The Business Growth Blog by Rob Cuesta

Flying On The Edge Of Darkness

It was an odd sensation.

I was flying home from a management training course at Microsoft's headquarters in Redmond, WA, a few weeks ago.

I've flown transatlantic many times over the years, but on this occasion a precise conjunction of dates, flight path, and in-flight entertainment put me, quite literally, in my own personal twilight zone.

When things go wrong...

...what your customers want is a swift and painless fix.

What they often get - particularly from large organisations - is a descent to Dante's 7th Circle of Hell, as they get passed from person to person in a call centre.

I was renewing my 1shoppingcart.com account tonight and somehow managed to create a second account instead. Mea culpa - I messed up. I admit it.

So I called 1SC's support desk...

Are you coming to Practice Explosion?

Here's the deal:

1. between now and the end of the Montreal Workshop (2nd May 2010) I want you to tweet about Practice Explosion. What are you hoping to learn, how much are you looking forward to going, what impact would you like it to have on your business, anything you can think of relating to the workshops. ALL TWEETS MUST USE THE HASH TAG #PracExplosion

2. during the workshops, keep tweeting about what you're learning, how you feel about being there, what impact it will have, how you're going to put things into action, etc. Again, ALL TWEETS MUST USE THE HASH TAG #PracExplosion

3. between now and 2nd May, post blogs, create videos, anything you can think of to record what you're thinking about the workshop.

4. Keep doing it AFTER THE EVENT

On 10th May I'll search Twitter and Google and decide who I think did the best job of portraying their excitement and anticipation about the event. The winner will get a free copy of the recording of the whole weekend, worth $297

Terms & Conditions

• Entrants must be registered to attend either the Toronto workshop or the Montreal workshop. 
• The winner will be the person judged by me (Rob Cuesta) to have done the best job of portraying their excitement, enthusiasm and passion for what they are going to learn.
• The judge's decision is final and no appeal will be allowed.
• Staff of the event or personal friends of the judge may not enter.

How much is your time REALLY worth

I was at a meeting of the mastermind group I belong to today (yes, even coaches have coaches. Or should that be "Above all, coaches have coaches") and one of the topics that came up was procrastination.

We were talking about ways of prioritising tasks, and how to spot the things that take us away from what we should be doing.

As I was driving home I was struck by a simple way of putting "busy work" into a new light. Want to know what I came up with?

Why recruiters have it all wrong - part 2

Have you ever worked with someone who, on paper, looked like the perfect person for a job, but over time it turned out they just didn't have "what it takes" to be successful in the role?

In the previous post we looked at some of the pitfalls of the traditional hiring process, and why it can be fatal for a company that is hiring in order to grow. The reality is, most interviewers are great at spotting people with the right skills for a job, but not necessarily the few who have "what it takes" - especially if the interviewer hasn't, themselves, done the job they're interviewing for.

So what can we do to avoid those pitfalls? How do we know if someone will have "what it takes"?

Why recruiters have it all wrong

Whether you're an entrepreneur hiring your first employee, or a corporate manager filling a new post or backfilling a gap created by the departure of an existing memebr of your team, recruiting the right people is essential to growing any business. You need to know that the new person will fit in the organisation, and you need to know they'll be able to do the job. Hiring the wrong person isn't just a potentially expensive mistake: put the wrong person in the wrong place at the wrong time and it could kill your business completely (RIP Barings Bank!).

The problem is, most recruiters - even agents, whose job is solely to find candidates for other companies - have their focus all wrong when it comes to finding the right person. And the reason for that isn't hard to find.

Is this the worst business card ever?

I was at a show for startup businesses a couple of weeks ago in London. Taking a break from the stand I joined some fellow exhibitors for lunch. At one point we were interrupted by the arrival of a shadowy figure who walked up to the table and - without a word - dropped a single business card into the centre of the table then walked on to the next table.

Now, I could probably write a whole blog post just discussing his method of approaching us, but let's look at his business card...

What do you have to do to get customer satisfaction around here?

We seem to live in a world where fewer and fewer companies are willing to do something for their customers out of a sense of service. Instead they have to be cajoled, coaxed and ultimately threatened before they'll take action.

A few months ago I suspended my membership of a subscription music site while I decided whether to continue. I'd forgotten about this until I got an email advising me that my latest payment had gone through successfully. I was understandably err "peeved", as it had happened without any warning. At the very least one would expect a reminder saying "your holiday period is ending soon. Do you want to renew?"

Customer satisfaction? It's the unexpected extras that count

Recently, I had a nasty dent in the rear wing of my car. The insurance company chose the body shop they wanted me to use so I dropped it off.

Three weeks and four aborted attempts to return my car later, I finally have it back. The first time, the paintwork was full of bubbles. The second time, the bubbles were gone but it looked like the whole thing had been rubbed with emery paper and left. The third time, the repair was a different colour from the rest of the wing, and they had splashed my rear bumper (fender, for the Americans among you!) with grey primer - not a good look for a flame red coupe! The fourth time, they brought the car back with the engine management light on. Suffice to say, I was NOT happy.

Fifth delivery, and I finally got Mr Tibbs (it's a Hyundai Tiburon - what else would I call it?) back on Tuesday, and as soon as the delivery driver left I went inside to draft a strongly worded complaint. It's all forgotten now though, so what changed my mind?

Even the homeless are getting in on Personal Branding

I was fascinated by an almost throwaway comment on the Workshifting blog that describes how the homeless in Orlando are making the best of the resources and opportunities available to improve their lot. It's easy for all sorts of prejudices and preconceptions to cloud our ideas about the homeless, and lead us to make all sorts of generalisations, so I found this story truly heartwarming.

"

Jeff told me that any homeless person in Orlando that had ID and no outstanding balance could have a library card, which entitled them to time on the public computers. [...] Some were even attempting to start their own business, find contract work or rebuild their lives via research, personal branding and financial education."

If people like Jeff can make so much of the little that they have available to them, just imagine what you can do with all the resources at your disposal...