How to Grow Your Business Without Sucking
- You run a business generating freakishlyhaptastic customers.
- You grow your business.
- Your customer service dwindles.
You end up s.u.c.k.
Think of JetBlue.
- They started off enthralling their customers (satellite TVs/radios, leather seats, and sweet snacks).
- They grew.
- They couldn't keep up their freakishlyfatastic service.
They started sucking:
- worst on-time record for consecutive years
- losses for two straight years
- draining resources fighting the fires of growth
Know the Growth Trap?
Typical Entrepreneur Johnny D Mofikizo starts like this:
- He opens his first store. 99% of Customers Freakishly Satisifed.
- He opens his second. 90%.
- He opens his third. 75%.
- He opens his fourth. 40%.
- He opens his fourth. 5%.
- Yadda
- Yadda, until X% of Customers hate his stores, and never visit again -- forcing his company to shut doors.
Exponentially kaboom.
What happens next?
- Profits exponentially dwindle with every additional store.
- Before he realizes his, his company gets into the red: all of his stores start losing chunks of cash.
- He needs cash, but the banks won't lend him.
Kaput.
Happens.Every.Frickin.Day.
- Company grows with happy customers.
- Company opens second store without resources to keep up happy customers.
- Company opens third store, further draining customer satisfaction.
- The yaddas -- until they end up s.u.c.k., with no cash, goes bankrupt, and dies.
How do you grow without sucking?
Think of In-N-Out Burgers.
- Just about every customer who leaves from their 200 locations = freakishlyfatastically happy.
Your first goal:
- Make your first store = freakishly-fatastic customers (just about all of 'em).
When you reach the stage where you superificallylikemofo satisfy just about every one of your customer from your first store, open a second one.
- Now, maintaining the level of service with your first store, make everyone who walk out of your second store frtuperifically satisfied.
- When you reached the stage where your customers freakishly-freak-tastically at two stores, open a third one.
- Continue cycle.
Get the pic?
- Grow only when your company can handle growth.
- Use customer satisfaction as guide to your growth plans.
- Grow only when you can make that Xth (e.g, 1000th) customer as happy as your first.
In other words:
- First customer = "Yay! I so excited!"
- 100th customer = "Yay! I so excited!"
- 1000th customer = "Yay! I so excited!"
If the 1000th customer wants to punch you in the face and eat your children, scale back growth plans:
- Cut resources on areas that doesn't directly ^^@^%@ satisfy X customers (e.g., sales personnel, yaddas).
- Inject more resources that boost-like-a-freak customer satisfaction (e.g., more service training, more product training, yaddas)
...until the last customer = as happy as your first.
(That's when you know you're growing correctly.)
Scale With WowWowWow.
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Posted on December 15