Wednesday Words

To Go Where Your VisionPoints, a few inspiration points for you and your business.

We thought we had the answers
but we had the questions wrong.
—Unknown

Once in a while life throws a monkey wrench into the works. This year it seems I’ve had the full 49-piece monkey tool box thrown at me, complete with the but-wait-there’s-more bonus set of knives (ow) and the super-value halogen plumber’s flashlight. I’m not complaining (mostly!), because when things don’t go according to plan there are lots of exciting avenues to explore that you wouldn’t know about any other way—but I have been thinking a bit about prioritizing.

Specifically, about making priorities stick when you don’t know where you’re going.

Is there a value in it?

I believe there is. If you’ve been in business for more than fifteen minutes, then you and I are possessed of the same base fact: You’ll never know, for sure, where you’re going. No matter how incredible the map, the destination is continually shifting in business. But the map? The priorities you identify for yourself, for your staff, and for reaching out to your customers? If they’re well-planned, those priorities are the guides that make crazy days…

… a little less crazy. (Hey, this isn’t a miracle-cure.)

I know I don’t have all the answers, and I’ve always known it. If you don’t know that, the day will come when you’ll find it out, I guarantee it! It doesn’t scare me. In fact, I like it a lot better than the situation of the poor guy who wrote the above quotation.

Allow me to wax a bit philosophical as The Kid pulls out of a nasty flu and I get back to work, and to thinking about Maximum Customer Experience with you. I believe it’s the questions that make the difference to your business:

Who do we want to be?

Who do we want to serve?

Why do we do this, when we could be doing anything in the world?

What drives us to give our best?

How can we make the customer’s day rock?

Sure, they’re lofty questions, with answers that stretch to infinity. But I think they’re pretty close to the right questions. They’re the kind of questions I want to ask and re-answer every day, because they help me duck the monkey wrenches—and stick with our priorities.

Are you asking these questions? What would you add?

Grow and be well,

Kelly Erickson