Why Lufthansa Does Not Care About Its Customers

It seems that still today there are some companies who view customer service as a one-off transaction and who believe that "Customer in not our boss". Like in the recent case of the Czech Lufthansa subsidiary.

Living in Germany for several years, often flying back and forth to Prague, I was loyal frequent flyer customer of Lufthansa, the German airlines Company I had always fully trusted. One day this March I have got a call from a Lufthansa customer service operator to check if my frequent flyer stored data are up-to-date. Next day my credit card was charged with cancellation fee for a flight ticket issued in my name last year that I have not been aware of, I have never booked or paid for. Lufthansa claimed afterwards that because the ordering person identity does not exist anymore, someone has to pay. I have to pay. Because the name and frequent flyer number match.

This real-life story leaves a lot of unanswered questions behind, like: Why does Lufthansa solve their financial claims 12 months after they occur, in a different fiscal year and with a wrong person? Where the rest of the flight tickets money ended, when the ordering person is after one year untraceable? Do we all have to start to worry, that somebody from now on uses our names and frequent flyer data and we will be obliged to pay for cancellation fees of flight tickets we have no idea about?

I have asked Lufthansa Czech exactly these questions (by e-mail and registered letter). Until now, being it already four months, I have not received their answer to my worries. I have only got e-mail talking about standard procedures, no apology, no interest.

This case shows ignorance of ethics. The Czech Lufthansa team was putting the total Company reputation and trust in the bin, all because of 820 Kč (ca 50 USD), that in the end Lufthansa anyhow never obtained from me, because my UniCredit Bank was able to dispute and stop this transaction based on no rights for this claim from the Lufthansa side.

This case shows ignorance of business sense. As my loyalty to Lufthansa has been vanished, Lufthansa has lost tens of thousands Crowns or even Euro. The amount of money I and my close family and friends would pay them for flight tickets for our entire lives. Lifetime value of a customer is what matters. Not a one-off shot.

This case shows the mother Company can operate efficiently and ethically in the home country, but not having invested in small countries in staff training and check-ups, the whole case can backfire and influence the mother as well.

Cases of mistreating customers are unfortunately common all over the world. However thanks to the rise of social media, they are not anymore secrets. They spread out really fast. The Companies can either infuse proper customer service attitude among ALL staff, or they pay much more money for reputation tracking and firefighting.

The decision is theirs.

P.S. See 7 Customer Service Blunders That Went Big Scale Viral 

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Career Heights And Valleys

We are living through ever changing periods of victories and downsides. Professionally or personally. It is not just us. We all have experienced it, even though we do not like to talk about it. Just the depth of each valley and the height of each peak is individual. As well as timing and lengths of each life phase.

All great leaders experienced setbacks. Yes, they have nearly lost their businesses, marriages or health. Steve Jobs, Anthony Robbins, Rhonda Byrne and many, many others. What differentiated them from others is that they were able to find the way back to achieve even higher peaks. They were able to re-start and re-new themselves.

They have understood that “the pain you experience in the valley (of a career or life setback) can wake you up to a truth you have been ignoring about yourself“, as Spencer Johnson stated well.

The bigger heights they decided to achieve, the more efforts it took, the more resistance they faced, the more inner strengths they had to make use of. They had to have the guts to go for victory, for the excitement of conquering the summit. Otherwise they may as as well decide to live „in the valley“ - comfortable, no risk, but empty everyday life, without adrenalin. The decision was only theirs.

The really strong leaders could not stay in the „valley“, as they intuitively knew, that the more up in „the mountains“ (of career or life heights), they manage to get, the wider perspective they obtain. They could learn more about this world, about their small tiny valley, as well as about the other, even higher peaks interesting to reach in the future. They have diged deeper in their soul. They came to piece with themselves. They have possessed even higher confidence in their ability to positively deal with life trials which for sure will come back again in future. They have managed to conquer themselves.

There will continue to be peaks and valleys in life of each of us. Without valleys how would we know we are at a peak? We can shorten the time in the valley if we learn to find the good things from the downtimes. We can prolong the time at the peak if we will be grateful and modest, if we continue to improve things, help others and understand that to value the peak achievement, one has to conquer it himself and one has to go to from time to time back to the valley – not just to recharge the batteries and get stronger for the next climb up.
  
According to advice of Spencer Johnson: ”The errors you make in today’s good times create tomorrow’s bad times. And the wise things you do in today’s bad times create tomorrow’s good times. People who use a Peaks and Valleys approach during bad times make things better when they return to basics, and concentrate on what matters most.” … „Be of more service at work and more loving in life. Uncover the good that is hidden in a bad time and use it to your advantage.” 

Each way to the peak always starts in the valley. Each valley will one day end, when we get outside of ourself. No-one can reach its heights without a journey. No-one stays on the one summit for the rest of his life. There are more summits to conquer. There are more valleys to start the journey at, or to spend rest of each life.

The decision is yours!

"When you want something, the Universe conspires to help you" ( Paolo Coelho - The Alchemist)

“The voyage of discovery is not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes.” (Marcel Proust)

P.S. Inspiration for this blog came from the book of Spencer Johnson: "Peaks And Valleys". Spencer Johnson is the best-selling author of "The One-Minute Manager", "The Gift", and "Who Moved My Cheese?".

How To Become Successful Entrepreneur

Many times mid-age managers have enough of the corporate world and play with the idea of leaving the established business to run their own piece of cake. Many times they are surprised this piece of cake is too small to provide them public exposure and the living standard they were used to. They struggle. At least at the beginning. But it does not always have to be that way.

Most of the time there IS NOT THE right time to start your own business. Most of the time there IS THE right time to start it. The answer depends on your attitude and expectations. It also goes deep down to the market opportunity and your level of understanding how to seize it better than anybody else. It all depends on your passion, perseverance and drive to put things through towards prosperous end.

Thoughtful preparation and planning are key. Using your existing area of experience and expertise puts you on the faster track for success. Because you understand your customers´ needs. You understand the rules of the game. You have built your reputation. You can exploit much more the network you have been connected throughout years. You can collect valuable advices as well as get the right doors to be opened for you.

You can pair up with a network buddy, who you already know well in terms of his/her visions, values, strengths and weaknesses as well as his/her response to crisis situations. Solo entrepreneurs do not get such a jump start and such a high level of final results as pairs or triplets. Most of the time it is about teamwork, challenging one another, pushing each other to the limit, covering each others gaps. But in the same time it is as well about clarity in roles and responsibilities and keeping things simple and agreeable.

Planning for the start-up costs ahead is crucial point in the hesitation period. You need to build your financial reserves already during the corporate tenure. As it can anyhow happen, that your job will be made redundant and you will be suddenly forced to find the idea, energy and money for your start-up, under pressure, immediately.

Be ready to take your time at the thinking, conceptual phase, but drive things through full speed afterwards, working long hours at the beginning and taking on your shoulders more work - even such you were used to delegate before. The initial energy and passion are critical for total success of your project. They bring you the critical momentum in the months to come.

The investment budget should be prioritized towards critical business enablers. There may be even options to get some external funding of your idea from state grants, EU funds or private investors. But nothing like that is possible without properly developed business plan, including 3-5 years strategic plan, realistically evaluated new business opportunity, key drivers of growth and an outlook for a one-year cash flow. The cash flow calculation will already reveal the need to keep start-up costs on low level. No fancy offices, cars or secretaries. Just a common sense as well as a back-up plan for financing the initial costs if the business plan proves to be unrealistic and needs to be twisted afterwards.

Learning quickly, also from mistakes, self discipline to keep yourself on the right track and focused on the target, operating effectively and efficiently, wearing multiple hats, surrounding yourself with great talent and leveraging efforts of others - all these points are critical, if you want to run highly successful business.

Becoming entrepreneur can be one of the most rewarding decisions of your life. Understanding how to separate yourself from the rest in competition race, how to put yourself in control of your own life can be incredibly empowering. In the same time there is no one else to blame if things go down the road and failure is on the horizon.

Successful entrepreneurs all confirm that their perseverance in the time of obstacles, their ability to put things through to the end enabled them to bring something new and exciting to the world.

You can get the rewards Chris Zane obtained - see more in the other blog (double click on the link).

Stop being worried about age - see more in the other blog (double click on the link)

Most Important Success Factors (double click)

Many of The Best Entrepreneurs Started After 40

Picture: Shutterstock

Some myths have to be dissolved. Fast. Like „the 40+ are too old for starting their business“. New business owner age cannot be the decisive factor for predicting any business success, similarly as it should not be gender or race. Not just in the IT/Internet sphere, but overall. Ageism campaigns do not result in a good business discussion, they just widen the inter-generational gap.

Adeo Ressi (39), the founder of The Founder Institute and TheFunded.com (who himself started first Internet business at the age of 22), has had enough of reading recent articles, proclaiming that „25 is the peak age for entrepreneurship“. He published in TechCrunch thorough data driven response, observing e.g. that: „It does not take but one minute to look around the world and prove any thesis of a peak tech founder age incorrect. There are countless entrepreneurs over the age of 30, including Reid Hoffman (age 35 in 2002), Evan Williams of Twitter (age 35 in 2007), Mark Pincus of Zynga (age 41 in 2007), Arianna Huffington of the Huffington Post (age 54 in 2005), among many others.“

“In some cases, older entrepreneurs paired up with the younger founders, like Google (Larry Page and Sergey Brin were both age 25 in 1998, and Eric Schmidt was age 46 in 2001). In other cases, more successful clones were launched by older entrepreneurs, like Amazon (Jeff Bezos was age 30 in 1994). And, many young founders were pushed out or sidelined for more seasoned leaders, like with PayPal (Peter Thiel took over from younger founders when he was age 31 in 1998)."

There is no best age to start a business. Opportunity is what is needed. As we grow older, we simply trade off one set of advantages for another. There will continue to be stories of „older entrepreneurs“ who have been able to drive step change innovation while thousands of youngsters copied them. As well as „American dream“ hero stories of young undergraduates who dropped the university to become multi-billionaires (like Apple´s Steve Job did after one semester at the age of 18).  As long as we are able to identify in these real life stories the victories of great business idea, of personality traits, of perseverance and passion to change the world for the better, the age will not matter, neither for the critics, nor for the investors.

Entrepreneurship may not be actively pursued by many people. It comes with the right opportunity when a person is ready to seize it. The readiness of the market has to match entrepreneur´s visions, missions, abilities, skills, personal traits and timing.

Entrepreneurship may not be for everyone. You either have a passion and courage to drive a business of your own or you don´t. The discriminator however should not be the age. Especially when you are not yet retired.

Full article of Adeo Ressi: "Is There A Peak Age for Entrepreneurship?" (source: TechCrunch, 28-05-2011) 

Why Business Women Don´t Help Other Female Up?

Photo. Shutterstock

"We need women at all levels, including the top, to change the dynamic, reshape the conversation, to make sure women´s voices are heard and heeded, not overlooked and ignored," said Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg in her recent May speech to Barnard´s Graduates.

To achieve that goal, isn´t it about the highest time for business women to stop undermining each other and beginning to think of other females as allies, to build each other up instead of tear selves down?

Isn´t it the highest time to build professionally supporting women role models, people can talk positively about, unlike the former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina, the Republican Senate candidate in California, who did not get it during a 2010 TV interview, and instead of attacking her female opponent Boxer´s political record, she went after the senator´s hair style - thinking her microphone was off.

Why on Earth are the highly educated, hard-working, intelligent women so scared of their female colleagues? Why are they sabotaging careers of each other? Why are they not supporting one another in business as much as men do?

According to Susan Shapiro Barash, teacher of gender studies at Marymount Manhattan College and author of several books - e.g. "Tripping the Prom Queen: The Truth About Women and Rivalry", "It´s a dirty little secret among women that we don´t support one another." In the predominantly male society, women have the scarcity feeling, that there´s not enough to go around for them. This perception leads to jelausy and resentment among women fighting for a smaller piece of the pie. "If you´re the gender that yields the power, you don´t have to feel that way," Barash said.

Her research has revealed the age aspect as well: "I found that women would not befriend women who were eight or 10 years younger than them because of the competition. But someone who´s 28, if they were 58, they wouldn´t see that threat because they were going to be gone by the time that woman rose through the ranks."

For a start it would be enough if women stopped focusing on their gender and rather looked on the bigger picture, visualizing that there is plenty of abundance and possibilities for all. Feeling more confident in themselves and in their abilities, not minding to ask for a favor, being able to forgive and handle rejection as well as being able to offer an extended hand to other women in need.

Even though there are now already few dosens of women who actively promote, support and develop other female, we still have a long way to go in general. There is a chance for us all to do something more than we do at present. Leadership starts with each of us.

And if you look for role models in supporting others women up - read my blog about Sheryl Sandberg: Google Made Her Rich, Facebook Made Her A legend.



P.S. Note: Evolution of women through ages is well explained in Terry Prone´s book   "What Every Working Women Should Know .. .And Do  "  in which she - among other topics - also investigates the history of lost trust among women. She has made an interesting link between women rivalry and the 15th - 16th century´s movement against witchcraft during which approximately one million women across Europe were executed based on the testimony of other women who were under the Church´s grace. And because the characteristics of so-called witches i.e. infidelity, ambition and lust (exceptional beauty was dangerous.) were vague and hard to prove, they were fatal to many women, even though perfectly acceptable in a man. The Prone´s learning is that  "A man may kill you, but a woman may betray you to him. "

Facebook´s COO Sandberg Speech - The Women Of My Generation Blew It So Equality Is Up To You Graduates

Video: Fiorina on Boxer´s Hair

Jaromir Jagr Gets The Point More Than Politicians

Jaromir Jagr / Foto: CTK

„I am very happy  that we could - thanks to our achievements - give away great delight to all people. Only few of us can in their lifetime experience the feeling that they are able within two weeks to shift people´s opinions, that they are able to help others to forget their problems. Our fans have vice versa helped us. It is an exchange of energies from success,“ said Jagr in an interview with Sport.cz after the official end of the Worldwide Ice-hockey Championship.

Jaromir Jagr (39) has definitely gone a long way since the beginning of his career to understand key principles of success, of giving and receiving, of influencing and inspiring masses as well as of a need for a vision and personal humbleness in its implementation.

George Sheenan statement that „Success means having the courage, the determination and the will to become the person you believe you were meant to be“, needs to be enriched for the link between the individual success and its benefits for others, be it the sports´s team, the fans, the nation or the society as a whole.

The winning itself will not bring long lasting personal satisfaction, if it is not linked to helping other people as well. If it is not in the interest of a wider majority, who can in the end magnify this victory as well.

We cannot be selfish if we want to shift people´s opinions for a good cause. We cannot be selfish if we want to achieve true success - build a better world for our children and grandchildren, if we want to know that even one life has breathed easier because of us.

We cannot miss the great opportunity to define what is the world we want to create for others and to start to act now to take control of our future instead of letting the future to control us.

 „Success is doing what has to be done, when it has to be done, the way it ought to be done, whether you want to do it or not.“ (anonymous).

Unless we act, we become vulnerable. Now we have a choice, but will we have it also in future?

P.S. I would wish these thoughts resonated with majority of our Czech politicians, with the Czech business leaders and entrepreneurs. I would also wish the people who decided to pursue life philosophy of „I want to do in my life what I enjoy myself. Whenever I achieve this state of mind I will consider myself successful“ would add the social dimension to their thoughts as well, or there will be nobody left wanting to fight for the better future of the Czech nation as such.

Meet the Ex F-1 David Coulthard, the Brand Ambassador

Feeling still young and sexy David Coulthard (40) did not want to leave the lime-light. Quitting the Formula One racing he refused to be placed into the box of "sport´s pensioner", not as much desired role for somebody who loved high doses of adrenalin every day.

David Coulthard decided to capitalize on the relationships he had with brand owners from his Formula One times. Besides his work as a commentator for BBC, adviser for Red Bull and as a DTM racer, David travels the World to spread the passion for brands he loves. David´s work is similar to the brand evangelists. He wants to see his favorites to succeed. He is not ressuring customers to buy a product, he stands up there on the stage to share with his fellow customers passion for his life style as well as for his favorite brands. He is empowered to spread the message about the brand, within his space.

Using Brand Ambassadors for word-of-mouth marketing is nothing new. Endorsement from a celebrity has been long-time the foundation of marketing. What is new, however, is that the bar for what customers expect from the communication with the celebrity and service obtained during the V.I.P. treatment is higher today. Customers are spoiled to purchase a brand just because a celebrity likes it. To create a customer WOW nowadays demands significantly more creativity and efforts.

Celebrity monologues are being replaced by dialogues. "Celebrity advices" are being based on attentive customer listening and offered round the clock - stimulating communication on all the key social media networks. "Soft sell" for luxury brand image building outweighs "hard sell" connected with special offers.

Values and attitudes of a celebrity are being carried over to the brand, thus contributing to building the high profile image and being more important than the goods itself.

Customers trust an outstanding V.I.P. treatment only if it is consistent over time and through the line at each single point of contact with the brand. Only when we continuously exceed expectations, customers become "raving fans", enthusiastically referring about our brands to their family, friends, co-workers and neighbors. These devoted fans themselves have the desire to be of service and influence others. Meeting a celebrity is for them an impulse to start to act as brand evangelists themselves.

It is hard to debate which of F1 pilots will be remembered even after the official ending of their career. The World champions or those who are charismatic and representing an idea? Those who win at all costs or those who make us feel that we, too, can become great?

Final Note:

David Marshall Coulthard, born in 1971 in Scotland, was a former British Formula One racing driver. David made his Formula One debut in 1994 and won 13 Grands Prix in a career spanning 15 seasons. For his successes he was appointed a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in 2010. Currently he lives in Monaco with his Belgian wife and a 3 years old son. He is also supporting the Wings for Life Spinal Cord Research Foundation, that was established in 2004 by Red Bull CEO Mateschitz and motocross World champion Kinigadner. David´s autobiography was released in 2007 entitled "It Is What It Is".

During his visit of Hugo Boss Store in Prague, David Coulthard handed over his F1 helmet to the Czech Top model Tereza Maxova, for her Charity. The event was organized to celebrate 30 years of co-operation between Hugo Boss and Vodafone McLaren Mercedes. Founded in Germany in 1924, Hugo Boss has grown to become one of the world´s most recognizable fashion brands, specializing in high-end clothing and fragrances.David Coulthard´s involvement with the Hugo Boss brand goes far beyond officially opening high-profile new stores or going yacht racing, it goes beyond simply modeling the clothes and attending the fashion shows

The Victory of Love And Common Sense Over Prejudice

Many stories have been written about the equal rights of people. Comparing history and present gives the mankind hope. Regardless of country of origin, race, sex or age or aristocratic roots, being it at work or in private life, we are putting back on the table discussion about personality traits, rather than personal origin. We are becoming more liberal than our ancestors were. We are giving more value to the vision of living fulfilled life vs. blindly following the historical rules.
 

In the case of Kate Middleton and Prince William the victory of love is known to everybody by now. We can only wish them, that their fellowship will be long-lasting as a confirmation that the cause was worth fighting. As we never know what the future brings. 

As in the case of my grandfather, a son of a countess, who belonged to the group of "pre-chosen" men who were supposed to merry a girl from the same class. But my grandpa was living ahead of his time. He has rather followed - regardless of the objection of his whole family - his heart and passion. He has married my not so "classy", but beautiful and clever grandma. He has chosen to live under his own terms and fully - the short life the destiny has given to him.

Maybe because of his "blue blood" origin or because of his high influence on many people thanks to his leadership role in the regional "Sokol" sports union, or just because of his work as a Professor, as an Artist (cubist painter) and a man who could play seven instruments and having rich social life, he was escorted during the second World war directly from the school, where he was teaching, into the concentration camp. He has died there at the age of 32 in physical pain but with mental strength that he is supported by a beloved women who is expecting his son to be born - born from a true love.

He has left behind himself many warm feelings as well as a wide collection of paintings, that will remind us and generations to come about his work and passion for living. Nevertheless one painting is more precious than others. The not finished one of my grandma ...

You cannot take full control over your life, but you can always give your best. And when you give your best, there are no regrets, just a sense that you would not like to return the clock and redo your life differently.

P.S. The municipality of the town Mlada Boleslav granted - after the velvet revolution in 1989 - a street name to honor my grandpa Vladimir Regner. In memory of his 100 year´s birth anniversary this year a public exhibition of his paintings is being organized in the Mlada Boleslav castle starting with a grand opening on August 6th, 2011.

Best Example of Authentic Entrepreneurship & Customer Focus? Chris Zane´s!

Chris Zane has learned from his own experience what it means to win the trust of a lifetime customer. He thinks a lot how the game is played and tries to change the rules so that everyone (except for competitors) wins.
Chris Zane, Founder and President of a very successful leading American bicycle Company Zane´s Cycles based in the Branford, U.S., always positively surprises. His customers, his business partners, employees or just his followers on Twitter. I am myself the real life example. My blog on Starbucks´ was a door opener for our twitter conversation on customer service , that ended up by a pleasant surprise of receiving Chris Zane´s new book with his inscription. Another sign that Chris Zane lives the values which he shares during Keynote speeches, at Universities, in professional magazines (e.g.Fortune, The Harvard Business Review) and also in his new book "Reinventing the Wheel".





What puts Chris Zane apart from others?

Vision, Passion, Authenticity and Drive
Chris is always hungry for a challenge, wanting to do something big. Already at the age of 16 he bought his first bike shop. Twenty years later he was running 15 million USD business.

"I was scared to death of going out of business which is always a great motivator to try new things. I was small potatoes, but that didn´t mean I had to stay that way."


Perseverance
The success story was not as rosy at the beginning. Chris nearly went bankrupt. Fortunately he got an impulse for trying again, but differently.

"I thought I would let my customers lead me instead of trying to guess what they wanted."

Customer Service Obsession
If you may not yet have heard about a CEO, who believes he should be "at somebody´s service", please meet Chris Zane. His customer service obsession became famous, not just in the U.S.
"Every company, particularly large national ones, needs to start thinking of customer service as a profit creator, not just a cost sink. ...In this viral age, where so many transactions happen with no human being involved, finding a way to make emotional connections with your customers is key."

As Chris passionately claims in his book: "We are better than our competitors because we differentiate ourselves by offering more service than most customers consider reasonable. ...Our goal is to blow them away with our attention to detail as soon as we meet them. ...By doing more, by creating a positive and unexpected experience, along with a gentle reminder of what you did, you are changing the relationship you have with your customer."

No wonder that Chris believes that most important is to look at the value of a customer over the lifetime of your relationship with him or her, as part of a lasting sequence of events, avoiding thinking in terms of single transactions.

Zane´s employees pro-actively use customer database to start a conversation with a returned customer. The profile of the customer reveals among other information purchase frequency, bought items history and also tracking of every repair job. Rather than wasting time by offering to a customer something he/she has already bought, they are talking about what type of other products he/ she might be looking for this time. Database information is also used to send tailor-made flyers to customers, informing about special event or for approaching parents of growing kid e.g. if Zane´s sells a 16inch bike to the parents of a five-year-old, the same family will be ready to upgrade to the 20inch bike in another two years.

Zane has also put high attention to designing the retail store layout. The objective was to encourage his customers to browse through the latest and greatest products. For the customers who subscribe to the unlimited flat tire fix program, there is a staff "show" in the retail store. The entire staff sprint into action and the customer receives the red carpet treatment. In front of the eyes of the other customers, who have afterwards the temptation to enroll as well.

"If I stopped thinking I was in the "selling stuff" business and instead that I was in the "selling experiences" business, I could attract those customers who weren´t 100 percent price driven."

Innovative Marketing
Chris is always looking into a new niche, trying to change the game. He believes that if Zane´s ensures continuous improvement, than the employees are never on autopilot. He is obsessed with developing additional offerings, with providing more service than seems reasonable, knowing that customers self-regulate.

Among the most popular and surprising services that Zane´s started to offer were e.g. a lifetime service guarantee (all parts and labor are covered for the life of your bike, meaning tune-ups for free), flat tire insurance (for small one-time fee bike´s flat tires will be fixed for free for ever), a free trade-in program for kids bikes (even ten years later kids can get full credit for their bikes to purchase new ones) or also ninety-day price protection guarantee (to take out the question of price right out of the customer´s buying decision).

Spreading positive Word Of Mouth and helping the community he lives in is also a key priority for Chris. Zane´s donates dozens of slightly used but quality bikes to underprivileged kids every six months or so. As he continuously thrives to support those in need, being it sports clubs or children at schools, the attention from the local media to Zane´s Company is inevitable then.

Down the Earth Approach
"Rather than obsessing over textbook concepts like inventory turns or the cost of goods sold, all I had to do was think about how to make our customers think good things about us."

"It took me several years of operating the business before I built up enough confidence to leap to a lifetime guarantee." When Zane´s started with this program, some supposed experts were convinced it was going to lead Zane to bankruptcy. He however understood clearly the cost and profit implications of each service innovation he has undertaken. So he assured, the costs of this service will be minimized: "I paid my mechanics a salary rather than a commission, they had all the incentive in the world not to work on the same bike more than once." He has also made his pre-calculation of probable cost he will have to take on. The reality overachieved his expectations. The business started to grow rapidly at the expense of competition and the profit has not sunk while most people did not take full advantage of every deal they come across.

Training of Positive Serving Employees Mindset
Chris has an ambition to make Zane´s a fabulous place to work. "My goal is to build a team of people who have both the aptitude to learn the nuances of riding and the ability to translate those details to our customers. ... I can´t teach someone to have empathy and kindness for our customers and toward his or her co-workers. My main criteria in adding new members to our team is, "Is this person intrinsically nice"?

"Any organization that fails to coach its employees not to say things like "Can I help you" also fails to recognize that it has encouraged its employees to turn on autopilot, responding in the way a robot would."

Final Word
Chris Zane definitely belongs to the top class retailers, not just in the American scale. I wish his vision of creating lifetime customers will be adopted by more businesses, especially in the Czech Republic.

Chris Zane has been awarded many times for his Customer Service / Outstanding Business Practices, proudly belonging among the most influential people in the US bicycle industry, his marketing and sales practices are used as college case studies worldwide. His book Reinventing the Wheel is available at Amazon. 

Link To Amazon - Chris Zane: Reinventing the Wheel

The Other Vaclav Klaus (Or The Other You) On Twitter

Identity Theft Easy With Twitter

The Other Vaclav Klaus became popular on Twitter once publishing joking tweets about stolen pen. Followers started to grow by geometric line. The issue is that this Other Vaclav Klaus pretends he is Mr. President himself, adding the President picture and a link to official Vaclav Klaus web pages.

A typical case happening to famous people that the Twitter Co. struggles to prevent or deal with. There is a boarder line between allowed parody vs. not allowed non-parody impersonation. Twitter's impersonation policy states the following: "Impersonation is pretending to be another person or business as entertainment or in order to deceive. Non-parody impersonation is a violation of the Twitter Rules." Too much vague definition enabling harm to victims.

For increased clarity twitter just offers a service for selected celebrities and politicians to verify the data and give the person an identity authorization stamp. No wonder that some of the influential guys like Robert Kiyosaki or Donald Trump had no other options except for naming themselves on Twitter "@theRealKiyosaki" or "@realDonaldTrump" and adding a authorized stamp from Twitter, once they rightly did not start to negotiate the lump sum for name buy-out from the fake users.

Not all the fake owners do it from financial reasons being inspired by huge packages coming from web domains sales. Some of them just enjoy the fact that they can for a period of time enjoy the popularity or just to feel "cool" and "funny" to contribute to spreading out the local jokes. But what about if they attract huge number of their followers and then distribute a false alarm message?

It is not anymore about identity protection of celebrities.Twitter currently claims something between 175mil. & 200 mil. registered users worldwide. So if you imagine that this social network continues with its fast development, your registered true name on twitter may become a prized possession. Once you book it ahead of time, it cannot be taken away from you. YOU own it.

But do not go overboard and don not try to register now all name possibilities. Anything to which you do not own the rights is likely to be removed when Twitter is made aware.

If you do not want to be left out with some desperate user name, because yours is already taken, act immediately.You prevent yourself from identity theft and you make it easier for friends to find you.

And do not stop just there.

Track your name on-line presence via search engines or profi tools. Act immediately to avoid spreading misinformation or reputation damage. If you are a celebrity, media person or politician, assure that you act immediately once you are a target of being "twitterjacked", as Ashton Kutcher or Oprah Winfrey, Bill Gates or Condoleezza Rice experienced themselves, some hackers tweeted under their names.

Engage and build your brand on Twitter, post and share interesting tweets. This will attract many followers to you. Sooner or later your active twitter presence will eliminate the fake other ones, as readers intuitively go for quality and essence, they can only obtain from the authentic true individuals they adore.

Note: Identity theft, parodies, and copyright infringement on Twitterverse bring legal implications. Officially Twitter advises impersonation victims to contact its Terms of Service group. But depending on how quickly the profile in question is caught, it may be too late, experts say. Impersonation, parodies, and copyright infringement are likely to continue as Twitter grows. While the medium is relatively new, these issues are not. We can definitely expect interesting legal cases in this area.

(Not) Aging By Learning And Playing

Recently I have re-connected on Facebook with a business friend. He has sent me as a teaser a picture from our “olden – but golden” days, suggesting it was just few years ago. I had a temptation to correct him, the photo was taken already at least 17 years ago… Did I feel old realizing it was so long? And what about my authenticity? How much have I lost it because of my age or due to the top management expectations during my professional career?

Aging is a topic most of us hesitate to talk about. But the curve of aging is linked with learning. We cannot grow old, if we succeed to learn something new and stretch our minds enough every single day. We cannot grow old if we constantly try to improve the way we think and behave, if we actively and positively fight the obstacles we face. Challenges are good for us, because they help us to expand our horizons, to make a difference and to keep our soul young. The bigger we aim the more barriers we can expect and the more creative fresh approach we have to take. 

Feeling “for-ever-young” means we can tackle the professional and private life-hurdles with ease. Feeling young means we are able to nurture our inner child. We are able to build on the skills we have had as youngsters - being naturally curious, enjoying to engage with spontaneity and laughter, without fear.

Most of the time once we adults assume the responsibilities of life, we stop playing. We close our minds to new insights and powerful thoughts. We live reactive, passive, “comfortable” lives. We are afraid to take a chance, to live through new experiences, to search for greatness.

But does it have to be that way? What would our life look like if there was more authenticity? Where would our work experience bring us, if we started to bring more fun, imagination and greatness back to our jobs?  How would we feel if we started to fully enjoy every second of this journey called living?

“Aging only happens to people who lose their lust for getting better and disconnect from their natural base of curiosity.” Robin Sharma.

How Howard Schultz Managed To Enhance Starbucks´ Soul

Howard Schultz is visible everywhere now. At least from three reasons. Starbucks celebrated its 40th birthday on March 30th. Howard recently released his second book "Onward. - How Starbucks Fought For Its Life Without Losing its Soul" and thirdly because he is a true leader who is able to lead by example and generate a buzz around the Company he restarted for success after he returned to the CEO role in 2008.

Starbucks became under his leadership the World´s largest coffee store company. But back in 2007 successes covered up mistakes. Starbucks - as many other growing Companies - lost its focus on the customer. Instead it put all the efforts on the compliance with Wall Street. The pressure to deliver the growth expectations led to over expansion and loosing the Company soul.

Hard work had to be done, tough decisions had to be taken. Starbucks had to downsize and to reclaim its original customer centric values, vision and mission, while aggressively innovating and building on the opportunities arousing from social media landscape. Priority was to maintain the loyalty of Starbucks´s core customers at all costs. "Maintaining a focus on core customers during crisis is what helped weather a downturn," said once Howard, "While winning them back later would be too hard."

Howard understood well, that the Starbucks brand has to be unique and authentic. It has to resonate with the customer. People want to support only those brands and companies, whose values are comparable with their own. These values have to be inspirational, the staff and shop ambient have to breathe them. But a true brand has to go beyond its own distribution outlets.

This was the reason why Starbucks intensively started to emotionally engage with customers outside the coffee stores. Starbucks found the recepie to become one of most relevant brands to customers on Facebook, Twitter or Foursquare. It has developed itself into an iconic modern brand, often used as a benchmark, not just in the coffee business.

Howard underwood well that "Employees want to work for a Company they are proud of." But as well that "We are not in the coffee business serving people, we are in the people business serving coffee." For him the most important people at Starbucks are those wearing the green aprons. That is why one of the first steps Howard had done as returning CEO was unprecedented closing of all the North American stores for three hours to retrain employees (at costs of 6mil. USD) and then hosting a comprehensive off-site with 10,000 retail store managers (at costs of 30mil.USD). He apologized himself to all the staff for the decisions Starbucks leadership had made that had put the Company into the negative position. "The most important characteristic of a successful CEO is building trust with everyone in the organization. We can´t exceed the expectations of our customers if we can´t exceed the expectations of our own employees."

"Success is not an entitlement. It has to be earned.".Once you have the loyalty and trust of customers, you have to continue to earn it," as Howard once said. Starbucks is now on the rebound with its stock up more than 350% from its 2008 low. Though the challenge will be to keep the momentum and avoid the mistake of sleeping on the laurels again.

Howard Schultz personal mission:
"Dream more than others think practical. Expect more than others think possible."

Howard Schultz on vulnerability of a CEO - more in my other blog post:
http://janabudikova.blogspot.com/2010/11/is-vulnerability-in-ceo-leadership.html

Why I Am Hooked Up. Reasons You Shouldn't Ignore Twitter.

LinkedIn, Facebook or Twitter are not a passsing fad suitable for media, marketing, IT or recruitment professionals, as many sceptics judged at the begining. On contrary, more and more people and businesses realized the need to join and participate.  So why should YOU use twitter on top of your LinkedIn and Facebook profiles?

Beeing on twitter enables you to join a community of your choice, getting up to speed with news, and latest developments in the World, either from respected official channels –professional magazines, newspapers, business and political authorities, progressive Companies or from the tweeting community itself. Never before you could get so close to the gurus in their field, who’s  tweetstreams ideally consist of 80% professional and 20% private news, comments, evaluations, blogs.

You either create the content yourselves or you distribute (re-tweet) interesting news. Twitter is a great partnering and influencing tool. You can even steer an upheaval by tweeting, as Wael Ghonim did in Egypt (more in the blog post http://bit.ly/gU66z0) . The news travel fast and quick, the support can grow rapidly. 

One of the biggest hurdles at the beginning is to choose the relevant people and publishing houses, you want to follow. Your followers will recruit from those who are attracted to the similar topics. The easiest is to study the list of contacts somebody you admire follows and start to follow them as well. Only then you fully get hooked up with tweeting world, when you actively join in. Give this experience a week and you may be surprised about the value twitter brings you instantly.

The challenge of contributing is to learn to engage with your audience. Many celebrities are tweeting random quotes but never interact with the audience (is it really them who is tweeting?). The authenticity is lost and credibility as well. The line what ‘s hot in the world or in your chosen area gives you idea what similar minded people think about. Tweet words limit (140 letters) enables to focus your thoughts, also in direct e-mails, no time lost for the reader.

Twitter despite its growing registered accounts base of more than 200mil. worldwide, is still waiting for more widespread usage especially outside the United States (LinkedIn with 100mil. users WW, Facebook 643mil.WW). Language choice could be a challenge especially in countries with small English speaking base as they are limited to get to the WW twitter trending topics – except if they do not live in Egypt (voices in Egypt have special section).  Specific solutions were found for Germany, France and Italy, via @twitter_de (287t followers), @twitter_fr (388t followers), @twitter_it (312t followers).

If twitter is about speed and snapshot view, inviting you to get deeper in topics that interest you, and about learning and sharing with people you may not know personally, Facebook is mainly about updates exchange with your close family, friends and colleagues, as you have to (unlike in twitter) accept them in your network if you do not decide to go for the Company / Brand FB pages.

Professionally you cannot stay up to date without your LinkedIn account - for reputation building while nurturing your professional network and being connected with key people throughout your career evolvement.  

The more you interact with people on all three social media sites, the more thoughtful you are about your content, timing and target group relevance, the wider your reach will be and the stronger your personal/professional brand will become.


For inspiration about the power of Twitter check following sites:
@Zappos (1.8 mil. followers), @SouthwestAir (1.1 mil. followers), @CocaCola (0.236 mil. followers), @jack_welch (1.3 mil. followers), @tonyrobins (1.9 mil. followers), @mashable (2.2 mil. followers), @wired (0.8 mil. follwers), @tedtalks (0.37 mil. followers), @ThisIsSethsBlog (0.07 mil. followers).




Note: Twitter celebrated last Monday, March 21st its fifth birthday. From official Twitter Blog that day: "Twitter users now send more than 140 million Tweets a day which adds up to a billion Tweets every 8 days—by comparison, it took 3 years, 2 months, and 1 day to reach the first billion Tweets. While it took about 18 months to sign up the first 500,000 accounts, we now see close to 500,000 accounts created every day. All of this momentum and growth often pales in comparison to a single compassionate Tweet by a caring person who wants to help someone in need."

What the King George V. In 1934 Understood Better Than Today´s Managers

It is not enough to be just on the wall in the framed picture.  Each leader, the King or the CEO, has to get closer to the crowds. He has to be like an actor, talking to the people, having „own voice“. Be that the nation or the Company, both need a leader they all could stand behind. They need a voice that unites them.

Seeing the Oskars´ winning film King´s Speech this week I was awakened to observe an interesting parallel. Early 30th the radio started to be widespread and the King understood its impact on the masses. Nowadays the social media play that role. But how many progressive managers use meaningful conversations around their brands and companies to link themselves to the hearts of people?

In the movie "King´s Speech" Prince Albert, The Duke of York (later the King George VI) heartbreakingly got beyond his weakness of being a stutterer and thanks to his perseverance learned how to talk to the crowds with passion and intensity, fluently.

What will it take for the leaders nowadays to break the „ceiling“ to the future, to increase the understanding about social media conversations around their brands? What will it take for the leaders to „FLUENTLY“ start to speak with „ordinary“ predominantly young people on Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn?

Interesting facts regarding social media development worldwide:
Trends In Social Media Europe / Worldwide

Statistics on Low Social Media Understanding

Lesson From Japan: Seize Each Moment, There May Be No Tomorrow

Japan Earthquake followed by disastrous tsunami proved the old true – we have to live our lives fully at present, there may be no tomorrow.

We would never expect this to happen, even in our biggest nightmares. Japan is highly civilized country, with all the emergency plans, with all the sophisticated technical and electronics equipments in place. Still the Mother Nature shows us how vulnerable we – the human beings – are.

 It is not a punishment for some wrongdoing for Japanese people, but they have to take on their shoulders its burden now. Those who survived have to find the strength to cope with loosing family members and friends, their homes, jobs and places they felt connected to. They may be left out homeless, starving from lack of electricity and basic food supplies at present. Regardless how much fortune they have gathered in the past, regardless how much valuables they have collected. They are like “naked”, just with their memories from the past and the hope for better days to come.  

 It is never too late to say your family and friends how much you love and care about them. It is never too late to say thank you to those who deserve it. It is never too late to start to seize each moment of your life to find YOUR way to happiness.

You have to act now. Because nobody can be sure what the future brings.

“Dream as if you’ll live forever. Live as if you’ll die today.” James Dean

“CARPE DIEM (Seize the Day)! “Horace

How To help Japan from the Czech Republic (according to server: Novinky.cz) ?

Salvation Army: SMS - DMS ARMADASPASY sent to Tel. No. 87 777 or bank transfer 475 335 533/0300, variable symbol 222.

Czech Red Cross - bank account 222826/5500, variable symbol 999.

Czech Doctors without borders  : bank account 2101050700 / 2700, variabilní symbol: 99

Steve Jobs’ Most Relevant Quotes, You Never Dare To Forget

I have been impressed with Steve Jobs’ last week’s speech on the launch of iPad 2. He came, though seriously ill. He put his passion into the show, despite his energy being exhausted by fighting illness and media speculating about his near death. He shined as always. The lasting standing ovations belonged to his well deserved reward.


I admire Steve Jobs for his leadership qualities. I am not so hard on his people skills gaps as some others may be (people at Apple are said to be at constant fear of losing their job). But Steve still attracts the best employees and he enthuses them to do great work for him. Apple stands for something for them. Apple has a reason for being that isn’t just about making money. Steve is a type of genius, artist, who has made his mark in the history and he could never be so successful without some of his unique personality traits.


What the great leaders do and Steve Jobs masters better than others?

VISION AND PURPOSE

      “Our customers want to know who is Apple and what do we stand for, where do we fit in this world. What we are about is not making boxes for people to get their jobs done, although we do that well, we do that better than anybody in some cases. But Apple is something more than that. Apple at the core, it’s core value is, that we believe that people with passion can change the world for the better.” 1997, Jobs’s speech to employees

“The goal was never to beat the competitors, or to make a lot of money, it was to do the greatest thing possible, or even a little greater.”

PASSION  

“I am willing  to tear down walls, build bridges, and light fires. I have great experience, lots of energy, a bit of that “vision thing” and I am not afraid to start from the beginning. “ Steve Jobs’ resume

“Unless you have a lot of passion about this, you are not going to survive. You are going to give up. So you’ve got to have an idea or a problem or a wrong that you want to right that you’re passionate about, otherwise you’re not going to have the perseverance to stick in through. I think that’s half the battle right there.”

COURAGE

“I have always been attracted to the more revolutionary changes. I don’t know why. Because they are harder. They’re more stressful emotionally. And you usually go through a period where everybody tells you that you’ve completely failed.”

 “I looked to my hero Bob Dylan for inspiration. One of the things I admired about Dylan was his refusal to stand still. Many successful artists at some point in their careers atrophy: they keep doing what made them successful in the first place, but they don’t evolve. If they keep risking failure, they are still artists. Dylan and Picasso were always risking failure.”1998 for Fortune magazine

INVENTIVE SPIRIT

“Innovations has nothing to do with how many R&D dollars you have. When Apple came up with the Mac, IBM was spending at least 100times more on R&D. It’s not about money. It’s about the people you have, how you’re led, and how much you get it.” 1998 for Fortune

“Process makes you more efficient. But innovation comes from people meeting up in the hallways or calling each other at 10:30 at night with a new idea, or because they realized something that shoots holes in how we’ve been thinking about problem. It’s ad hoc meetings of six people called by someone who thinks he has figured out the coolest new thing ever and who wants to know what other people think of his idea.” 2004 for Business Week

PERSEVERANCE & PERFECTIONISM

“Be a yardstick of quality. Some people aren’t used to an environment where excellence is expected.”     

“When you start looking at a problem and think it’s really simple, you don’t understand how complex the problem really is. Once you get into the problem… you see that it’s complicated and you come up with all these convoluted solutions. That’s where most people stop, and the solutions tend to work for a while. But the really great person will keep going, find the underlying problem, and come up with an elegant solution that works well on every level.”

DISCIPLINE AND DECISIVENESS

“Everything just got simpler. That’s been one of my mantras – focus and simplicity. We’ve got to focus and do things we can be good at”.” 1998 for Business Week

“We look at a lot of things, but I’m as proud of the products that we have not done as I am of the ones we have done.” 1998 for Wall Street Journal

INTEGRITY AND CHARACTER

„You can't connect the dots looking forward. You can only connect them looking backwards, so you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something--your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever--because believing that the dots will connect down the road will give you the confidence to follow your heart, even when it leads you off the well-worn path, and that will make all the difference.“ Jobs Stanford Speech 2005

„Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma, which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice, heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.“ Jobs Stanford Speech 2005

„Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.“ Jobs Stanford Speech 2005

Once Steve Jobs said: “I want to put a ding in the Universe.” He certainly did.

Do not miss the video on his appearance in March 2011:
Steve Jobs Standing Ovations March 2011


The Beginning of Steve Jobs' Greatness / Video from 1984

Note: When the quote source not mentioned, than appeared in the book "Inside Steve's Brain" by Leander Kahney.

My other blog devoted to Steve Jobs and his mission: 
Steve Jobs Journey Toward Success - Another View