Author: whatifconcepts

Empowering those that inspire so they can excel at the work that matters.

Presence

Sometimes it appears the best strategy it to develop a large footprint and lots of walls around your cause’s territory.  A large presence seems necessary in order to remain relevant in the sector.  Traveling is a great reminder that all you need is a doorway for entry.  Take for example a hotel in any major European city.  First floor space on most streets is expensive and rents for a premium.  Why put non-vital services on the ground-floor where they take-up extremely desirable space?  A well placed entrance to an enterprise with desirable services will attract the desired customers.

Are you competing to create the grandest entrance or developing the services that your customers desire once they arrive?

Questions You Must Ask Everyday to Improve

There are times during an athletic competition, consulting project, or eventful moment of life that I wonder how much longer I can maintain the pace.  It struck me the other day that it is during these moments that life it revealed at its fullest.  It is in the instant that you launch off the diving board and head for the pool water below.  You are committed and can either execute the dive you planned or perform a painful belly flop.  Put a number on your shirt and enter a running race and there will be a threshold that you reach where you have to decide if you can keep going or need to back-off.  There is no right answer but living in that moment of questioning for just a few seconds or minutes longer seems to reveal more than a lifetime of dreaming.  

The successes I most treasure are rooted in persevering when the questioning became most intense.  “Can I keep this up?  Will it be more painful a mile from now?  Do I have the stamina to sustain this effort?  What if a competitor pushes the pace faster, how will I match their acceleration?”


What are your questions?  How have they inspired you?  What lessons have you learned?

Image Credit: http://cincinnati.com

Off Track

Does your organization’s routine inspire innovation or wears down new ideas before they get a chance to fly?

If you have ever run in a new city it is easy to find a loop that works and use it as your main route for the remainder of your stay.  However, some of the greatest discoveries happen when you are willing to use the tried and true as a landmark and begin to explore.

If you stayed to the confines of the Tuileries in Paris you might miss…

How do you ensure that your routine does not keep you running laps on a track while making only left turns?  What steps have you taken to explore new terrain?

Info

Where do your fans and customers get information about your cause?  Is it easy to obtain?  Is it accurate and up-to-date?  Do they come to you or do you need to go to them?  Have you asked those individuals seeking information which format works best for them?  Do you use multiple platforms or just one?  Do you need to get out and about of spend more time manning the information desk?

Many social sector organizations claim to be the best kept secret in town.  Perhaps you need to consider a new strategy for expanding your presence.

Relevance

Daniel Pink’s book, Drive reminds us of the importance of relevance in the field of education.

Think of it as the fourth R: reading, writing, arithmetic…and relevance.

It is perhaps the central question when we consider using the time and talent’s of a social sector board, volunteers and staff.  How do we keep the focus relevant to the mission of the enterprise?

What is really valuable?

If you had a limited data plan on your mobile phone and had to filter the emails and text you could afford to receive, which ones would you purge?  How many enterprises send communications that act like a burden on your email box?  Does your communication plan really hold your audience’s attention or is it easily distracted?  Try the firework test- do you remember what you were doing before fireworks unexpectedly fill the night sky?  Many times your competition for attention is as powerful as a 4th of July celebration.

Convenience vs. Competence

Are you settling for convenience or embracing competence?  Do you position your events and programs to be first to market and easy to duplicate or high quality and difficult to replicate?  Are you one among many or the benchmark by which other enterprises measure themselves?

Many causes can tell me which organization they wish to duplicate- few tell me about how they want to expand upon their lead.

Not Satisfied

How satisfied are your clients and members?  What type of scores do they give your organization when you performs a satisfaction survey?  Are they somewhat satisfied, mostly satisfied, extremely satisfied?  What if I told you that there is zero correlation between the results of a satisfaction survey and predicting the future growth of your organization?  Said differently, just because a customer is satisfied with your cause does not mean they will patronize your organization next week, month, or year.  Tracking satisfaction provides no value when predicting future growth.  In my consulting practice we have stopped performing satisfaction assessments.


What is useful?  We are measuring advocates.  Ultimately we are looking for individuals who will risk their reputation to recommend an organization or cause.  An advocate is an individual who believes strongly enough in a brand to put their personal stamp of approval on the anticipated future experience a friend or colleague will experience.

Real world example- list five or more local eating establishments you have dined at in the past year or less.  How may of these dining places would you mark as at least satisfied if I surveyed you today?  Now, if I came to your community and I asked you which restaurants I you would recommend, how many from your satisfied list would you include?  How many would you recommend with a qualifying statement?  What is the difference between the satisfaction list and the recommendation list?  Usually there is are significantly fewer establishments an individuals is willing to recommend than those that they are satisfied with.  Satisfaction is an easy statement we use to cover a lot of situations (it can be a polite way to say I am never coming back or I am a fan of your enterprise).

If you knew who your enterprise’s advocates were what would you do differently?