Your Brand Can't Survive without Customer Xperience Agenda 2011-12.

1) Appoint Chief Customer Xperience Officer reporting to CEO. A MUST. (is there ne one in charge of end to end customer experience with yr brand ??? )

2) Critically evaluate all customer touch points. Whether they create memorability in some way for the end users?

3) Have online social media team (it cud be one man) in place to gather data on customer reviews of yr offerings. Spread awareness about yr brand and address complains & concerns of the customers. (At the speed of thought and not once a week)

4) Act on negative feedback to improve offerings and promote positive feedback. (Must be a part of all review meet)

5) Encourage happy customers to share their views online /offline.

6) During the year make sure to make feel your all customer very special at least once a year. Genuinely. Have events, special price, offer free tickets, alter their opinion about how far a company can go to please their customers.

7) If u r a public company, make it a point to include customer experience initiatives and customer speak out . part of yr annual report. Have measurability and measure it every year. 

8)  Proactive , proactive and proactive to know what customer feels and think about yr brand and offerings. Do whatever it takes to find out. Spend money as customers are going to be spoke person in the market when yr company does very good or very bad.

9) Everyone is the solution business. Therefore don't just limit your efforts plainly in what u offer. Try & solve customer problem which she wants to solve thru yr offerings.

10) Try and apply everything above from TODAY. Retained customer will attract new customers. 

Whether yr customers are promoting yr brand??  If not, check out, you may be offering mediocre customer experience. No one wud like to tell others that they are consuming mediocre offerings but if they are enchanted they will go out and tell the whole world. Amitabh Bachchans, Sachin Tendlukars & Madhuri Dixits of the BRANDs have their FAN followings. Make yr brand one amongst them this YEAR.

Focus on Balance Sheet first to restructure d Business

Focus on Balance Sheet first to restructure d business

Entrepreneurs mainly focus on sales first and then profit. However it is the Balance Sheet and not P & L statement is the most important business document.  P & L Statement only talks about how company has fared operationally during that particular year. 

Its the Balance Sheet that reflects that whether company is receiving payment of sold goods, leverage is in order or its risky, whether company is  paying their suppliers in time or no, how much have company earned all these years and what company has retained in the business, funds diverted or no, bank limits are overdrawn or otherwise, liquidity position etc etc. 

Therefore review of balance sheet on an on going basis is a MUST to measure the company performance. Even if you want to restructure yr business start with Balance Sheet.

When was the last time Balance Sheet and implications were discussed with auditor or management consultant???

Cash Flow is Necessary but not Sufficient

Many a times Cash Flow is so comforting that entrepreneurs forget about Profit. Its your money that counts at the end of the day. Cash Flow is important and critical but not enough. Its not your money. It is money in the system. May be belongs to banks, creditors or private lenders.

Unless U have profit in the books and cash flow supporting the same, u r in for trouble (Big or small depends). At individual level we have seen the crisis in the US in  2008. Same can happen or is happening with many entrepreneurs who consider present cash flow is their own ownership.  

It is also not necessary that all entrepreneurs are finance savvy (even management savvy) to understand implications of these tricky situations. Earlier it is the better it is.