Mike Hohnen

Coaching for personal growth, change and development

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It takes more than a click from your friends.

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“The more people trust you, the more they buy from you.’’?–David Ogilvy


I don’t know whether you’ve noticed but recently has been a stream of new books on the subject of trust and how trusts is an all-important factor in any customer relationship.

Why now?

Well you don’t need to spend much time web surfing the news to realise that trust and business aren’t having the best of relationships at the moment.

A big bank is caught out laundering drug money, another one for fixing the Libor rate. One of the world’s largest newspaper corporations was caught hacking mobile phones and what was supposed to be one of the worlds most reputable security firms drops the ball with only 8 days left before the Olympics.

So it is not not surprising that consumers are skeptical – in fact I guess most of us have a very clear sense that what we see in the media is probably just the tip of the iceberg.

So naturally to many consumers the question remains: Who can we trust who is it safe to do business with?

Many businesses still believe rather naively that it’s all about quality. But being able to deliver a service or product in a decent quality is just the entry ticket – it’s the bare minimum. At the end of the day what is really going to make a difference and ensure that you get the order ( or the promotion) has to do with whether you are ‘likeable’.

That, at least is the point in a new book Likeonomics that has caught my attention.

So is this a book about maximising your friend clicks on Facebook? No, not at all the author Rohit Bhargava makes it very clear that it is about something much more complex and deeper than that.

As he points out there is substantial evidence indicating that relations and not logic drive most of our decisions. Yes – we do take our decisions based on what is convincing and what we believe … But we tend to believe people we like.

So in order to be successful all we need to do is be nice?

No it’s a lot more complex than that – in the book Rohit Bhargava – in great detail and very convincingly argues that there are 5 principles that drive our total likeability score in relation to other people:

Truth – not honesty – but truth in the sense of calling it as it is. It may not always be enjoyable but some of our best friends are in fact that because they are not afraid of telling it the way they see it. In the same way we also tend to admire companies who have the guts to tell us the truth.

Relevance – how does what we do make sense or become meaningful to the receiver. In order to answer that we need to pay attention to what is going on outside of our own world. It also begs the question: relevant to whom? What is relevant to me is not necessarily relevant to you.

Unselfish – to act in such a way that benefits the other or a larger whole but not necessarily getting something in return. Think of a person that you truly appreciate. Has that person ever done something that you would characterise as unselfish? You see… now you know what is meant by that.

Simplicity – here we are talking about the simplicity that exists on the other side of complexity. Think Steve Jobs. Taking what at the time was hopelessly complicated computer operating system called DOS and deciding to make it simple and beautiful.

“I would not give a fig for the simplicity this side of complexity, but I would give my life for the simplicity on the other side of complexity.” – Oliver Wendell Holmes.

Timing – Great musicians, actors and players on sports teams all have this in common they are masters at timing. And you only achieved good timing when your maximum aware of what goes on around you. In that way timing is also connected to relevance. Bad timing can easily convert something that was obviously relevant to something that is now totally irrelevant.

I find this whole book fascinating. It inspired me to think about my own approach to life and business but I think more than anything else it has given me inspiration to see this as the ultimate customer service training philosophy.

If we can find a way to get frontline employees and their managers to understand and operate along these 5 principles it will result in world-class service.

I’m going to spend some more time thinking about how to do just that.

Social Media management …

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is just like Service Management

In a recent article in S+B “Brand Transformation on the Internet” Aaron Shapiro, CEO of the digital agency Huge explains the shift from customers to users – also the title of his new book – Users, Not Customers: Who Really Determines the Success of Your Business.

A key point he makes is that most business will need to see themselves as two business. Their original core product / service and then the online version of that same business – which is an interesting thought – makes a lot of sense when you think about it.

But what really caught my attention was this :

To be effective in social media, you have to empower junior people to be brand ambassadors, to communicate online rapidly. That seemingly tactical, small move can lead to massive organizational shifts. Somebody 20 levels down in the hierarchy who’s responding to a tweet has to know and understand the whole company’s strategy around things like pricing and social responsibility. There has to be a tremendous amount of training and a very big cultural shift.

This is no doubt true – but it is also the essence of what it takes to run a great service company.

Only when front line staff see themselves as brand ambassadors in everything they do, do we get that very special customer experience.

At the heart of a great customer experience is the sensation that the person who is looking after you has the knowledge, skills and authority to do what ever it takes to provide a great experience.

But that requires leadership who understand what it takes to put that in place

Copenhagen Food Safari

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You must be joking!

At one time it was considered a bad joke that the best restaurant in the world – The Fat Duck at the time – was located in the UK, a country not exactly known for its culinary tradition. The joke is still the same, it has just moved geographically.

The basic culinary tradition in Denmark was never much better than what you would find in the UK. It is a meat and potatoes kitchen – possibly with the one exception that did gain international notoriety, the Danish open-face sandwich.

Now Denmark does not only host the world’s best restaurant, Noma and the world’s best chef, Rasmus Kofoed (Bocuse d’Or 2011) – it also has more Michelin stars (11) than any of the other Scandinavian capitals, with Stockholm is second with (8), Oslo (6) and Helsinki (5).

But Noma and the other high profile establishments are just the top of the iceberg. Copenhagen now also offers a multitude of creative and inspiring food service venues in every imaginable category. This has clearly also caught the attention of the international foodie establishment. The New York Times wrote: Eating in Copenhagen? Lucky you!. And the Guardian wrote “Copenhagen is truly in the foodie spotlight”

So how does a small country that has a population that is smaller than Hamburg’s and a ‘village’ of a capital that would fit within two Parisian arrondissements, pull that off?

For more on that as well as my very personal guide to the Copenhagen Restaurant Scene please download the file Copenhagen Food Safari

You will find it in two versions

Copenhagen Food Safari – Pdf version

Copenhagnen Food Safari – Epub Version
( works great on iPad or iPhone if you want something mobile)

The article was first published in Food Service Europe in a shorter version – you will find that version here

The Social Nature of Brands

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Great article in B+S

Some might attribute this trend — the increasing use of social engagement by marketers — to the rise of online social media: Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, fan sites, and social marketing websites (also known as private-label media) created by companies themselves. But the trend represents a more fundamental change in marketing practice, linked to insights from social psychology, behavioral economics, and neuroscience and brain research. Every form of interaction between companies and consumers — taking place online and offline, in stores and over mobile devices, in branded content and by word of mouth, and indeed through all direct consumer experience — is now understood to be shaped by the social nature of brands.

Read it all here : The Social Life of Brands

In my book Best! i also argue the point of the Ambassador effect and how it affects the Service industry – you can find the book here

Culture. The intangible competitive advantage

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Great article in Fast Company

Although cultivating a great culture demands a lot of emotional investment, leadership wisdom, and a genuine care for people, it is a financially low-cost investment with a high economic return. This is why great leaders pay attention to it. An authentic culture, at the very soul of a business, is something competitors cannot imitate. Like soul, culture is intangible. Yet given a little inspiration, this intangible commodity can be converted into untold wealth. Incredibly, the next big wave of growth will come from businesses whose leaders know how to convert low-cost intangibles like culture into high bottom-line value.

Dogs Dinner Strategy – is that you?

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Richard Rumelt is the author of Good Strategy/Bad Strategy–The Difference and Why It Matters

It is a real gem of a book

In the book, Rumelt identifies two kinds of objectives: ‘dog’s dinner objectives’; and ‘blue sky objectives’.

Dog’s dinner objectives

“A long list of “things to do”, often mislabeled as “strategies” or “objectives”, is not a strategy. It is just a list of things to do. Such lists usually grow out of planning meetings in which a wide variety of stakeholders make suggestions as to things they would like to see done. Rather than focus on a few important items, the group sweeps the whole day’s collection into a “strategic plan”. Then, in recognition that it is a dog’s dinner, the label “long term” is added so that none of them need be done today.“

Blue sky objectives

“The second form of bad strategic objectives is one that is “blue sky”. A good strategy defines the critical challenge. What is more, it builds a bridge between that challenge and action, between desire and immediate objectives that lie within grasp. Thus, the objectives a good strategy sets should stand a good chance of being accomplished, given existing resources and competence.…… By contrast, a blue-sky objective is usually a simple restatement of the desired state of affairs or of the challenge. It skips over the annoying fact that no one has a clue as to how to get there.

The purpose of a good strategy is to offer a potentially achievable way of surmounting a key challenge. If the leader’s strategic objectives are just as difficult to accomplish as the original challenge, there has been little value added by the strategy.”

So how does your strategy match up with either of these two kinds of ‘Bad Strategy”

So what is good strategy?

“A strategy is a way through a difficulty, an approach to overcoming an obstacle, a response to a challenge. If the challenge is not defined, it is difficult or impossible to assess the quality of the strategy. And if you cannot assess a strategy’s quality, you cannot reject a bad strategy or improve a good one.”

Simple hey !

Gamestorming service design

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30 years ago we called this moments of truth – Dave Gray calls them touch points but the idea is the same. None the the less this is a great way to map out your customers journey through your service experience. It is also a wonderful way to make the whole team understand what the critical touch points (bottlenecks) are in the customer experience:

Se his blog here