Why Is The Sky Blue Mommy?
April 3rd, 2007
Sometimes, a question is infinitely superior to an answer. Often because the so-called answers are simply camouflaged and subterfuge. In this spirit, let me ask ten business questions and invite your answers.
1. Why don’t companies have Chief Customer Officers?
2. Why do managers complain for years about slackers under their command but allow them to continue collecting paychecks?
3. Why is it near impossible to have a customer service hot-line where a human answers the phone when you call and provides service?
4. Why do companies allow their advertising agencies to vie for creative awards as opposed to driving sales?
5. Why have you never had a female CEO?
6. When is the last time you invented something new?
7. Why do you fear Wal-Mart?
8. Why do you have a diversity policy? Why doesn’t it just happen?
9. Why don’t your managers ever go out and sell your product/service themselves? Ever?
10. Why do you lose customers?
Mark Stevens
CEO
April 3rd, 2007 at 2:01 pm
1. Because they design and operate at 40,000 feet altitude while everyone that matters is at sea level.
2. Because god forbid they hire someone who makes the manager look lazy or comes up with better ideas! How scary! If a manager can maintain a shitty enough staff, the owners will wrongfully think, look at how horrible the employee market is, we’ve had this same manager for 6 years now, he knows all of our systems and policies, could you imagine training another one of these idiots to learn all this? No way, our manager is just fine…..and it’s impossible to find good help anyway!
3. Because companies would rather not deal with it, they’d rather be out ‘finding new’ customers and neglecting their existing because hey, they’re already in contract!
4. Because we all deep down want to be prom queen don’t we?! Awards make the insecure feel important.
5. Because god forbid a female runs circles and changes all what “men” have built, isn’t that the worst thing that could ever happen to the insecure male ego?
6. I strive to reinvent myself everyday, but i don’t look at an invention as thomas edison and the light bulb. I see it more as many little inventions and re-inventions that will come together to eventually bring success.
7. I love wal-mart, most fear it because it’s very fashionable to be some sort of extreme liberal and the people at ‘the top’ marketing their own hate for wal mart do it often and well. It’s almost like a cult following…..fortunately for wal mart they’ve developed their own cult following…..it’s called customers who can’t shop anywhere else!
8. What the hell is a ‘diversity policy’
9. Because the managers are more afraid of failure than the sales people. Perhaps they have more to lose? Perhaps they are afraid to show weakness and incompetence that they’ve been sweeping under the rug for years? perhaps all of the above?
10. I have lost customers primarly due to lack of communication with my customer. I’m more likely to lose a customer with a perfect service record than one that undergoes some sort of support issues because when support is needed, i am needed, and i get to communicate with the customers on a technical and business level.
This was a good mid-lunch exercise! These questions are very important, but as good as they are will fall on many deaf ears who don’t see things realistically. As you said, for every honest brute force answer, there’s 20 camoflauge answers!
April 4th, 2007 at 10:22 am
Bulls eye answers. Let’s let the mediocre managers continue to fall short of the exhilaration of striving for greatness.
Mark Stevens
CEO
April 10th, 2007 at 1:15 am
Hi Mark, these are very thought provoking questions. I’ve never seen them stated quite like this. You are unconventional and I like what I see here!
April 10th, 2007 at 10:54 am
Thank you. It is so compelling to challenge what I call the oxymoron of conventional thinking.
Mark Stevens
CEO
April 30th, 2007 at 12:11 pm
Every one in the company is the cheif customer officier, we all have to power to gain or lose a customer for life,Most managers are managing details and not leading people so they are inspired to excell, I judge the manager first not the slackers,I have witnessed this in marketing plans, picture a big conference table, a slick power point and a golden boy or girl presenting, great job is the choir of same think, no customer imput, no real goal other than to have a great meeting, most do not care the true purpose is to close business,female, why not a black female that is fat and dark,this requies investment and if you invest you may have to report less profits,divesity is only needed where there is discrimination, managers like to be in the office so they can monitor everything, because they are ass holes. I skipped Walmart, Thanks for the questions