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The 21 commonsense business development truths 15
In this way any risks you take are calculated ones, which then ‘stack the
odds’ in your favour.
14. Plan, but keep things simple
Here is part of an introduction from a strategic business development plan.
Text like this is commonly seen in the business world.
‘The interface needs to be transformational and integrated, in order that your cus-
tomers and stakeholders fully migrate towards the business re-engineering process
that will be necessary, to gain full exposure and penetration of the demographic.
This will trigger the internal paradigm shift, which will create greater strategic synergy
across all external operational functions.’
Wow, that’s an easy one to get sorted! If any reader understood this please
e-mail or call me with an explanation and translation, because I certainly
don’t!
All too often, plans and the planning process are dressed up to sound more
complex than they need to be. Ditch the meaningless, vague, pseudo-
academic business jargon and executive wafe behind plans like this, along
with anyone who wants to write such stuff for you. Just keep it simple. In prac-
tice, you should know that your ability to implement a business development
plan will increase in proportion to the simplicity of the plan and its language.
15. Take complaints seriously
Many years ago, I was asked to review and make recommendations for potential
improvements to the complaints handling function of a large package holiday oper-
ator, which is no longer in business.
The operator had a huge customer complaints department consisting of around 70
people, processing thousands of complaints from unhappy holiday makers. Based on
the corporate perception that all guests were dishonestly inventing or exaggerating prob-
lems to get some money back, every single complainant was made to feel guilty and
wait for weeks and sometimes months while their complaint ‘was investigated in resort’.
The most bizarre thing, however, was that the investigations consistently revealed
that over 98 per cent of all complaining guests were perfectly honest and telling the
truth and had justiable cause to complain.
The overall cost of this complaints handling operation to the operator in immediate
nancial terms was huge and in terms of long-term damage, the cost was even
greater as regards goodwill and future possible repeat business.
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