Category: Boost
I’m in the news!
Check out this article in Lancashire Business News.
https://businesslancashire.co.uk/2017/11/02/boost-helps-cheesecake-firm-get-just-desserts/
It’s great to have a satisfied customer, even better when they tell other companies how happy they are
Boost & Co Partner
I am delighted to have been accepted as a Boost & Co partner.
I set out 18 months ago to help businesses learn and apply process improvement techniques to enable profitability and growth. Like everyone else I have bills to pay, but I wanted a way to help small business owners learn about continuous improvement. The Boost growth mentoring programme enabled me to do just that.
It has been a pleasure and a privilege to help small business owners understand the most effective ways for them to grow their businesses, whilst managing the amount of time they must devote to working in the business. Along the way I have helped business owners to do the following;
- Reduce their working hours whilst increasing capacity through a 30% increase in productivity
- Identify the vital few actions required for their business to grow and thrive
- Implement world class manufacturing techniques normally found in large multinationals into a small engineering company
- Identify the right investment questions to ask when looking at growing through acquisition
In each case the business owner really knew the answers, what they needed from me was structure and a ‘sounding board’ to enable them to sense check their plans.
I believe the key to successful mentoring lies within each mentor. If you are focused on how to directly gain from the mentoring programme and transition the mentee to a paying customer you will not deliver their needs. The key is to focus on delivering value to that mentee as if they were a paying customer. Be generous, give freely of your skills and knowledge with the aim of truly helping. The return may not happen for many years, but I believe that every mentee I help in the right way is another link in forging a reputation for capability and reliability. With each session you get to know each other better and develop a relationship that leads to trust.
When you have established trust, you set the foundation for future recommendations. It is those recommendations that will deliver the return on investment. Mentoring is about ensuring that manufacturing businesses thrive so that there are consulting opportunities in the future. Delivering today’s mentoring at high quality with added value builds tomorrows reputation and income streams.
So with that in mind, I am ‘paying it forward’ delivering high added value mentoring that has a positive impact on quality, cost, and lead time in my customers businesses.
If that sounds like something you need, get in touch, let’s have a conversation.
Good to get feedback
Asking for feedback is important for any business, as it helps us to improve what we do and eliminate any negative effects of our activities. What we don’t always recognise is the positive feedback, and the impact we can have on someone’s business when we give great service.
I have started working as a growth mentor in Lancashire, and I have just received my first feedback from that work. It has been interesting and really touches the heart of why I started Tamarind Tree Consulting, it is an opportunity to help people improve their businesses. So getting that first feedback from this sort of mentoring is significant for me. As always, I have set out to do the best job possible for the client. Hearing that the client values the support and has seen practical benefits is brilliant. You can read his testimonial here.
So why this post?
The feedback got me thinking about what is important and why did this work well. It seems to me that focusing on the customer and their needs was key. My role is not to tell them what to do, but to advise and support them through decisions, and activities they are finding difficult. The key factor here is practical application of process improvement, applied with respect for my customer. We haven’t deployed huge amounts of training and tools, there has been no big bang effort. Instead we used the time to focus on the vital few actions, and ensure that we focus on understanding why. This approach leads naturally to collaboration. It has been brilliant to see not only my mentee growing, but also to see this positive impact on his team. You can read his testimonial here
For me, process improvement consultancy is not simply about the hours charged, although more hours is always nice! It is about making a practical, positive difference to the lives of the people I help. Focusing on customers with love may not always result in more hours of work, but it will always help people learn good habits that hopefully stay with them as they, and their businesses grow. People remember those who really help them, and if the opportunity to support them arises, well, I believe you reap what you sow.