Effective Leadership: Hits Or Home Runs?

With baseball season upon us, the traditional question of “which wins more games, hits or home runs?” triggered a comparison to effective leadership in business.

Home runs

In my experience, too many business are looking for a way to WOW customers with something big…something new and innovative. Yet, what I hear customers talk about is how a company made a simple change that removed an ongoing annoyance from their experience. In other words, it’s the hits that have the WOW effect they desire.

Hits

Here’s a simple example to illustrate my point. When ordering food online, I do a google search for a restaurant chain near me. The search brings up locations near me. I click on the one that’s nearest clicking the “order online” button.

Often clicking on that button takes me to the restaurants main website where I am again asked what location I want. I hate that! Some of these restaurants, however, do take me to the exact location I indicated and allow me to order immediately. Which of these chains do you think I frequent most often?

Here’s another example. My wife and I are value buyers. We pay more to get reliability and dependability. In our discussions with salespeople, we always ask about repair rates and are assured that we’re looking at the most reliable offering available. That’s quickly followed by a persistent attempts to sell us an extended warranty. Granted, there are some purchases that will benefit from an extended warranty, but that’s not true for most household appliances in today’s world.

Let’s contrast these negative experiences with something more positive.

I get takeout from a restaurant near us. When I place the order by phone, I’m always greeted with a friendly voice, they repeat the order and give me an anticipated pickup time. When I get there, I’m often greeted by name with a smile (some even remember my last name for their rewards program). Before I leave they go over the order to assure it’s correct. They consistently make the experience enjoyable for me, consequently we frequent them often.

Takeaways

If you want to consistently WOW your customers, remove the little annoyances that regularly frustrate them. Also, hire people who enjoy helping people like the last restaurant I mentioned. You’ll be amazed about how many wonderful things your customers say about your company to all whom they meet.

Remember, your most effective leaders, the ones that assure long-term relationships with your customers, strive for hits, not home runs.

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Resources

Making the EXCEPTIONAL Normal program helps you identify and nurture emerging leaders who elevate all around them to higher levels of performance and greater job enjoyment.

Financial Awareness & Strategy program where employees learn to identify opportunities to improve financial results and prioritize these opportunities on the basis of which produces the greatest impact with the least effort. Greater financial awareness = Better decisions.