Organisations seem to promise the earth, yet they rarely deliver on the basics. Jonar Nader suggests that the worst enemy, is the enemy within.
There are two videos below. The second one is of a higher quality for those with high-speed internet connection. The first video is 14 Mb. The second is 26 Mb. Video length is 7 minutes and 37 seconds. Further below is a transcript of the video.
Here is the transcript:
Jonar Nader: So what am I saying? I’m saying that the three inputs that are a fair accompli that determine the outcome unarguably, if there’s such a word. Other three balls that come into the funnel, your staff, your quality and your customers. So I’m saying, stop telling your staff. Teach them to the point where they believe, understand, accept and adopt consistently. Quality, I don’t expect anything other than what is promised to me. So I don’t want the best of or this or that and I’m a demanding customer, no. But I just expect what is promised.
So quality to me is delivering on the promise. So please read your brochure. Okay, read other people’s brochures, you know. They’re always absolutely the best. There’s nothing better. Ever since I would shave, apparently I had the best razor in the world and then now they had a two-razor thing and then there was a three thing and I eventually upgraded to the four-blade razor. Now, there’s a fifth one that vibrates. And I thought why don’t you just get a wall filled with them and just scrape your head against the wall and be done with it?
Jonar Nader: Because the ultimate razor, the ultimate. Do you understand the English language? Ultimate means there’s nothing else. Full stop ever. And yet every year, there’s another new ultimate shaver.
Jonar Nader: So, read your own brochures. Do you believe them? Is it true that you will get unsurpassed? Unsurpassed. Right. Quality. Can I show you how most organizations can improve their bottom line by 57 percent? You realize right here, right now if I were at a business school in the US, I would be – it would be a trap door and they would just go and burn me. This guy is nuts. No one can improve by 57 percent. No one can improve by one percent. They’re having to cut offices, sack staff. And I’m saying not only that, you can improve your bottom line. You think Jonar is exaggerating at 57 percent? Well, my consulting company has done this study in the UK, US, New Zealand, Australia and Canada and we’ve looked at manufacturing, motor vehicle, IT, and two others.
And we have worked out that they could have had a 57 percent increase on their bottom line. Unbelievable. I mean, right here, right now, fairyland. Okay? Call me an exaggerator. Make it 10 percent. Go to your accountant, homework number two. And say, ‘Where would we be if in the last three years we had made a 10 percent increase on our net profit?’ Your accountant would say you would be driving a Rolls Royce right now.
Now, how do we do that? There are only five things you need to do or these companies anyway needed to do and that was this. Do what you said you’re going to do properly the first time once. Can you believe that? Companies think that the competitor is outside and all the while, the worst enemy is in-house. And they are their own worst enemy because they are hemorrhaging profits, because they don’t do what they said they’re going to do properly the first time once.
Just think of the last time you bought carpets, curtains, a washing machine, a laser printer, anything. And I bet you, for some reason, you had to pick up a phone and call somebody else to come out again because it was the wrong color or the wrong shape. The label, this, this did not work. Correct? Come back, do it again. Who’s paying for all that petrol and all this time and all the please hold and all that. Hemorrhaging of corporations, they just can’t get it right, a basic simple part number. You fix it at that level. That’s where your competitive problems begin. It’s within. We are hemorrhaging. We don’t have the funds but we can’t measure that because one of the wires you see at the end of the day is too difficult. So we’ll just leave it be.
Well, I’m not here to talk about how to cope with difficult – I’m here to talk about how can we do the genius work. Now, here’s another problem in business. You know, if I were to ask you or any company for that matter, if I were to ask a computer company, how many of these did you sell, they can tell me. IThere’s no doubt they sold a thousand last month, full stop. And I can ask them who bought it. They’ll know. They’ll say Harvey Norman bought 200 and David Jones bought two – whatever. And then if I ask them what post codes. They can tell me the post code. They can tell me male or female. They can say whether they paid on time or not with the cash.
You can tell me anything because in your business, you can measure almost anything. But in your measurement, most corporations forget a column. What I’m saying is there’s a column for everything. Who buys, when they buy, what postcode, how much, profit… There’s a column for everything but there’s always a missing column in corporations that just don’t get it and that missing column is difficult to put there. That’s why it’s missing because it’s an intangible thing. But a very real thing. And that missing column tells me why John Smith or Mary Smith have decided never to walk into your retail establishment again.
Do you have that column for me? You can tell me the last time you sold something to the US business class, how old the person was. Did they pay by Diners or Amex? You’ll know everything. But can you tell me the last time John Smith has decided, ‘I will never walk into that store ever again’? You can’t. And unless you can get to a level of business where you know why someone is not there, it’s like trying to kiss someone who has got bad breath. You’re just going to say, ‘Oh, look. I’ve got a bus to catch.’ You’re not going to explain to them that they have bad breath. And they’ll never know why and many businesses just haven’t got a clue what it’s like to park in a parking station because no, they’ve got the VIP reserved managing director parking spot. Have you got a parking spot as the managing director? So you wouldn’t know what it’s like for me to run around your center trying to find a parking spot. Do you book your own air fares? No, you get your secretary to do it. Do you know how difficult it is? So how can you improve a system when the people who can improve the system have everything smoothly laid out for them? They never have to call their own help desk.
I was once stranded in the US due to some – all sorts of issues and problems and I worked for IBM. I wont’ mention any more brand names than that but the largest travel agency in the world – we had a contract with IBM, 310,000 employees. You can imagine. And I had a – you know, a typical card that I was given. And I said, I need to get from Raleigh, North Carolina. You might say Raleigh but that’s that an American I’m trying to wash out. Raleigh, North Carolina to Sydney. No one could help me. No help desk knew what to do about it because I was a special case.
The moment I mentioned the word IBM, no one could help me. And I called this company, the biggest company. I said, ‘I’m just simply trying to change my ticket. Oh, I’m not asking you to shift India three inches to the left.’
Jonar Nader: Just book a ticket. So, I escalated all the way to the CEO and she took – and she said, ‘I’m the CEO’s PA and I’ll help you.’ She called me back two or three hours later and she said, ‘I’m so sorry. I couldn’t do it.’ Unbelievable. Because who knew this? This is a large corporation. So I’m encouraging you to get out. Call yourself. Call your office one day and hear the background noises. You probably don’t know what the customer can hear. Send a fax to someone you know and have a look at what your fax comes out like at the other end. How many times you get these faxes? They’re indecipherable and the person who sent it says, ‘Well, it looked perfect when I sent it.’ They’ve got a messy fax machine. They’ll never know about it. Why someone chooses never to come back again. Your staff, your quality and your customers. Now, let’s talk …
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