What do pick-up truck owners and the followers of a Finnish-born software engineer have in common?
I will give you a hint, it’s part of our humanness, how we organize ourselves into social groups. Our need for this governs interactions with products, brands, businesses and each other. More about this in a minute.
It’s been verified by Ford. Americans officially love their pick-up trucks! According to a study published by Ford just a few days ago, most pick-up truck owners would give up a lot before they would park their pick-up. Here are a few of the eye-opening results:
79% would give up alcohol for a year before they’d give up their pick-up truck
71% would give up coffee
47% would give up using a phone for a year
38% said they would give up sex before giving up their pick-up
In 1994, a Swedish speaking Finnish software engineer launched an open source operating system – Linux. When Linus Torvalds published his Linux kernel (core), version 1.0, the world was not familiar with open source anything. It would be almost seven years, for instance, before Wikipedia would launch in 2001.
Programmers began contributing their work to improve the Linux kernel almost immediately. Their dedication to improving Linux was impressive, and in the process, the programmers became raving fans of this operating system.
Since 2005, when tracking of changes began, over 15,000 developers from more than 1,400 companies have contributed. By 2006, only two percent of the Linux kernel was written by Torvalds himself, the other 98% having been donated by other developers.
Through the open source community process, Linux has evolved into one of the most stable operating systems ever created. Google Android, powering an estimated 86% of all cell phones worldwide, is based on the Linux operating system.
So, what do pick-up truck owners and the followers of Linus Torvalds have in common?
They are all members of a connected communities.
At this point, you might be saying “These are interesting stories, but why should I care about these communities?”
Because building a community within your business is a critical component of creating the passion and engagement necessary for attracting and keeping loyal customers.
What’s necessary for you to know when building a business community? Here are three critical areas:
1. Know your customer “avatar” and why the customer belongs.
According to Hedges & Company Market Research, the customer avatar for the Ford F-150, the most popular truck in America today, looks like this. Average age of 55, 84% male, 16% female. 75% of all new Ford F-150s are purchased by white males, though Hispanic buyers account for 22% of total incremental growth. The vast majority of these new trucks are in large and medium-sized cities.
Why people choose to belong to the pick-up owning community is a matter of debate. Some say it’s because they have a lot to haul, others say it’s a status symbol especially in the US south. The debate continues on pick-ups.
It IS important for you to know why your customer would belong to your community. Would it be to get or contribute technical information? Is it to learn from more experienced community members? Or are they lonely, and looking for more human connection?
At this point, it’s also important to explicitly know and state your personal and company values. In successful communities, you and your customer avatar share similar values.
2. Decide on a communication platform.
In the mid-1990’s the Linux community was organized in a series of email lists. Code changes, freezes and updates were all coordinated through the list. In addition to the email lists, another communication platform was the Linux Journal. This printed publication reported on Linux updates and other open source products.
How do you want to communicate with your customer? Most companies now use Facebook, Twitter and Linkedin for this purpose. What kind of experiences do you want to create for your community? Are they virtual or in-person? Who leads the communication from your company?
3. Determine what the shared success of the group will be.
For Linux, success was the continuous improvement of the product. And through programmer investment in this continuous improvement, they ended up valuing Linux more.
Researchers at the Harvard Business School call this the IKEA effect. Because most IKEA products are sold unassembled, the assembly process by the consumer bonds them to the finished product. Their work contribution causes them to overvalue the product and the IKEA brand.
If your company supports small business, shared success might be integrating customer feedback gathered in the community into future versions of your product.
Or, growing a customer’s business as a result of community membership.
In fact, showing a correlation between involvement in your sponsored community and positive customer business results is one of the best outcomes possible. Interestingly, when one customer engages with another in a community, it doesn’t much matter which customer grows from the engagement. As long as one of them grows, they both feel the satisfaction and bond to each other and your company.
Business communities improve customer results, and the value that customers place on your business. This is the power of belonging, strengthened by three steps to building community in your business.
I’m interested in how you interact with customers in your business community. Please share what works for you.
A colleague of mine told me about a recent Zoom meeting. This Zoom was with the CFO of a successful distribution company, calling from his mobile line instead of joining via video.
She asked him, “What do you worry about?”
The CFO talked about the slowness of his team to adapt to changing market conditions, and that he was disappointed.
‘Curious response from a senior business leader’ I thought.
After a few other follow-up questions, my colleague then asked “What are you looking forward to?” The CFO responded, “I can’t wait until we are back together again in the office so we can get some real work done.”
My curiosity began shifting to queasiness.
“How has the team responded when you’re talking with them face to face on Zoom?” her final question.
“Well, my set-up doesn’t have a camera, so we have frequent one-on-one calls.”
My queasiness shifted to full blown discomfort!
I’m sure you’re following this, but let me summarize anyway.
This CFO is unhappy with the performance of his team, but has not invested $100 in a camera to upgrade his technology so that he can more effectively lead his team.
I’m reminded of advice that my Stryker mentor, Jeff Paulsen, gave me:
“The speed of the leader equals the speed of the team.”
Jeff is a very, very smart person who provided lots of good advice. But this phrase I have repeated more than any other.
When my team isn’t getting the urgency of the situation. I look in the mirror. My sense of urgency (or lack) must be setting the pace for the team.
When my team isn’t adopting new processes or technology. I look in the mirror.
When my team isn’t finding problems, instead, hoping everything is ok. I look in the mirror.
How am I showing my team that all of this poor performance is ok? What example am I setting?
When I figure out how I am challenged in a specific area, and change my approach, the team usually follows.
Now, that doesn’t mean that I always know HOW to change my approach. That’s where colleagues, coaching, mentors and experts come in.
In order to make an effective change, I must know where I’m heading – what “great” looks like.
And then I start with “good”.
Because I also believe that “great” can sometimes be the enemy of “good”.
I’ve seldom gone from no experience in a particular skill, to “great” immediately. So I shouldn’t expect my team to get there instantaneously either.
Let’s go back to that CFO leading a virtual team. If he were interested in creating a great virtual team, he would purchase a good video camera, and he would reach out to thought leaders.
We happen to have a great thought leader here in South Florida – Nina Segura from Super Virtual Teams.
Nina has taught me literally everything I know about creating and leading virtual teams. It’s not something that I have been naturally inclined to do. When working in an office environment, I’m voted most likely to walk over and knock on a door before even calling.
So, virtual teams were initially a big stretch for me. Now my consulting business depends on them.
I wasn’t much different than the CFO we met earlier. Except, I was willing to seek out experts and learn, so that I could move faster.
Speed of the leader equals the speed of the team.
How are your business reopening plans progressing?
How are your teams moving to capitalize on market opportunities?
What’s your speed making these critical changes?
Are you actively demolishing roadblocks that stand in their way, or are YOU the roadblock?
You and I can be both the problem and the solution. We’ve created roadblocks, and we also get to clear them.
Please share your speed with me. I look forward to hearing from you!
Twice weekly, I head to the gym to challenge myself with Octavio Cifuentes, a South Florida trainer for world class athletes, who graciously agreed to work with me. He has a process and method, often not readily apparent, building my strength to be both durable and explosive.
Durable and explosive… that sounds like a great business attribute. We’ll discuss that in a moment.
In my third session, after dragging a 250lb sled up and down the gym floor, I caught my breath long enough to ask – “Octavio, why all this sled dragging?” He paused, looked up from his energy drink and said. “I know you can’t see it now, we’re building your core. A strong core is essential to overall health, strength and agility. Without building a strong core first, building anything else would only lead to injury.” Then, he said. “Rest time is over, twenty push-ups please.”
17, 18 , 19… and 20. Breathless once again, I looked down at my still extant gut. Octavio was watching. “Also, I want you to remember this hard work when you decide what to feed your core.”
Your business has a core. Is it durable and explosive, or flabby and indulgent?
Do you feed it healthy fuel, and exercise it? Or do you binge on junk food and work super hard in spurts to try to create the appearance of health? Does a business core workout leave you breathless and panting to recover? Is your business injured because you ignored the core? Do you know where your core is?
We’ve found that there are three actions key to a strong core, and resulting strong business results.
Action #1: Define Your Core
In this action, it is important to describe your basic business activities and their tie to profitability. Look for the twenty percent of the actions that contribute eighty percent of the profitability. Know how you measure these key activities. Are your mission, vision and values consistent with these activities? Which skills and processes are essential to creating these services and products for your customers?
Please also note that just as your personal core includes the gut, your business core will also include the ability to go with “gut” calls, pivoting and aligning quickly. Cores can change too. Make sure you’re revisiting your business core and appropriately changing or expanding it.
Collecting cash by managing accounts receivable is an example of a core skill and process. Without cashflow, companies will suffer serious injury possibly leading to death.
Action #2: Feed and Exercise Your Core
Time to get real here. How much focus do you put on your business core? Building your business can feel a lot like dragging that 250lb sled – a painful slog. Are you feeding it with nutritious and clean burning energy in the form of the right leadership, skills training, process and employee development? Do you have a continuous feedback loop with your customers? Are the basic functions of your company people or process dependent?
When you look at your company, do you see a bunch of heroes? Do you observe shouting, running, extreme last-minute adrenaline-fueled efforts? While this is interesting in a Marvel Comics sort of way, it shows me that more feeding and exercising of the business core is needed. In a company with a well fed and exercised core, it often looks like not much is going on.
Action #3: Notice the results. Be patient, they’re often just under the surface.
Companies with a strong core can be a bit stealthy with Action #3. Competitors may see a gut, when the real strength and power lie just below the surface, and at first you might only see a gut too. Just know that muscles are being exercised, teams are forming, skills are being built, profitable business results are supporting company financial health and agility. And when the time is right, the time that you decide, these results will show up in the market with explosive strength and durability.
Tesla is a terrific example of that latent core, ready to burst forth. For years, the company was a custom manufacturer of funky electric roadsters. Then over a few years, stepped into the light as the world’s leading maker of electric cars.
I’m reminded of the words of coach Gabriella Goddard,
“Connect with your core and you’ll find strength. Act from your core and you’ll move mountains.”
What’s your core? How to you measure it? Do your customers and competitors know it, or is it an industry secret?
Do you have an expert coach like Octavio supporting you on the path to building it? Let’s start a dialog.
In our consulting business practice, we work with many successful, entrepreneurial business owners and also long-term employees who acquire equity in the business and seek to grow into a senior leadership role.
A foundational element of our coaching is that one essential mind shift is necessary to move from employee to owner. As luck would have it, this is also an essential skill to exercise in your business to ensure that it survives the COVID-19 crisis, and best illustrated in a story.
Much earlier in my career, I was a mid-level manager at a fine china manufacturing company, a company that took pride in the fact that it provided china service for the White House for over a hundred years. The company had a sound distribution model with excellent relationships in the retail space. The corporate owner of this fine china company, full of artisans including painters, silversmiths and porcelain designers, demanded that profitability improve year over year. What could the management team do, none of whom were owners, to increasing profitability? Well, they did what many employees do in their roles. They made the best decision they could and “hoped” there weren’t any problems. In this case, the decision was to expand from two outlet stores to over one hundred, thereby increasing sales tremendously! A brilliant plan, right? Brilliant except for one thing, no one on the team that came up with this idea thought like an owner.
What do I mean “think like an owner?” Through my experience working with successful owners of many companies, plus, owning and leading a company myself, an owner asks: “What could go wrong?” and intentionally and persistently looks for problems inside their own business. While employees are “hoping” something works so they don’t get into trouble, owners are looking for trouble, heck they’re inviting trouble into their day by looking for problems. And after these problems are uncovered, then and only then can they be resolved.
Back to the fine china company. The outlet plan was a huge success for a few years. Until…problems began – the demand at the outlets outpaced production at the factory. Inferior goods were brought in to cover the supply shortfall, customers started returning more of their purchases because they didn’t match the 1st quality china they had at home. The brand reputation was tarnished. Ten years of this cycle put the company in a very bad place and the corporate parent sold this once proud fine china company at a loss.
I’ve thought about this decline many times over the years. Had there been even one leader in a position of influence who thought like an owner, could this fine china company still be impressing us with its American handcrafted products?
So how does this apply to the business environment now around COVID-19?
I hear some people in companies talking like employees, saying things like…”When things come back” or “When we are back to normal.” These are two statements firmly anchored in hope, but not anchored in an owner approach of looking for problems. Owners looking for problems are asking questions including:
“What may never be the same about my business?”
“What if key employees that I’ve furloughed don’t come back?”
“What if key customers don’t come back?”
“What if my line of credit from the bank is withdrawn?”
“What are all of the expenses that I can cut now?”
“What could go wrong after social distancing ends?”
How have you talked about your business today? Did your remarks come from an owner or employee perspective?
Thanks for reading this article and please share your thoughts with me in the comments.
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