SimpleBiz360™ Podcast

Never sending, or collecting on invoices happens far too often. The previous sentence sounds ridiculous! However, it is true for small, medium, and large companies. Reasons for this are usually rooted in the lack of systems or adequate procedures. Very few customers will volunteer to pay an invoice they never received. Today we flush out, and ask critical questions about this Silent Business Kille...

Customers love suppliers that consistently demonstrate customer-pleasing core values. Corporate growth spurts can become very hectic and overwhelming. During expansion mode it is often difficult to maintain the core values that were once the glue of the smaller enterprise. The reasons for this are varied, but in many cases, value training is overshadowed by mechanical, and procedural training. So...

Imagine a well-intentioned phone call that gets really ugly in 20 seconds? This happened to me recently. Why? The answer is simple…I let my professional guard down. I initiated the call in a casual manner, while I multi-tasked in the background. Twenty seconds into the call I ran into a POW!!! Why? I made two mistakes that I have been avoiding since 1985. For a large part of my career, I paid the...

For many of us, phone conversations are happening less and less compared to 10, or 20 years ago. The same trend is happening in business. Is it time to rebuild those verbal muscles? Today we look at this evolution, and ask ourselves some relevant questions. Are we ready to receive, or make difficult phone calls? What happens when a simple business conversation takes a quick turn, and then suddenly...

No reply has now become one of the favorite ways for buyers to say no.  As business owners and operators, this style of saying “NO” may seem inviting for our own use. After all, we can avoid confrontation by never having to explain our decisions. However, this trend could also be packed with a trailer load of negative effects on our business! True, trust-building partnerships will not be healthy w...

Do our customers see us as true client-success partners, clinical processors, or servant stewards of their time and money? What kind of customer service experiences are we delivering to paying customers? It is incumbent on ownership, executives, and managers, to fully understand the impact service departments have on buyers. The buck stops with those three capacities of the corporate machine. The...

The question for this show is an age-old chin-rubber. Are business shortcuts really worth it? What are the typical end results on the backside of vendor claims that the four-hour job can be completed in two hours, or that four-day job can be wrapped up two days? In my life, the results are mixed, with the highest percentage leaning towards low quality of work. Reality dictates that rapid job compl...

Learning the mathematical power of customer defection rocked my world in 1988. For 35 years I have been chasing the reasons, and solutions. Season 5 continues our hunt for ways to make customers happy, and to keep them coming back. The headwinds of the Experience Economy beckon the necessity to change our go forward coordinates. If we don’t change, the dreaded Silent Business Killers (SBKs) will o...

Youthful innocence has the ability to reveal certain simplicities of life, and business, that are often hidden inside adulthood complexities! A handful of these bedrock simplicities flooded my mind one spring day in 2023. Three yards of mulch, and 35 wheelbarrows later, I found myself with a short list of foundational observations that can help any of our professional endeavors. Where did I obtain...

Imagine how intimidating high-mountain roads could be, if there were no guardrails to protect cars from going off the edge? Processes deliver safety to businesses, in the same way that guardrails protect cars on dangerous roads. Designing Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) enables our businesses to pave a multi-lane, super-highway for operational consistency, efficiency, and profitability, Howev...

Sam Walton loved this principle, and he used it as one of his top 10 concepts to drive Wal-Mart to meteoric heights. In 1988, I took a chance with this mindset, and it turned our 5.5-million-dollar company into a 12-million-dollar company in 2 years. Imagine exceeding corporate expectations by exchanging a company-centric formula, for a customer-centric recipe? Today we tell a pretty cool story (a...

Today we look at the all-to-common dilemma of mismanaging customer questions. I once worked with an ex-TV news reporter, who actually created a company devoted to teaching the art of “question deflection.” In fact, this person did quite well. Why? Because there is an enormous corporate appetite for manipulating customer questions. Do we really think that customers like our clever, devious, and man...

In life, we find that answers to many of our questions can be found hidden in simplicity. The same holds true for business. Today we look at the silver lining of viewing our businesses through a very raw, elementary, and basic lens. Granted, we all thrive on selling a product or service that produces a payment, but what about the journey we take customers on to that payment? Often times it’s in th...

Long-term business success can be severely hampered by employees who streak! What is streaking? What are the easy ways to detect if streaking is happening in our companies? What impact can streaking have on our customers? Join us as we uncover three, simple concepts that can eliminate streaking, and set up guardrails to avoid streaking events in the future. Support the show

The business boneyard is full of companies that were infected with “circular” customer service! Are we taking customers on a never-ending journey, that seems full of lip service, and zero action? Like a mouse on a wheel, many customers experience the ugliness of pursuing service, only to find their efforts lead them around, and around, and around, with no resolution in sight. My wife and I just en...

Cryptic communication, tardy responses, shoddy detail management, and unanswered customer questions can cripple business success, and hamper future growth. On the flip side, prompt and detailed correspondence can help companies grow by exceeding customer expectations. However, both sides of this coin rest on the shoulders of managing email activity. So, why do so few companies touch on this? Why d...

Overseeing 8,000 employees creates unique vantage points for assessing business. Wesley uses his career background to support the notion that professional selling is a noble calling, and that this career path is loaded with premier leadership opportunities. We are honored that Wes joins us to highlight, and define, key elements of the profession that many of us are proud to be associated with. Thi...

Exceptional customer service starts with an understanding that the complexities of life are behind every business veneer we encounter. All business professionals have lives that can directly affect their work attitudes. As service providers, we don’t always know what our customers are encountering in their personal lives. In fact, we have no idea how good, or bad their day, week, month, or year is...

Imagine perceiving that all of our daily work activities serve a customer! Well, in reality they do! Whether it’s an invoice paying patron, an associate, a teammate, vendor, supplier, direct report, or even a boss, we have an opportunity to demonstrate good business stewardship. Set aside five minutes for this contemplative message. Imagine adopting a simple mindset that can leave a trail of smili...

Giving sincere business compliments can kickstart healthy and productive relationships. The power of authenticity and genuineness are unspoken business qualities that are routinely overlooked. However, every generation seems to respond favorably to business professionals who consistently display these tenants. This show encourages us to harness the art of delivering accolades that matter to the re...

After 35 years in business, I have seen, and heard, my fair share of vendors who default to situational fabrication while resolving customer issues. There are many problems with transaction fabrications, but the most glaring is unspoken. In many cases, the customer can sense the lies and embellishment, yet they will rarely tell us that their “BS Radar” has picked up our deviancy. They simply disap...

Sharing stories of life can often begin the restoration process for people who have endured similar experiences. Amada Blackwood shares her remarkable story of escape, and survival, from the horrors of human trafficking. Knowing that many others have been hurt by these dark corners of our world, Amanda shines her bright light with a message of hope and healing. This is a “Pay it Forward” episode t...

Observant buyers can effectively read the tea leaves of business behavior. Savvy customers can sense when they are about to walk into a service mess, or a buyer’s paradise. Baseball pitchers often telegraph their upcoming pitch. They do this by defaulting to unique, repetitive, pre-release throwing mechanics that their opposition learns through observation. Businesses do the same thing. Often time...

What would companies look like if the C-Suite personnel engaged in the routine duties of every employee position? The annual figures are about the same for start-up companies compared to businesses that shut their doors. After watching transactional behaviors for over 30 years, I can comfortably claim that many of these dead enterprises died on the “Experience Economy” battlefield. Quite frankly,...

Why do some businesses deliberately choose to do what is wrong, even when they know their decision will lead to customer dissatisfaction? To coin an old phrase, some business actions stick out like a sore thumb. Many times, the pain suffered from these actions hurts worse than that sore thumb? So why do we do these things? Do we understand the true cost of serving up service we know is bad before...