Recent economic woes must teach us all that the quality of our management and in many cases the weak and unethical behavior of some of our renowned business leaders means we need to get back to some basic principles.
Some basics of business and some more ant antics…
OUTPUT QUALITY. Another ant variety, ‘Rattue’, can teach us about partnering with our suppliers and customers. They team up with a caterpillar that supplies them with food in return for their protection from predatory spiders. Dangerous intruders cause the caterpillar tap when they approach. The interesting thing is that the supplier (caterpillar) speaks the ants’ language. The most successful finance salesman I ever new was an ex-roadwork’s construction contractor. His customers dealt with him because he understood their industry, the machinery they needed and the financial aspects of their business. How much do we know about our customers and their problems and how well our solutions really fit or just flog product? As an ex financier I am still amazed by the antics of each new generation of bankers who at best are inept and at worst, incompetent or dishonest.
NO ANTS TO BE FOUND. A few years back in a past crisis the Internet business and the infamous problems it had including many failures is a prime example of how businesses lose track of what their customers need. As an example, I had great trouble trying to change my web host due to poor communication practices of my ‘supplier’. One of their staff even said, ‘for that price you don’t get any service or advice just a space on our server’. After 3 months, 20 or 30 emails and a couple of expensive phone calls to the US from Asia where I was stationed at the time, I was finally able to complete the change. Many Internet companies forget that people deal with people and that they need to personally communicate with individuals. Badly worded, jargon filled, technical, anonymous, do it yourself forms are not effective communication devices, particularly when problems arise. This of course is reinforced by much of the financial documentation we still suffer today with many customers not really understanding what they are signing up for. I once had a financial adviser even admit, when I was trying to write an investor information seminar for him, that he would rather not be too explicit as they still relied on “smoke and mirrors” in his industry. This guy at the time of writing with investments under stress still avoids his “customers”… an ant that would rather not be found. Good business is about listening to your customers, then saying what you will do and then doing what you say and being around when needed.
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