The other day I stumbled across a short paragraph that someone had written about me when nominating me for an award.
The nomination was a fantastic surprise but I nearly fell over when I read what the person wrote. It turns out my nominator thought I had an amazing ability to do ‘something’….a ‘something’ that I didn’t even realise I did!
I felt quite chuffed with my new found ability so I slipped on the coat of self-confidence that comes free with someone telling you that you are good at something and off I went to try out my newly discovered skills.
And it turns out that I actually do have them.
Maybe my new found prowess is just the result of a self-fulfilling prophecy, maybe I have unearthed latent skills or maybe I was doing this stuff anyway. But who cares, I have a new string to my bow and I’m delighted.
So here is my nibble: when your customers are giving you feedback listen out for surprises – stuff that customers think you are doing well that you don’t even realise you do. Then do this stuff more, make it your calling card and you never know - it could be the very thing that boosts your business.
In the meantime I should probably check that the nominator hadn’t confused me with someone else………
Showing posts with label customers working for you. Show all posts
Showing posts with label customers working for you. Show all posts
Friday, July 4, 2008
Wednesday, April 30, 2008
Can’t afford employees? How about getting your customers to do the work for you?
Threadless.com will sell over 1 million must-have too-cool t-shirts this year earning them something in the order of US$20 million in revenue.
Guess how many staff they have?
35
Yep, that’s right. Just 35.
As a very rough rule of thumb a business is doing pretty well if it employs just 5 people for every US$1million in revenue earned. Or, put another way, it’s a good business if every employee adds US$200,000 to the top line.
Threadless.com employs just 1.75 people for every US$1million in revenue. Each employee adds a phenomenal US$571,000 to the top line.
So how does Threadless out-do the best companies?
They use their customers to do the work for them.
Customers submit t-shirt designs to the website, customers vote on the best design of the week and customers run a magnificent word-of-mouth marketing campaign.
The only thing that Threadless.com has to do is to print t-shirts with the winning design and sell them on-line (for about US$15 each).
My nibble is this: what can you change about your business to get your customers to give you a free hand?
And having built my own furniture (thank you Ikea) and assembled my children’s bicycles (thank you Toys R Us) t-shirt design can’t be that hard.
work at home
Guess how many staff they have?
35
Yep, that’s right. Just 35.
As a very rough rule of thumb a business is doing pretty well if it employs just 5 people for every US$1million in revenue earned. Or, put another way, it’s a good business if every employee adds US$200,000 to the top line.
Threadless.com employs just 1.75 people for every US$1million in revenue. Each employee adds a phenomenal US$571,000 to the top line.
So how does Threadless out-do the best companies?
They use their customers to do the work for them.
Customers submit t-shirt designs to the website, customers vote on the best design of the week and customers run a magnificent word-of-mouth marketing campaign.
The only thing that Threadless.com has to do is to print t-shirts with the winning design and sell them on-line (for about US$15 each).
My nibble is this: what can you change about your business to get your customers to give you a free hand?
And having built my own furniture (thank you Ikea) and assembled my children’s bicycles (thank you Toys R Us) t-shirt design can’t be that hard.
work at home
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