RARE in this context means something that is ‘unusually great’ rather than something that is seldom see.

It has always been a personal peeve of mine when companies forget or mistreat their existing customers. This got me to thinking. What if we lived in a world where all companies took care of their existing customers as well as new customers, where companies were trusted and liked, where doing business with a company was a good experience, where companies and their employees cared about their customers?

I believe that it is a world that is worth striving for.

Whilst there may be great examples out there of companies and brands that treat all of their clients very well, I believe that the majority of companies are stuck in the, what I like to call, the “Hole in My Bucket Syndrome”. Do you remember the song?

There’s a hole in my bucket, dear Liza, dear Liza,
There’s a hole in my bucket, dear Liza, a hole.
Then fix it, dear Henry, dear Henry, dear Henry,
Then fix it, dear Henry, dear Henry, fix it.
...etc

In the song, Liza advises Henry that to fix his leaky bucket, he needs straw. To cut the straw, he needs an axe. To sharpen the axe, he needs a stone. To whet the stone, he needs water. However, when the song asks how to get the water, the answer is "in a bucket"! This implies that the only bucket available is Henry’s leaky bucket. Of course if Henry’s leaky bucket could carry water in the first place, it wouldn’t need repairing!

Consequently the song gets stuck in an infinite-loop.
When we think about this in the context of our businesses, is the solution really more ‘water’ to replace the lost ‘water’, or to be more specific, more customers to replace lost customers? Should the focus not, in the first place, be on fixing the ‘leaks’ before adding new water?

I think so, and I think that this is the first step to creating a sustainable business and platform for growth.

This manifesto will share with you a simple framework and set of strategies for creating that RARE business.

About Adrian Swinscoe: | Adrian started life as an economist and then taught for a few years. However, realising that he knew little of the real world of economics he went to work as an economist for a think-tank and a sister company of The Economist. Particularly in the think tank, his role was to research, write and create new products/publications for our audience. Having done that for a few years, he then chose to try his hand in the commercial sector and went back to school to take an MBA. Following that he spent a few years with the The Financial Times Group and the Royal Dutch Shell group of companies working on strategy, innovation, new business development and business performance projects. In 2004 he left the corporate environment to set up on his own and since then has worked with various types of companies helping them grow and develop their businesses by focusing on their customers and building better relationships with them and each other. All of this has lead him to here. The main theme that runs through his career is one of problem-solving, innovation and customer centric growth. This experience has been instrumental in forming some of the ideas that he will lay out in this manifesto. He also writes a business growth blog at www.ideasforbusinessgrowth.com

Web site: http://www.ideasforbusinessgrowth.com