Between Being a Manager and an Entrepreneur

Entrepreneurial ventures has been considered as a means to build successful free market economics. It has been considered as a tool for economic development and growth, job creation and business successes.

However, not every entrepreneurial venture is successful. It all comes down to who is managing it. In the business world, there are two types of people you meet, the managers and the entrepreneurs. They may look the same, but they are separated by what they value most.

According to research, entrepreneurs pay greater attention to honesty, ambition, capability, independence, courage, imagination, and logic than managers. These characteristics drive entrepreneurs as well as their businesses to success. Whereas for managers, they tend to consider being loving, forgiving, helpful, and self controlled as more important.

Whether you are managing your own business or working for someone, paying attention, greater attention to what entrepreneurs value most will give you an edge.

Nine Effective Strategies for Success

Heidi Grant Halvorson identified nine most effective strategies in her article The Most Effective Strategies

In order of effect magnitude, the most impactful strategies are:

1. Be Persistent no matter the situation
2. Know exactly where you are, how far you have gone and what is remaining
3. You should know exactly what you want. Define what success means to you.
4. Seize the Moment to Act on Your Goals — Know in advance what you will do, and when and where you will do it
5. Focus on What You Will Do, Not What You Won't Do — Instead of focusing on bad habits, it's more effective to replace them with better ones.
6. Build your Willpower Muscle — If you don't have enough willpower, you can get more using it.
7. Focus on Getting Better, Rather than Being Good — Think about your goals as opportunities to improve, rather than to prove yourself
8. Be a Realistic Optimist — Visualize how you will make success happen by overcoming obstacles
9. Don't Tempt Fate — No one has willpower all the time, so don't push your luck

 Can you tell what your most effective strategies for success are?

What is Most Important to Customers in Relationship Marketing?

The high rate of competition, and quick collapse of small businesses, has necessitated the shift from transaction orientation to relationship marketing.  Business is a going concern, and if a firm must continue to remain in business, it is important  that it considers relationship marketing as a strategic tool for creating and retaining customers. Achieving longevity in business is largely dependent on customer-service provider's relationship with their major stakeholders - CUSTOMERS.

Globalization of various markets and competition, has caused a major shift from short term sales and transaction orientation to relationship marketing. Relationship marketing helps businesses to generate repeat repurchases through providing good quality customer service. It recognizes the long term value of customer relationships through building trust and exchanging information that is beneficial to both parties. Although it means different things to different people, it is often considered as the process of attracting, maintaining and enhancing relationships with customers and stakeholders at a profit. It is used to build enduring relationship with customers, however, it is important that a firm that wants to deplore a successful relationship marketing programme should channel its efforts to customers who have a  relational orientation, and at the same time know factors that consumers consider important in their regular interaction with the business.

Research studies have consistently identified some relationship marketing elements that consumers consider more important than others. Some of them are:

Trust

This is the reliablity and beliefs that you will perform your duties as expected without negative surprises. It is a state of mutual honesty and confidence that customers have in your product or business. Such trust can only be built on the platform of shared or similar values. You can't earn the trust of your customers when your values are different from theirs.

Communication

How often do you communicate with your customers? Customers have need for information, they want to interact with you regularly and to be paid attention to. For a business to maintain a good relationship, there must be timely and meaningful information exchange with the customers.

Commitment

This is the psychological attachment of your customers to your business or product. How far can you go to give your customers that experience money can not buy. This is your involvement in seeing that a customer gets what he wants. Customers want to see that you are dedicated to serving them.

 

Support and Cooperation

This includes all activities that are mutually beneficial to the business and its customers. Your customers need your support and cooperation in attaining that satisfaction level as well as your business needs them.

In this era of intense competition, creating, maintaining and enhancing long-term relationship with customers has become the basis for building successful businesses. To make this relationship work, a business owner must know what the customers expect, and in what order.

Have you asked your customers what is most important to them in your business relationship?

From 'Customer Satisfaction' to 'Customer Delight'

In business, when customers' expectations are met, the out come is satisfaction with the product or service. This means that a business has fulfilled the contract with the customer, and the customer is expected to be happy about that. However, satisfaction is no longer enough for customers who constantly demand for more than they receive. They expect much more from businesses even if they don't request for it, they want to be delighted about the product or service coming from a business. Studies have suggested that for a business to develop and maintain loyalty, it must go beyond mere satisfaction; that is, it must delight or over reward its customers.

Customer Delight is a positive emotional state that comes as a result of exceeding one’s expectations to a surprising degree. Delight requires a mixture of joy and surprise.  It is a more positive and more emotional response than simply excellent.

While customer satisfaction is generally based on exceeding one's expectations, customer delight requires that customers receive a positive surprise that is beyond their expectations. 

Berman Barry identified the important differences between satisfaction and delight:

• Satisfaction is more cognitive; delight is more affective. 
• Satisfaction is based on perceptions, while delight is more emotional. 
• Delight is often associated with such emotions as arousal, joy, and pleasure.
• While satisfaction is based on meeting or exceeding expectations, delight requires out-of-the-ordinary performance. 

To continue to survive in a competitive market, you need to give your customers more than they expect, you have to delight them.