Money Flows to the Path of Least Resistance
Originally sent exclusively to The Letter subscribers on May 19th. Want to be the first to get my personal newsletter in your inbox every Monday at 7am? Subscribe for free here.
Money is much like water; it finds the path of least resistance.
In our case, as business owners and leaders, money ultimately means customers. The more customers we have, the more money we have.
I've also learned that getting customers to buy once is easy; getting them to repeat buy is the skill.
Repeat business is achieved by creating a great product that can be bought again with little resistance.
You know, I’ve harped on about spending time with other successful business owners as a top tip on your path to success.
It saves you time working it all out. Success leaves us clues, so helping yourself to someone else's 10,000 hours of tried-and-tested mastery is winner winner, chicken dinner.
The second thing to do is go to businesses as a customer and put some money in their tills to see how they do things.
I’m looking for little wins to swipe and deploy – it could be offers, pricing plans, great customer service, or a common-sense approach.
As you grow, common sense becomes less and less common.
Get the ideas, and then implement them. Remember, ideas are plentiful; implementation is the rare commodity.
Whilst you're here, when implementing, think about evolution over revolution.
A 1% improvement each day gives you a 100% improvement over 100 days.
Most teams aren’t entrepreneurs, and winning them over 1% a day gets the job done.
Revolution scares the masses unless extinction stares them in the face.
That's why people stay in unhappy jobs and relationships.
The wins I seek on my trips to businesses or during time with business owners are tricks at fighting resistance.
As sure as night follows day, when you put people together, politics rears its head.
The tyranny of the minority shouts the loudest, and before you know it, you've got five types of milk by the coffee machine, or no one saying what they feel because they fear offending.
When did we get so easily offended?
It gets on my bleeding nerves listening to whining and "excusitis" from collective flocks of people.
I’m super wary of hearing dangerous lines like "we’re too big for this," "they’ll never do it," or "that’s not my job." The machine needs to be kept as nimble at a large size as it was when you started.
If you hear this in your business, get ready to put that fire out; it's akin to the building being on fire.
Remember, in business as a leader your primary objectives are:
* Innovation
* Marketing
* Culture
* Recruiting talent
When we start out, we do everything for our customers just to get some pennies in the till, often running our business with Disney-style service at Lidl prices.
We then quickly realise that our time is being gifted to our customers, giving our time for less than minimum wage and often free time just to keep the thing going.
Then we pull back on offering fillet steak at McDonald's Happy Meal prices.
It’s the whole reason I wrote my book The Experience Business.
Getting our model correct is essential.
Pricing so you can deliver consistently is so important.
I witness resistance being put in place whenever I go around my businesses.
I was listening to a customer at our hotel last week; a lovely lady trundled up to reception and asked if she could have a late checkout.
We said "no" politely. We said you have to be out of your hotel room by x time.
Resistance.
We, as a business, want people out so we can turn the rooms for the next customers. It’s less resistance for us but more resistance for the customers who'd like to stay a little longer.
Will that lovely lady's future pounds flow to a business with less resistance?
In one of our parks that I regularly walk around out of uniform so I can listen and observe, I noticed we’re closing our dinosaur park section at 4 pm; we close the rest of the park at 5 pm.
On this walkabout, I saw a little kid who skipped up to the dinosaur section to find closed gates, his little chops looked like we’d just come round his house and pooped on his favourite teddy when he realised that meant no triceratops meets for him today.
This is resistance for our customers but gets us all out on time for teatime and keeps our labour bill under control.
Every now and then a disruptor lik Jeff Bezos comes along, or Richard Branson, or Steve Jobs, or Netflix, removing resistance and finding hacks to balance what the customer wants and what the business needs to survive.
Technology has undoubtedly helped here.
They want convenience and ease, and when it does the money flows.
So what do we want?
Usually, we buy on price, range, and convenience.
Think about what Mr Jobs did with Apple: he gave us music on demand, with every song at our fingertips at the cost of a latte in a mid-range coffee shop and no more scratched CD's!.
Price, range, and convenience – checkmate! When do we want Episode 2? Now is the answer and Netflix know it; we don't want to wait till next week when we're on holiday and will have to catch up! Netflix, take my money!
No contracts on mobile phones that stop me upgrading or paying half my salary in one month for a phone.
Virgin Mobile did this, and they scooped up customers.
Free and fast delivery for our unnecessary internet binges. Jeff can help himself to that hair transplant now.
We want easy ways to pay, great customer service, and back-of-mind trust that the brand will look after us. We want the option to pay over time and no complicated forms.
As a consumer, we don’t want resistance.
Chances are you’re putting resistance in your business. You and your team can’t help yourselves in protecting your loot.
Trouble is, protecting it is like a big dam stopping the water, sorry, the cash, flowing in.
In other news Amazon sent me a notification.
"Your package has been delivered"
Nope.
My neighbour's enjoying my new slippers.
To your continued success,
James
PS. Our big 2 day Business Masterclass is coming up in September. Have you secured your seats? Get your tickets here.