This hugely popular initiative, Successful Personal Outcomes, now in its third year, is once again available. With half a dozen videos and supporting materials, I walk you through how to model the approaches that have created success for people like Steve Jobs, Richard Branson, Anthony Hopkins and Tony Robbins.
To preview the contents and get onboard click the link (and I will see you on the inside).
It is an EIGHT video FIVE-week program with handouts and LIVE closing webinar. These are the techniques we use actively in all our work with global clients. Tried, tested and proven they really do make that difference in whatever work and lives we have.
Chapter 1:
Why This Playbook was Created and Who Wrote it.
Before we dive in, I want to say how excited that I am that you’re reading this playbook. Creating this was a labor of love and I hope it helps you to grow your profile in the same way I’ve been able to help so many of my clients.
My name is Steve Towers and I am a CEO, Accredited CX Champion and Certified Process Professional Champion who got into Digital Profiling because I needed a way to grow my presence when traditional means of promotion started to lose their effectiveness for me.
Over the last few years, I have made it my mission to become an expert in helping individuals and businesses transform to customer-centric operations. To do that means understanding, enhancing and presenting yourself as your own personal brand. I’ve spent countless hours learning about and testing just about every online profiling technique under the sun.
All that research and testing led me to what works, what doesn’t work, and what order you should do everything in to get the biggest bang for your buck.
This “Playbook” will help you understand the techniques that you should be implementing in your professional life and how to be more informed when hiring someone to help you grow further.
This guide isn’t meant to be consumed in one sitting. Bookmark this guide, read it in chunks, and come back anytime to keep learning more.
Let’s get started with a 15,000 foot view of what you should be doing to market your digital profile online and in what order.
>> CEM Telcoms 2018 <<
Los Angeles, October. This groundbreaking event features the latest bold discoveries in the realm of CX, including the appearance of our very own James Dodkins as Customer Experience Rockstar. And yes he is bringing his guitar and will be playing onstage – now that is a conference with a difference.
Steve Towers will also be keynoting on the theme of the Outside-In Strategic Matrix.
Review the event here: https://cemtelecoms.iqpc.com/speakers
Ping me if you want to be there, and we’ll get you a discount:
mailto: steve.towers@bpgroup.org
>>> Competition and Promotion Time! << This is how to win $500 by doing something really simple.
Here is my LinkedIn name:
Steve Towers, CEO, ACXC and CPP Champion – https://www.linkedin.com/in/stevetowers/
So how do you get your hands on five hundred bucks?
Simple, put your qualification after your name!
Here is the list: ACXM – Accredited Customer Experience Master ACXP – Accredited Customer Experience Professional ACXC – Accredited Customer Experience Champion CPPM – Certified Process Professional Master CPP – Certified Process Professional CPPC – Certified Process Professional Champion
So change your LinkedIn title, drop me a note on LinkedIn to say you have done it and we will put you in the monthly draw… oh and good luck!!
During my encounters with global business leaders, I am frequently asked the question of what is the difference between Lean Six Sigma (LSS) and Outside-In thinking and practice?
Often the question is prompted as a consequence of the huge investment many large corporations have made into up-skilling their people and processes to LSS. Many times those same executives are querying the return on those investments and hence now looking at more progressive alternative approaches to evolve their business performance.
For those familiar with Outside-In thinking and practice the difference is fundamental however if you haven’t been exposed to such training or working in one of the worlds leading Outside-In companies it would be good to have a short comparison of the key thematic differences.
In the interests of full disclosure, I was an Industrial Engineer qualified as a Lean Master and Six Sigma Master black belt and I see and witness the significant differences every day. Does the implication of the difference mean we should abandon LSS? No, far from it. In fact, integrating the Outside-In perspectives into existing programs is a proven tried and tested way of advancing LSS to the centre stage of winning performance.
Case in point is a North American plastics extrusion company. They had previously been a powerhouse of Six Sigma, grown into and become a Lean ‘Toyota way’ dynamo only to run into the problem of diminishing returns.
Plastic extrusion starts with pallets
Investing just as much in getting better the decreasing returns and eroding margins made it an issue at the top table. In true pragmatic Texan style (their CEO is from Dallas) they embraced Outside-In big time. Over 6-9 months people were upskilled for the Customer Age and then let loose to transform the organization. Not only did they save their bacon they are now a world-leading company. And what do they call their program? OIL – Outside-In Lean. Nice eh?
So be pragmatic. Look for the bridges from here to there and you can have the best of both worlds.
Table 1: Comparison of some differences between Lean Six Sigma and the CEMMethod™.
Element
Lean Six Sigma
Customer Experience Management/Outside-In
Mindset
Industrial Age
Customer Digital Age
Focus
Improve current work
Align to achieve SCO’s
Intent
Process will exist at the end of a review
Processes may be removed
Results
Focused on improving outputs
Focused on delivering Outcomes
Cost reduction
Triple Crown achievement (Cost/Service/Revenue)
Structure
Accepts the functional hierarchy
Proposes the appropriate structure to deliver SCO’s
Turn your customer experience up to 11 with one of our engaging, entertaining and inspirational rockstar themed workshops for your team or event attendees. http://www.rockstar.cx/workshops.html
Three excellent mini videos from best selling author and Rockstar.cx founder James Dodkins that really frame current thinking around #CX and its key component the Employee Experience #EX.
With insights from Shep Hyken, Disney and Zappos go grab a coffee and enjoy a 10-minute break and look through the lens of Customer Experience Excellence.
What significantly differentiates the top dogs in terms of business results? How can Amazon, Zara, Zappos and Emirates consistently outperform their competitors?
Connecting better
You and I as consumers connect better with those companies who have a focus on delivering Successful Customer Outcomes, however, that doesn’t immediately come about through wishful thinking, re-engineering processes or investing in the latest bright shiny technologies. No, these successful organizations have a different strategy…. And that strategy understands a fundamental truth across every part of the enterprise. Without the employee ‘getting it’ you waste your time banging the drum about improving the Customer Experience and at best you will achieve a Hawthorne effect[1], where results are fleetingly better then reverting back to sometimes even worse than before.
And so, enter stage left the Employee Experience.
Great, got it! We invest in employee’s emotional well-being and we can then deliver great CX. Wrong again. Emotions are an effect created by the circumstances the employee finds themselves in. Imagine a draconian boss, poor lighting and awful colleagues.
Not too much of a surprise that employees will then have low morale, high absence rates, and short tenures before finding something better. Making them feel better by changing the boss, improving work conditions and encouraging teaminess may produce a short-term fleeting benefit however we are soon back to square one. Why is this?
Elegant simplicity
Amazingly the answer to this catch 22 has been there all along. It is so obvious calling it common sense way understates its importance. The elegant simplicity confuses those who believe we should just improve what we already do, or invest heavily in digital, or run team building motivational workshops.
And this isn’t a secret sauce – three simple steps will get you there…
Understand what success looks like for the customer
Create measures of those Needs and Expectations
Align and Reward employees to deliver those Needs and Expectations – without exception
And as if by magic, morale improves, employees become adept at dealing with any situation (without the need to go ‘upstairs’), customers are delighted and results, measured through costs, service and revenue dramatically improve. Sure, you can go measure the emotional employee impact (we are all happier!) but also remember that is a consequence of doing the right things first. And if you have to measure the employee emotions to tell you things aren’t working you are not understanding your customers well enough.
>> Watch Richard Branson, CEO Virgin Group discuss this topic here.
>> Watch Zappos and Disney SVP’s discuss Employee Experience with James Dodkins. Also, access his new book “Put your customers second” – he is offering three free chapters!
>> Join us at an upcoming training to understand and make your own the approaches that work immediately.
Here’s a quick how-to guide to finding out exactly what Google knows.
Protect your data
Half the battle in protecting your information is knowing where it is, how much is out there, who can get access to it, and then take the necessary measures to protect sensitive information about you AND your family, friends and work colleagues.
An interesting irony of the Facebook, Google and Amazon success story is the amount of personal data needed to customize their offerings to your unique customer experience #CX. The less you provide, the more generic your experience.
At the end of the day, it is all a choice about how much you wish to disclose, or not.
I interview the CEO of Blockchain-X and Railz, John Corr on why we need to know about Blockchain and how it is helping to change business forever.
When you talk about disruptive technology THIS is the very definition, and believe me all our lives #business and #customer experience are becoming very different as a consequence.
As the opportunity reveals itself nation states and political groupings are getting in on the act. The UAE government believe 50%+ of all transactions will use blockchain within 2 years. Are gearing up for a similar shift?
Learn how Blockchain, business and the associated customer experience #CX are changing the world and access the CEMMethod to help you and your organization realise the benefits.
Google trends tell the story that Design Thinking (DT) tops many executive’s interests in helping deliver progressive services and products in a volatile 2018.
Consultants, Design studios, and so-called business experts have spawned new revenue streams as other management fads, sorry, approaches have declined in popularity.
Just do the math on google with ‘Design Thinking’ harvesting 15.2 million results in 0.4 seconds and the top ten results including training courses, how-to workshops and top team offsites offered by consulting firms. In fact, Epictions reports typically 10 DT articles a day currently being produced, consumed and naturally circulated around our senior executives.
No doubt you will know of new functions becoming a reality with DT central to their remit, but what exactly does this catchy label represent?
Is Design Thinking a real thing?
Is it different? Can DT be useful in navigating our increasingly volatile world? Are there genuine benefits to adopting DT enterprise-wide?
As an engineer and design thinker (note the lower case) for the best part of the last four decades, this concept is not new. The successful creation of new services and products always relies on the marriage of creative thought processes harnessed to pragmatic objectives to deliver bottom-line success. Sorry if that doesn’t sound as sexy as some of the DT consultants would have you believe.
But wait, there is good news… incorporating DT into industrial age approaches can breathe new life and significant business benefit for not just enterprises and employees, but most importantly customers and shareholders.
So what is this Damn Thing?
A critical element to understanding DT is that, unlike most commonly deployed methods, is not a linear 1-2-3, A-B-C endeavour. It is not a prescription and relies on the ability of organisations and their people to understand, learn, prototype and reinvent simultaneously the processes and customer experiences that deliver success. New services/products must articulate needs of customers (even when potentially the customer doesn’t know them) and move the needle in terms of cost, revenue and service simultaneously (the fabled ‘triple crown’).
So, a significant measure of DT success is winning the triple crown. Anything else that doesn’t convert the creative process into a top and bottom line success is just moving the chairs on the deck of the Titanic. It might look better, give us a different view, but it is still doomed and will ultimately fail to deliver.
To be successful you need to create an organization and individual mindset that understands ever-changing customer needs, expectations and
Is Design Thinking winning the Triple Crown?
fosters an approach of learning, rather than the silo-based, industrial age metrics common to many.
I am going to delve deeper in an upcoming article so if you would like to get the pro’s and con’s, the potential pitfalls and the how-to to ensure success join me again soon. If you register your interest here I will ping you the ‘how to’ piece as soon as it is ready.
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