run, the long run, and their own bias.

There are threats of poor information, peer pressure, and manipulation.

Are you making good decisions? What are the consequences?

Pressure Decisions

Stress and pressure seem to force decisions.

In the moment that you make an important and calculated decision, it is the right one. All of your information, analysis, and experiences draw you to decide.

After that moment, things can change. You can close on a mortgage and by the end of the week lose your job. When you made the choice, it was OK, suddenly, now, not so much.

It can be true about offering the price of a big contract to a client. True about seeing a medical professional if we just don’t feel quite right, or true about the best timing to buy a new car.

The pressure we face when making decisions has the consequence of the outcome. We also know the clock is ticking. Wait too long and bad things can happen, do it too quickly and bad things can happen.

Outside forces and gut feel often condition the decisions you make. Learning to control both can make a difference.

Yet, you’ll never escape the pressure of time. Too fast, too soon, or too slow and too late.

Sometimes you’ll get it just right.

Just right doesn’t last very long.

Learn to navigate time, not be pressured by it.

It costs less.

-DEG

Dennis E. Gilbert is a business consultant, speaker (CSP^TM), and culture expert. He is a five-time author and the founder of Appreciative Strategies, LLC. His business focuses on positive human performance improvement solutions through Appreciative Strategies®. Reach him through his website at Dennis-Gilbert.com or by calling +1 646.546.5553.

14
Aug 19
-

The Short Supply of Workplace Patience

Tags : buy-in cost patience teamwork workplace

Most workplace teams are driven by time. As individuals, many people express a need for improving their time management skills. Do your employee teams illustrate workplace patience?

Often when the conversation of patience emerges there is a contradictory feeling connected with speed, pace, or customer expectations. It is true, time does tend to directly connect with money.

Should patience be a core value?

I often suggest to groups and teams that it should.

Patience is a learned skill. Patience should be practiced to be improved. A lack of patience costs.

Cost of Workplace Patience

There are at least two forms of cost connected with a lack of patience.

One cost is that of the work completed in a hurry or work completed through haste. The work becomes inferior. The idea often is, the more quantity across time, the better. Of course, the quality needs to be a recognized factor.

The other cost is more intangible. It is the cost of a lack of engagement, lower morale, bad attitudes, employee absenteeism, and turnover.

When employee teams see a team assignment slacking, they may jump in to pick up the pieces. In many cases, this is important and a sign of good teamwork.

The other side of this is that an employee who doesn’t fully participate often lacks buy-in. As a result of not being bought-in, they become more disengaged. They may take a back seat, the easy road, all the while knowing that whatever they don’t accomplish, someone else will do.

Time Factor

The mindset and performance of people is hard to measure with time.

Give ten different employees an individual assignment and not all ten will finish at the same time.

Easy enough to understand.

Yet if we monitor the performance of the fastest seven or eight and then pull the plug on the assignment, we know the unfinished two or three are somewhat disconnected.

Simple enough.

Is there an adequate supply of patience in your teams? How do you balance quality and quantity? Have you measured the impact of a shortage of patience?

Sometimes everybody needs a little patience. Just trying to get it right.

-DEG

H/T (Patience, is a 1989 song released by the band Guns-n-Roses. It included the lyric, “Just trying to get it right.”)

Originally posted on August 14, 2019, last updated on August 31, 2020.

Dennis E. Gilbert is a business consultant, speaker (CSP^TM), and culture expert. He is a five-time author and the founder of Appreciative Strategies, LLC. His business focuses on positive human performance improvement solutions through Appreciative Strategies®. Reach him through his website at Dennis-Gilbert.com or by calling +1 646.546.5553.

10
Jul 19
-

Wait, We Haven’t Analyzed Enough

Tags : choice cost data decision stuck

One person always wants to decide fast, quick, and hurried. Another wants more time, more data, and additional input. Have you analyzed enough?

It seems that there is always more data. We can ask a few more people, research some old work, and attempt to benchmark the industry. Does it really matter?

One trouble spot is that more data isn’t really what people seek. They are seeking more certainty, less risk, and the fear of a bad decision.

Wait for What?

Procrastination on a decision can still be a decision. “I’m making the choice to not decide, yet.”

A delay sometimes feels safer. The feeling is that you can’t be criticized because you didn’t decide, only if you do decide and you’re wrong.

You weigh the risk of the decision on the cost of being wrong instead of on the cost of time or the cost of being stuck.

It is the fallacy of critical thinking. No choice is a safe choice.

Analyzed Enough

The reality is that time is often not on our side. Patience is important, but time always keeps moving.

A decision or choice not made may allow the window to close, or worse, the competition jumps through leaving you behind.

You can spend a lot of time reviewing the past. Reliving the mistakes from before and feeling stuck about the action you should take next.

Experience suggests more watching, listening, and learning, yet time can’t wait.

Change needs motion. Motion means you are not stuck.

If there is a change you need to make, today may be a great day to start.

-DEG

Dennis E. Gilbert is a business consultant, speaker (CSP^TM), and culture expert. He is a five-time author and the founder of Appreciative Strategies, LLC. His business focuses on positive human performance improvement solutions through Appreciative Strategies®. Reach him through his website at Dennis-Gilbert.com or by calling +1 646.546.5553.

19
Apr 19
-

Training Cost And Other Expenses

Tags : cost culture leadership training turnover

Have you evaluated the training cost? Have you evaluated the cost of not training? What about the time commitment, is that stopping you?

There are plenty of excuses why organizations shy away from training. Some popular excuses relate to budget, time commitments, and occasionally someone will mention a lack of need.

Measure Costs

What are the true costs associated with a lost customer? What are the costs of poor decisions made by supervisors, managers, and other workplace leaders? Employee turnover, what does that cost?

I’ve been told, “When we have a choice to ship the product or sit in training. We’re always going to ship the product.”

It is a statement that is hard to work with, yet it is a mindset that is associated with higher costs of doing business.

Shipping the product today matters. Conceptually it matters more than training. I should say, “More than training today.” Shipping the product without training is a short run game. It works while it works, until it doesn’t.

Training Cost

Most organizations deepest interest is to grow. Increase revenue, share the mission objective, touch more people, change lives, impress investors, and build, grow, build, grow.

In most businesses or even the non-profit, the long game matters more. A three-person company can ship the product efficiently, a three-hundred-person company may be different.

The infrastructure costs could be a few million, or rent or lease, is multiple tens of thousands per month. Salary and benefits, they are likely the largest item on the income statement.

Marketing and advertising, they are often paid months in advance of the collection of the accounts receivable from a possible sale.

Will you do all of that without training? That is just on the surface, dig deeper and you’ll discover more. What will shape your culture?

Every dollar invested in training accounts for many more dollars you’ll save somewhere else.

-DEG

Dennis E. Gilbert is a business consultant, speaker (CSP^TM), and culture expert. He is a five-time author and the founder of Appreciative Strategies, LLC. His business focuses on positive human performance improvement solutions through Appreciative Strategies®. Reach him through his website at Dennis-Gilbert.com or by calling +1 646.546.5553.

27
Sep 18
-

Great Value Is More Meaningful Than Price

Tags : cost leadership price training value

We know better, but we still do it. Every time we are about to make a big purchase we excruciatingly get stuck on the price. Great value is what we should really be assessing.

We may grab a snack from the convenience store, a coffee at the trendy shop, or feed a dollar or two into the vending machine and think nothing of it. Bigger ticket items often cause us to pause.

Value In Action

Yesterday, I joked with some friends on social media about buying a new Range Rover. The most consistent part of several threads across a couple of days was price.

Price can be an easy way of saying “no.” Why is that so easy? Often because no one is considering the value.

What are you or your organization buying? What are the big-ticket items that have your attention? How will you prepare your personal or departmental budget for the coming year?

Price, although often negotiable, is very apparent. We see the numbers and analyze the fit. Is it affordable? Will it work?

The CFO or your CPA may choose some deeper analysis. What is the anticipated life, the costs associated with ownership, and what will it do, if anything, to the balance sheet? Smart people.

Great Value

All these things matter, but many of them are more connected with price than value. Is value important?

Truly the Range Rover should be about value. The purchase of a personal computing device should be about value. Our home, our furniture, about value.

In the workplace when we bring on a new employee, about value. When we invest in employee training and development, about value. That large capital equipment purchase, it should be about value.

Beyond the technical or mechanical evaluation of price, there is often the intangible part of value.

One thing is certain. Be cautious of low price, it is often not connected with great value.

-DEG

Dennis E. Gilbert is a business consultant, speaker (CSP^TM), and corporate trainer. He is a five-time author and the founder of Appreciative Strategies, LLC. His business focuses on positive human performance improvement solutions through Appreciative Strategies®. Reach him through his website at Dennis-Gilbert.com or by calling +1 646.546.5553.

Dennis Gilbert on Google+

20
Jul 18
-

What Does Excellence Cost?

Tags : cost excellence innovation process control six sigma

Many individuals and businesses strive for excellence. It is an admirable goal. Does excellence have a price? What does excellence cost?

It seems that there may be many potential ways to measure the cost of excellence. We can consider hours spent, hard costs such as tools or equipment, and perhaps the opportunity cost of trading one thing for another.

Popular Pursuits

Businesses may strive to reduce waste, increase efficiency, and have fewer than one defective part in every million produced. All good and meaningful goals.

What is the cost? Often argued is that costs are improved. Less waste, faster, and better-quality results in more profit. We can do the math on those costs to get to the end result. Are there other costs?

History Teaches

Perhaps post-industrial revolution we have some remnants of excellence. Things like John Deere tractors, Ford automobiles, and Harley Davidson motorcycles.

These are all companies that pushed hard for excellence. Perhaps long before manufacturing developed catchy terms and acronyms for process control. Even well before Toyota existed.

So, what about John Deere, Ford, and Harley Davidson? What price did they pay for excellence? Many have studied the Ford story, some have looked closer at John Deere and Harley Davidson. What are the lessons learned?

Are the lessons tighter controls, stricter specifications, and appropriate treatment of the human side of the business? Certainly, yes. Are there other lessons?

Excellence Cost

In your career or in your business have you thought about the costs of excellence? Not the tangible costs, but the intangibles?

Much of the best innovation, product development, and future growth doesn’t spring up from tight systems and restricted movement. It doesn’t happen when the mindset is to attain perfection and never change.

Preaching continuous improvement is a paradox when the real rules are no deviations.

Even the best sometimes struggle to get out of their own way.

-DEG

Dennis E. Gilbert is a business consultant, speaker (CSP^TM), and corporate trainer. He is a five-time author and the founder of Appreciative Strategies, LLC. His business focuses on positive human performance improvement solutions through Appreciative Strategies®. Reach him through his website at Dennis-Gilbert.com or by calling +1 646.546.5553.

Dennis Gilbert on Google+

12
Dec 17
-

Customer Service Balance Is Reasonable

Tags : balance cost customer service reasonable reliable

Have you ever thought about what makes special things, special? What really creates a memorable customer experience? Having customer service balance may be what attracts the masses. Do you have it?

What is the difference between the racecar and one you buy off the dealership lot?

Why does the state of the art always come with bugs?

Making coffee at home is a fraction of the price at the gourmet shop, but the gourmet shop is always packed with people.

High Cost or Reliable

The fast racecar is expensive. It is custom built, requiring hours of special labor. It is fast, but it is designed to win the race, not go the most miles without maintenance.

The latest technology, most elaborate software, or techie gadget often isn’t perfected, but it is breaking new ground with features others don’t have. It is cool, but doesn’t always work and the learning curve is long.

Coffee from a home brewing device doesn’t allow you to easily visit a few friends, display your new shoes, or have others observe you in action with your mobile computing device.

Being the best has costs. Having the fastest car, the latest techno gadget, or sipping one dollar per every two ounces of coffee costs too. Those who produce the best and consume the best should realize that there is volatility to the market.

Volatile Market

The fastest car won’t last as long as the lower priced mass produced reliable one. Having the newest techno gadget is pretty cool, until those on the old platform are still surfing while you’re waiting for tech support or trying to figure out the new menu. The coffee shop is the place to be right now, it’s not the only place.

Having the best or creating a trend costs, but often being the most reliable, with a reasonable price will endure the volatile nature of the consumer.

Customer Service Balance

Customer service balance may be about the best solution. People paying a reasonable price don’t expect perfection.

What they do expect is to get what they pay for. Their purchase risk is smaller and long-term satisfaction is much higher.

Special, high end, and the fastest is cool, until it isn’t, which usually doesn’t take very long. This is exactly why it is only a trend.

Balance seems much more reasonable.

– DEG

Dennis E. Gilbert is a business consultant, speaker (CSP^TM), and corporate trainer that specializes in helping businesses and individuals accelerate their leadership, their team, and their success. He is a five-time author and some of his work includes, #CustServ The Customer Service Culture, and Forgotten Respect, Navigating A Multigenerational Workforce. Reach him through his website at Dennis-Gilbert.com or by calling +1 646.546.5553.

Dennis Gilbert on Google+

Tag Archives: cost

Sep 21

-

Valued Services

Sep 21

-

Value Add

Nov 20

-

Stopping Pain

Sep 20

-

Pressure Decisions

Aug 19

-

Cost of Workplace Patience

Time Factor

Jul 19

-

Wait for What?

Analyzed Enough

Apr 19

-

Measure Costs

Training Cost

Sep 18

-

Value In Action

Great Value

Jul 18

-

Popular Pursuits

History Teaches

Excellence Cost

Dec 17

-

High Cost or Reliable

Volatile Market

Customer Service Balance

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