Why are you making it so hard? (WAYMISH)
Your business processes may be something that you rarely think about but your customers and clients will closely scrutinize, after all it’s what they experience. We often do things because they are familiar, without questioning whether there is a better and more efficient way.
When I’m busy consulting and coaching I often ask my clients a lot of questions about their business procedures and processes. It’s not unusual for me to be surprised about how hard they make things for themselves and their clients. This is a concept that is often defined as WAYMISH.
Here are a few examples I see on a regular basis:-
Waymish No.1 The salesperson who can’t close the sale because they don’t have the necessary templated documents for the client to sign.
I came across this the other week when speaking to a new start-up business, he’d gone to all the trouble of getting a prospect to agree to a meeting (at not inconsiderable expense in both time and money) and then had sold the prospect on doing business with them, only to have the sale fall through at the last minute because he didn’t have the necessary sales contract templates in place, he had to spend a week writing them and by the time they were ready, the client had changed their mind.
You’ve got to make the buying from you as simple as possible. I would recommend trying to buy from yourself and check out the following:-
- How easy is it?
- How difficult do you make it?
- Do you ask for unnecessary information or have complex credit checking arrangements?
Can you find a way to simplify the process for your prospects? The harder you make the process the less sales you will make. It’s as simple as that.
Waymish No.2. A client or customer who doesn’t know what to buy because the business has no defined products.
For a lot of businesses, there is a temptation to offer bespoke services, they say that tailoring the product or service to the needs of their potential client or customer means that they will have more satisfied clients. Whilst there is an element of truth to this it does make things hard for both the business and the prospect.
The prospect needs to be able to define their needs in a way that the business can usefully tailor the product to them, and the business has to tailor the product in a way that’s appealing to the prospect such that they’ll buy.
The better way of course is to productise your offerings in a way that your prospect can see that the standard product you’re offering meets their needs off the shelf. This is possible for just about every industry.
Waymish No.3: Payment Options Insisting on only one method of payment.
How many ways can you get paid? Let’s be honest getting paid is what business is all about. So have as many payment options as possible available to your prospects. The fewer options you offer, the harder you’re making it for your prospect to buy.
Allow customers to pay by cash, contactless, credit cards, bank transfer, online payments, etc. Then also look closely at structuring payment options so that prospects can spread their payments. In the current economic climate, if you can restructure payment terms so customers pay in installments, this can have an immediate effect on your business and, of course, your cash flow.
Waymish No.4. The employee who can’t order anything because the ordering processes are so byzantine or that they don’t have the necessary authority to do so.
The number of times I’ve come across business owners trying to control everything in their business, they fail to delegate pretty much anything and as such they end up as a bottleneck in their business.
One of my clients insisted that all purchases no matter how small needed to go through them. So much so that the business owner themselves actually had to place the order. This was not only causing frustration to their staff but stifling their business.
The solution was relatively simple, delegate to trusted staff. Allowing their staff to purchase items necessary for their business with suitable authority limits, in this case purchases up to £100 with a maximum spend of £500 in any one week. This freed up the business owner to focus on other areas of their business and improved staff morale (they felt trusted and empowered).
Waymish No.5. Making It Difficult To Contact The Business.
Some businesses are really difficult to get hold of. They don’t answer the phone or respond to emails. Often I’m surprised they’re still in business at all.
Since the advent of the internet, this has risen to almost epidemic proportions. How often do you find a product or service online and, before buying, you want to ask a few questions? Then, to your frustration you can’t find any way to get in contact with the supplier. It’s like they’ve hidden their phone number and they don’t want you to contact them.
Make sure that your phone number and e-mail address are readily available and more importantly answered promptly. How many times have you done business with someone just because they were the ones that got back to you promptly. So don’t make it hard; make it unbelievably easy for people to reach the business.
You need to apply the WAYMISH concept right through your business, looking at all your processes and procedures. Not just where you have contact with customers but also where you’re making it difficult for your employees to perform the tasks that you want them to do.
Twelve intensive half-day meetings.
