Start with a Mindset Shift

Over the next few posts, I want to discuss some of these foundational principles important for every decision maker when faced with decisions that appear to be technology related. This series will cover 5 of the key organizational capabilities that every organization I’ve ever worked with needs to efficiently build off the value its team members create.  While this is not a discussion of specific technology tools, discussing the capabilities technology can enable is important to establish a foundation for approaching eventual technology decisions. These are areas to consider before you make the next decision locking you into a tool or contract that can dramatically change the way you function as an organization.

Start with the need you’re trying to address. It might seem obvious, but it’s not that easy. We often think we know what it is we need, but we’ve been tricked into considering the solution first, and then looking for the problem to solve. You have to flip this. #WednesdayWisdom

Capability #1 – Communication

You may be thinking to yourself right now, “why are they starting with such an obvious component to ALL human interaction?” It’s because there are plenty of organizations out there still approaching communication in a surprisingly expensive and inefficient manner.

For example, there are very few scenarios that require a traditional landline telephone system. We are working right now with one small business that is paying an unbelievably high amount per month for their legacy landline phone system. It’s not because they want to, it’s because that’s just the way they’ve been doing it for the last 35 years. Meanwhile, their customers are busy checking Instagram, Pinterest, and Facebook for ideas around our client’s core product offering. The hundreds of dollars a month that are being paid for “crickets” is consuming valuable resources. For a lot of organizations, it’s not always easy to step back to evaluate the current way of doing things. It takes the right mindset to help ask the questions that matter.

Communication comes in so many packages in today’s world. Just a decade and a half ago there were a handful of methods people used to communicate. Fast forward and today almost all technology tools we use are either some form of communication tool, or at the very least have a feature built into them which allows us to communicate in some fashion.

However, aside from the packaging of the communication platform, there are still only a few fundamental ways we communicate. The text, audio, and visual are still the foundations to how we communicate. The only thing technology has done is changed the ability to take these three modes of communication and deploy them in extremely scalable ways. So what should you look for if you are an organization faced with evaluating a new communication tool, or set of tools?

Here are three key elements to consider before jumping into a specific communication solution:

On their terms

If you are trying to reach an audience and engage them, you have to be able to do it in the way they prefer. How? Remember, there are three methods: Text, audio, video. Understand that all of those forms need to be part of your toolset. Additionally, where your audience is, and meeting them there, in any one of those forms is extremely important.

You have to figure out where your audience is talking, texting, and engaging visually. The last part of communicating on your audience’s terms has to do with “when” you communicate. As much as we may grow weary of it, today’s world requires an always on approach to just about everything, communication is no exception. This does not mean you have to be responding at all times directly, it just means that whatever forms of communication you employ, you have to be ready when your audience is ready, and your communication tools are key..

Integration

We mean this in the general sense. Your communication ability has to be tightly integrated into as many aspects of your organization’s process and people, as possible. It is your ability to build a relationship with your constituents that ultimately determines your success. Because communication is essential, you have to build the ability to know your customers’ preferences, how they like to be updated, and where they are paying attention.

Knowing how many times your customer communicated with you in the last 3 months, and in what manner, is just one of the keys to building that strong relationship. It’s what helps the sales person understand their needs, the service representative know their concerns, the manager address a problem, or the marketing folks determine what to send them for Christmas this year. When your communication tools are tightly integrated to the rest of your organization, you have better insight into your audience’s needs and you can better provide your solution.

Availability

A big theme of ours is that the beauty of technology isn’t so much the cool things it can do, it’s that those cool things are accessible, from anywhere, at any time, and on any device. Your communication tools have to follow suit in order to offer the most value to your audience.

If your primary mode of communication with your clients is via phone, and you can only communicate with them while in the office, during certain times, you are limiting your communication ability and missing out on opportunities to build stronger relationships with them.

Again, this does not mean you have to necessarily be available 24/7, unless that is what your clients need. The key point here is that you need to make sure you are available to your audience in a way that fits both your workflow and theirs.

So What Next?

As always, find someone you trust. If you’re hearing the pitch about how awesome their product is and what it can do for you and they haven’t even taken the time to understand what your goals are, most likely they can’t be trusted. However, if your advisor understands you, your goals and your business, listen to them. The technology packages are different around the margins (aka preferences), it’s more important you solve the right problem with the right tool, rather than get a tool to go look for a problem to solve.

And if you don’t have anyone to turn to, feel free to give us a shout, we would be happy to help answer questions, point you in the right direction, or see how we might be able to help you more directly.

Stay tuned for the next article on ERP, where we make the case that it’s something everyone needs, including the smallest organization, the organization of 1.

When I went to my attic a couple of weeks ago to look for something my wife was sure was up there (and of course she was right, always is!!), I was astounded at the sheer quantity of shtuff that had accumulated over the years. It was as if an attic troll was secretly stashing bits of once useful items in piles as we slept peacefully every night. It took me over 20 minutes to find the thing I was looking for in space no wider than I am tall, and short enough to walk end to end in 7 steps.

Organizations can be like attics

I sometimes get the feeling this happens with organizations when it comes to operations. It’s as if over time we accumulate tasks, processes, and tools that just become part of what we do. Not really adding any value and cluttering up our ability to progress and grow as an organization. They are things that tend to get in the way and slow us down from accomplishing our goals. At times they are sufficient processes done in ways driven more by job security and less by a desire to help the organization grow and succeed. In other cases, they are just the wrong tool and process for the wrong job.

This is just a sliver of my actual attic. The white fake dear head is priceless.

Answer these questions

So, how do you begin to clean up the clutter?  Start with answering the following questions:

1. What processes and tools exist for these key components?:
   • Sales
   • Communication
   • File Sharing
   • Marketing
   • Finance
   • Customer Management
   • Reporting
2. Once you’ve made a complete inventory, ask: Do we use that tool or process?
3. Finally, look over the full list and ask: Should we use the tool or process?

Now that you’ve got a full list of the tools and processes, whether you use them, and whether you should use them, the next step is to determine what each of those tools or processes cost your organization, in real dollars. This can be a bit tricky, but here are some general rules of thumb that can help you:

1. Tool costs consist of three elements (Note: With a monthly subscription service, these are typically bundled into your fees):
   1. Infrastructure: usually a physical thing, like a switch, server, or device of some sort.
   2. Licensing: basically the ability to keep the latest and greatest version.
   3. Support and Maintenance: the ongoing setup, troubleshooting, and upkeep of the tool.
2. For processes, we’re talking mainly about time for people to do something. So when figuring the costs of a process, try to nail down the following elements:
   1. Total time it takes to complete the process.
      • For example, if 3 people each spend 15 minutes, the total time is 45 minutes.
   2. Cost of time?
      • Here’s where you need to figure out how much each of your team members cost per hour.

A quick word about people costs

People and Time are the key to profitability. If you think about it, profitability is a measure of efficiency. Since the most expensive aspect of any organization, hands down, is people, time is a significant cost factor. Knowing what your people cost you hourly, will be a key ingredient to understanding the success of your technology investments.

Next Up…

Step one, gathering necessary information to quantify the costs of technology has a really good start. Next, we talk through identifying what really drives your profitability as an organization. This will help us put these numbers into the right context.

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So refreshing.