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8 Types of People Who Influence Your Business Success
In episode 52 of Frank Reactions I talked about the 1st P in the 3P Profit Formula: Promise. The other two Ps are People and Process. Today we talk about People, and the 8 different categories of people who influence your business success.
People With Power To Make Your Business a Success
Get your FREE Transcript Now!
When we think about the people factor in business, we typically focus on two categories of people: customers and employees. But they are far from the only ones we need to think about. There are 8 general categories of people who we need to deal with well to succeed. They are:
* Employees
* Prospects
* Customers
* Suppliers
* Distributors, Resellers and/or Franchisees
* Investors and lenders
* Influencers, including mass and social media, and friends and colleagues of your target customers
* Competitors.
Many of these I’ve covered extensively in other episodes and blog posts, so let’s touch on a few I haven’t discussed as much yet.
Lenders and Investors
One thing I hear over and over from people is that, at least when it comes to public companies, they don’t take customer experience improvements seriously because the investment in improving customer experience is long term, but the stock markets reward a short-term focus. This is a problem, but as more and more senior executives are telling their investors that improving customer experience is now a strategic priority, hopefully this is starting to change. The reasons private companies don’t invest in customer experience in are usually a little different.
* Often the founder is still the CEO and s/he doesn’t believe there’s a problem. As long as the company is still making enough money for the owner to be satisfied, why mess around with change?
* Others are just too busy running off in all directions to really focus on customer experience and the challenges of improving it. This is a typical problem in small and mid-sized businesses, which are often under-staffed.
* Owners who are thinking of selling their company may feel the same sort of pressure as publicly traded company executives to cut costs and show high short-term profits, even if that may hurt things in the long-term.
* Some private company executives may be getting pressure from their bankers who have set financial ratios the company must maintain to be in good standing.
* If lenders were friends or family, there is often a perceived pressure to repay those debts as soon as possible.
These reasons are all understandable, but not wise if the company is to be successful in the long term. Public expectations about customer experience quality are going up faster than most companies are managing to cope with. You can’t simply ignore them if you want to survive.
Media and General Public
We hear a lot about the impact of social media on people’s perceptions of your company, and there is no doubt that it does have a huge impact.
Part of the impact is not what it says directly to people who might be your customers, but the fact that the mainstream media now turn to sources like Twitter as a first place to find new story ideas, information and updates. And mainstream media still has a huge impact on public perceptions.
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In episode 52 of Frank Reactions I talked about the 1st P in the 3P Profit Formula: Promise. The other two Ps are People and Process. Today we talk about People, and the 8 different categories of people who influence your business success.
People With Power To Make Your Business a Success
Get your FREE Transcript Now!
When we think about the people factor in business, we typically focus on two categories of people: customers and employees. But they are far from the only ones we need to think about. There are 8 general categories of people who we need to deal with well to succeed. They are:
* Employees
* Prospects
* Customers
* Suppliers
* Distributors, Resellers and/or Franchisees
* Investors and lenders
* Influencers, including mass and social media, and friends and colleagues of your target customers
* Competitors.
Many of these I’ve covered extensively in other episodes and blog posts, so let’s touch on a few I haven’t discussed as much yet.
Lenders and Investors
One thing I hear over and over from people is that, at least when it comes to public companies, they don’t take customer experience improvements seriously because the investment in improving customer experience is long term, but the stock markets reward a short-term focus. This is a problem, but as more and more senior executives are telling their investors that improving customer experience is now a strategic priority, hopefully this is starting to change. The reasons private companies don’t invest in customer experience in are usually a little different.
* Often the founder is still the CEO and s/he doesn’t believe there’s a problem. As long as the company is still making enough money for the owner to be satisfied, why mess around with change?
* Others are just too busy running off in all directions to really focus on customer experience and the challenges of improving it. This is a typical problem in small and mid-sized businesses, which are often under-staffed.
* Owners who are thinking of selling their company may feel the same sort of pressure as publicly traded company executives to cut costs and show high short-term profits, even if that may hurt things in the long-term.
* Some private company executives may be getting pressure from their bankers who have set financial ratios the company must maintain to be in good standing.
* If lenders were friends or family, there is often a perceived pressure to repay those debts as soon as possible.
These reasons are all understandable, but not wise if the company is to be successful in the long term. Public expectations about customer experience quality are going up faster than most companies are managing to cope with. You can’t simply ignore them if you want to survive.
Media and General Public
We hear a lot about the impact of social media on people’s perceptions of your company, and there is no doubt that it does have a huge impact.
Part of the impact is not what it says directly to people who might be your customers, but the fact that the mainstream media now turn to sources like Twitter as a first place to find new story ideas, information and updates. And mainstream media still has a huge impact on public perceptions.