Why Telling People Doesn’t Work

September 16, 2007

One of my biggest mistakes in business has been telling people what to do, instead of showing them. And I’ve made this simple mistake repeatedly, because I didn’t realise what I was doing.

Here’s an example of what I did wrong. And, hopefully it will help you to avoid making the same mistake.

Now, I always insist on knowing how every single customer has heard about us, and you should too. Because if you don’t know where your customers are coming from, you won’t know which of your marketing activities are working.

The information is fairly easy to collect, whether they’re buying from you online or over the phone. You just ask for it.

The trouble is, I had no problem asking customers how they heard about us when they called. But, when I began recruiting staff to answer the phone, I just couldn’t seem to get them to remember to do it.

Looking back, the reason is pretty obvious: Nobody cares about your business as much as you do.


You see, it was really easy for me to remember to ask customers how they’d heard about us, because I was passionate about knowing the answer. In fact, to me, not knowing the answer could potentially cripple my business.

But, it was difficult for those working for me to remember, because it just wasn’t so important to them. In reality we were busy all the time anyway, so they probably couldn’t even imagine what it would be like if the flow of work suddenly dried up.

What I should have done: The answer was fairly simple, but it took me a long time to realise it. And the simple fact is that you need to systemise anything that needs to be done day to day in your business.

All I did in the end was to make laminated incoming call sheets. And we now use those call sheets for all incoming calls. That way, anyone answering the phone can’t fail to remember to ask the important question.

You might be wondering if this is important to you. But, it is. Even if you don’t have any employees yet, you will save yourself a lot of trouble down the line, if you start documenting your everyday routine tasks now.


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Posted by cathlawson | Filed Under Mistakes 

Comments

One Response to “Why Telling People Doesn’t Work”

  1. Ian on September 16th, 2007 9:19 pm

    Very true. When you’re passionate about your business, you also adopt this kind of blindness to the apathy of others.

    It’s not that they’re wrong in any way – they do a job and get paid for it. They don’t always share that passion.

    Also, you tend to get this feeling that people will read your mind. Often, you don’t say the things you are thinking, and wrongly assume everyone will simply understand it.

    And then you wonder why things aren’t getting done.

    The problem lies with the way you’re running the business and communicating to the people you work with.

    It’s certainly something I need to develop!

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