September 2007
Just moved servers
We just moved our hosting server for Master The Business. If you happen to notice any technical bugs, please drop me a line so that I can get it fixed. Just drop me an email at corey@masterthebusiness.com.
Thanks!
Corey Smith Vice President of Innovation at Fisher’s Document Systems.
Corey Smith Vice President of Innovation at Fisher’s Document Systems.
Price check on aisle three!
My wife was shopping the other night and her contact solution rang on the cash register as $5 and it should have rung as $3. The sixteen year old cashier called for a price check.
They waited a few minutes.
She called for another price check.
The line stacked up.
Finally, out of frustration, my wife said that she would just pay the difference because she just wanted to get out of the store.
As they were completing the sale, the cashier got a call. "Oh, she doesn't care about the price check anymore," was what my wife heard.
My wife was shocked. Of course she cared... at the very least, she cared that other people might have to go through this same problem. She told the cashier she should probably get it fixed so that other customers don't have the same problem in the future.
The lesson? Empower your employees that face the customer to make decisions. Make it easy for them to make the customer experience the best experience possible.
Corey Smith Vice President of Innovation at Fisher’s Document Systems.
Corey Smith Vice President of Innovation at Fisher’s Document Systems.
My thoughts on the paperless office
There are many reasons why paperless office initiatives fail. I think that in order to truly understand why they fail, we need to understand the difference between how companies use paper and how individuals use paper.
I am a big proponent of the paperless office. I hate paper and wish that it would all go away.
With that said, I have two printers (one at my house and one at my office). I have stacks of paper on my desk and paper in my file cabinets. I love to read a book in print and not from my computer screen.
I should say that the stacks of paper on my desk are the reasons why I don't like paper. I hate the way the are organized. I hate the way I have to find them. I just hate it.
The fact is, people use paper differently for different reasons. When we talk about paper that we use personally, we need to apply a different standard to that paper. We need to jot down notes. We need to highlight the way we are used to. We have been conditioned to expect paper to be the tangible proof that we are doing something.
A large company is different. It may be efficient enough for me to look through my one file cabinet and find a peice of paper (well, maybe not for me, but for most people). But, it is not practical for a company with 100 or more file cabinets to allow each employee that needs access to a file cabinet to have it.
It is like the difference between Mac and PC... you need to have the right tool for the job. I need my PC because so many people use it and I have to understand that technology. I need my Mac because a couple of my hobbies require it and a PC simply won't do. (Although, if I could choose, I would choose my Mac hands down).
When considering moving to a paperless office and implementing a paperless workflow or even implementing a full blown document management system, we have to realize that there is the right tool for the job. It may never make sense for you to implement a database on your computer to manager your documents, but when we start talking about managing documents in an organization and we need to eliminate those information silos, a paperless document management strategy becomes a critical conversation.
Corey Smith Vice President of Innovation at Fisher’s Document Systems.
Corey Smith Vice President of Innovation at Fisher’s Document Systems.
The paperless office round table discussion
Not long ago, I conducted a round table discussion on why paperless office initiatives fail.
Here are the notes from the meeting. I am very curious to know what you think of the discussion. The goal was to identify what problems surrounding documents do companies face, what prevents those companies from working to increase those efficiencies and what can a company do to over come those problems. continue reading...
Customer of the month
When you have an associate of the month, do you run the risk of offending other associates?
Probably not.
I do think that if you save those associates a parking spot closer than your customers can park, you risk offending your customers.
Take a look at Seth's comments on this.
Corey Smith Vice President of Innovation at Fisher’s Document Systems.
Are you an idiot?
There are three types of people that tell you they don't have any business problems.
Type 1 - People that don't trust you enough yet to share that information.
Type 2 - People that are lying to themselves thinking that all is well.
Type 3 - The idiot that thinks he is as efficient as he can be.
Every business can improve, so therefore every business has some sort of problem. Don't try to fool yourself in to thinking that you are as good as you can be.
Corey Smith Vice President of Innovation at Fisher’s Document Systems.
Corey Smith Vice President of Innovation at Fisher’s Document Systems.
“Paperless” redefined
How do you define "paperless?" Are we ever really going to be "paperless?"
Corey Smith is the Vice President of Innovation at Fisher’s Document Systems.
Even in the Star Wars world, there is not a complete banishment of paper. They don't call it a piece paper... they call it a flimsy.
So, if in an advanced society, paper doesn't go away, can we ever hope to be rid of paper?
I would imagine, at the earliest, it will be a few generations to see paper go the way of the typewriter (although there are still some of those still around, too).
When we talk about "paperless," I believe that it is a misnomer. In my opinion, paperless is simply a euphemism for automating our processes. By reducing our dependences on paper through a workflow we can increase the efficiency by which we work.I think that "paperless" really means "less paper" and not "without paper."Corey Smith is the Vice President of Innovation at Fisher’s Document Systems.
Prepare to be wrong
"If you're not prepared to be wrong, you will never come up with anything original."
- Sir Ken Robinson
Corey Smith Vice President of Innovation at Fisher’s Document Systems.
The feature dump sales pitch
I sit through many sales presentations. By nature of my job, I need to entertain new ideas and new software products that our company might consider selling.
I have found that the most common sales approach is a feature dump.
"Our product has thousands of placements."
"We have outstanding technical support."
"We have the best front end system or back end database."
They spend a significant amount of time discussing why their product is better than everyone else's product. They tell me all the reasons why the product that I currently sell is not nearly as good as the product they want me to sell.
People don't buy a list of features. People buy solutions to their problems. The list of features are not important if they don't solve a problem. The list of features don't provide any benefit to me if I can't see is increase my my efficiency or decrease my costs.
Don't devolve your sales pitch to a feature dump. First find out what challenges your customer is facing and then provide a way for them to overcome those challenges.
Corey Smith Vice President of Innovation at Fisher’s Document Systems.
What is value?
I always hear companies talking about providing greater value. But, what does it really mean to have greater value? I bet they don't really know.
Value is simply where benefit outweighs cost. Here is a simple chart.
Corey Smith Vice President of Innovation at Fisher’s Document Systems.
