To get some insight into what makes Apple shine, Fast Company published an article called Invincible Apple: 10 Lessons From the Coolest Company Anywhere.  In it the author suggests the top ten key principles that helped put Apple on top. A number of these principles are relevant for the marine industry and other recreational industries. I want to outline two of these principles - two that I think go hand in hand. These principles are helping us realign our focus and reshape our company as a whole:

Serve Your Customer, No Really

Every company has a slogan similar to the following: “The customer is king”, “Service with a smile” or “World Class Customer Service”.  But we’ve found that serving the customer is not a slogan - it has to become part of the corporate culture. Admittedly we have struggled with this. We found that our struggles ran deeper than just a cute slogan. We had to go to the core of serving the customer and that is focusing on quality. In it’s most fundamental form, “quality” is keeping your promises. The marine management software business is no different than selling boats or repairing air conditioners. There is an interaction with a customer, you (the one that represents the company) makes a promise to deliver some kind of solution. You and the company are on the hook to deliver on that solution - to keep the promise.

Its not enough for Apple to just sell cool, well designed products. They realized as they grew that they needed a support infrastructure to fulfill that promise. According to Fast Company author Farhad Manjoo, “In recent years, companies of all kinds — but especially Apple’s competitors in the computer and phone businesses — have adopted strategies that amount to customer avoidance rather than service. They shunt their customers off to outsourced call centers staffed with underpaid agents who read from scripts, or worse, send them to an online FAQ.” That is why Apple modeled it’s Genius Bar support counters in it’s retail stores after a hotel concierge service. Apple’s analysis showed that concierges frequently received high marks in the level of service they provide because they are typically there when you need them, it’s a face to face experience and you get to relax in a comfortable setting while you discuss dining or tour options with the concierge.

Since we don’t have retail outlets we can’t see every customer face to face. This poses a challenge for us. We must come up with other ways to be as helpful and efficient as we can over the phone or via e-mail. But a number of boat dealers, boatyards and marinas do see customers face-to-face on a regular basis. Marine retailers could emulate some of the Genius Bar ideas by creating a Master Service Desk or some other kind of concierge service to give their customers “free” advice on regular boat maintenance, navigational tips, and general safety advice. I know that some dealers even run regular seminars on these topics. Russo Marine offers Boater Education and Training at it’s Medford, MA showroom.

Everything is Marketing

There is a religious fervor among Apple devotees. Their “Think Different” slogan targeted those who simply didn’t fit into the IBM or Microsoft mold. There ads backed up that notion. But their true marketing prowess goes way beyond slogans. According to author Martin Lindstrom, Apple has a “devotion to symbology”. In other words their most effective marketing is built into the products themselves, from the white earbuds for the iPod, the Mac OS Dock feature, the unibody aluminum construction of the Macbook and even the white packaging inscribed with “Made in Cupertino, CA”. There is a consistency and an attention to simple styling in all of the products they produce.

The lesson in this for us is that we’ve got to be consistent in our in product design, our branding and the experience we provide our customers. Inconsistencies in how our marina software works from module to module diminish the customer experience. We are working to shore up these issues in not only our products, but also in the way the team interacts with our customers. The way your company presents itself to your clients should not only be professional, but also consistent.

The best boat dealerships I’ve visited have rather strict uniform requirements. That doesn’t mean being formal or stuffy, but having the staff wear good quality golf or fishing shirts for instance can go a long way. The other marketing key for Apple is it’s use of systems. They’ve been chastised for being “closed” or “proprietary”. But they’ve designed their products to work like a system. The iPod, iPhone and iPad all use iTunes to manage content. The App Store is where tens of thousands of apps for these devices can be found and users can seamlessly access the App Store through iTunes on their Mac or PC, or from one of the Apple mobile devices.

There is an evolution here as well - iPod owners become iPhone owners who eventually become iPad owners. I have seen some boat dealerships do this very effectively. Galati Yacht Sales is one company that has effectively helped its customers grow into new boats as their needs change. This is done by providing their customers exemplary service during the ownership of their boat and then helping the customer sell that boat while getting them into a new one. The next owner of that boat knows that it’s been well maintained and cared for because it will often stay within the Galati Yacht customer base. They are effectively building a tribe of devotees to their brand.

A friend of mine just sent this to me. Wonder how long it will take for BP to get this and start removing these signs?

Those close to me know that “focus” can be a challenge as I have to work hard to stay focused. You can label it Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD), remnants of preadolescence impulsivity or just the fact that we live in a world of “hyper-distraction”. But staying focused is harder for many of us today than it was for our ancestors. These days we find ourselves tethered to our iPhones and Blackberrys scanning e-mails, checking Facebook and texting friends and colleagues while at the kid’s soccer game. (Remember: “Wherever you are be there?” I forget it all the time).

Habits are hard to change, especially those we’ve done for years. For instance, most of us believe that we can effectively multitask. Sure we can chew gum and walk, but when it comes to intellectually challenging stuff I stand by the notion that multitasking doesn’t work. That’s because it is humanly impossible to simultaneously harbor two conscious thoughts in your brain at exactly the same time. Sure you can unload the dishwasher and talk on the phone. Because unloading the dishwasher is a relatively “mindless” function. But if you were to notice a crack in a dish, your mind would focus on that. How did it crack? Was it cracked before it went into the dishwasher or did it break during cleansing?

For things that require mental effort what we are really doing is time slicing. We are “switching” our thoughts from one thing to another rapidly - thus creating the illusion that we can multitask.

How many times have you picked up the phone to take a call in the middle of reading e-mail? At first you might be focused on the call, but as the conversation begins to wind down you start focusing on e-mail again. Guess what? The person on the other end of the phone can usually tell when you’ve mentally checked out. I do this to people when they call me from time to time and it is ineffective and inconsiderate.

The pie charts above show the effect that interruptions (represented in green) can have on your thought process. When you are taken off task it takes some time to mentally pull away, pay attention to something (or someone) else and then refocus back on that task. Depending on the level of complexity the “refocusing” stage can be time consuming, especially if you are in the midst of doing something creative or highly technical.

In his book, “The Myth of Multitasking“, David Crenshaw shows how to minimize interruptions by coworkers and how to deal with distracting electronic communications such as e-mail and phone messages. I am not advocating you lock yourself in a cave and accept food rations under the door. But I do recommend setting aside times in the day for concentrating on projects or tasks. These times should be periods in which you can’t be interrupted unless the building is on fire.

It reminded of a recent trip I took to my local West Marine store. I was looking for some parts for my boat and couldn’t find exactly what I needed. I stood at the register for a minute or two while the clerks were helping other customers. One of the clerks finally noticed me standing there and radioed for the manager to come to the front register. The manager was in his office (hidden from my view) only a few feet from where I was standing. At this point the customer (me) wasn’t happy! What went through my mind was “what could have been more important than helping a customer that is waiting to buy something?”

To his credit, the manager turned things around pretty quickly. I could not find a specific part for my outriggers. West Marine didn’t carry the part. Once I realized this, I was already thinking that my next stop was Lewis Marine Supply. However he creatively found a part that was similar and gave me a suggestion on how to make a simple modification such that it would work.

Moral of the story: Earnest and thoughtful customer service can turn negative situations into positive ones by simply caring enough to help people solve their problems.

What are you really good at? What recurring comments or suggestions do you receive from your customers or colleagues? Listening to customers, as well as colleagues and advisers is more than just noting the literal statements being made. It is also important to pick-up on verbal clues. I call this empathetic listening and it can help you add value to your products and services.

In the case of marine management software, simply adding features to our products because our customer says they need them doesn’t necessarily add value. Same goes for any business. Adding features to appease the few will disrupt the many. In software and web applications, layering feature upon feature makes products confusing and cumbersome. The value of your product is diminished if it causes frustration and anxiety because the customer is overwhelmed by features.

This scenario doesn’t just play out in the technology world. Ever go to a restaurant that had 50 to 100 items on the menu? It is down right overwhelming. Not only is it hard to choose, but I always ask myself “can these guys really perfect 50+ items?” The answer is typically “No”. Some of the best restaurants have 10 to 15 entrees that they’ve perfected. The menu changes over time as various ingredients go in and out of season. The goal is ultimate freshness for taste perfection.

So if you honestly ask yourself “what are you good at?” coupled with “what is your core business?”, you should be able to get the epicenter of your value. In their book REWORK, 37signals founders Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hanson talk about finding your epicenter and focusing on it like a laser. I will add that once you’ve perfected your epicenter, start adding “spokes to the wagon wheel”. There is a caveat! You can’t put all of your energy on “spokes” and neglect your “core”. The spokes must add value to the core.

Amazon illustrates this wonderfully with the Kindle. At the end of the day, Amazon distributes content. That content is typically in the form of books, CDs and e-books. The Kindle, their electronic book reader is a spoke as it gives readers another way to enjoy the content Amazon distributes. The Kindle adds value to their content and distribution empire.

There’s lots of talk about Apple’s iPad threatening the Kindle. While the iPad could certainly stymie Kindle sales, it should boost Amazon’s core - that is the distribution of books across various mediums. On 3/30/2010 an AP artcle in NYDailyNews.com stated “If the Kindle e-reader falls out of favor with people drawn to Apple’s offering, there could be a very thick silver lining for Amazon: It sells e-books that can be read on many kinds of devices, including the iPad and other Apple gadgets. That means the Kindle could fade and Amazon could still occupy a profitable perch in e-books.” In other words, the iPad becomes another spoke, or outlet for Amazon even though its not their product.

We have been looking for ways to help our customers provide better service to their customers, e.g. boaters. To that end, we have observed that more and more boaters want to use the internet to communicate with their marina, marine dealer or boatyard. Therefore we’ve decided to add web-based functionality to our core marina management system that allows customers to book a boat slip reservations online, submit an online service request or review invoices online.

What we as managers and business operators need to do is use these suggestions from customers and trusted advisers as points of reference. But you must have the fortitude and vision to guide your customers where they need to go. Just doing what they want today doesn’t necessarily help them or your business going forward.

“If I’d listened to customers, I’d have given them a faster horse.”
—HENRY FORD

If your products and services are perfect, and every customer of yours is completely satisfied, then stop reading this now. For the rest of us, we need to be embrace the fact that consumers have never before had more power. Social media and online communities are something that we as marketers should view as an unprecedented opportunity rather than another channel to contend with.

In their book Groundswell, authors Charlene Li and John Bernoff explain it this way:

“Right now, your customers are writing about your products on blogs and re-cutting your commercials on YouTube. They’re defining you on Wikipedia and ganging up on you in social networking sites like Facebook. These are all elements of a social phenomenon — the groundswell — that has created a permanent, long-lasting shift in the way the world works. Most companies see it as a threat. You can see it as an opportunity.”

Being in the marina software and marine management systems business, we have a very close and high trust relationship with our customers since we are helping them improve business efficiencies. In one particular case, we had a “close call” with negative customer sentiment that could have produced “viral” ramifications for us. Over the past five years we’ve been upgrading our 250 clients, some of them with 10 or more physical locations from a legacy “text-based” version of DockMaster to our Windows platform. I am happy to say that we have completed this task and I want to thank our customers for sticking with us through the transition. It was difficult for both them and us. Some of our customers had been using our text-based system for over 10-years. It is very difficult to transition from one way of doing things (keyboard entry) to another (mouse-driven navigation).

One of our customers was struggling with not only a DockMaster change, but also a change to their network infrastructure. The transition was painful for this customer and in the midst of the transition, the owner e-mailed me an image one of his employees created that mocked the DockMaster logo.

What struck me was the fact that someone took the time to create this image and pass it around their company as a show of their frustration. I envisioned it hanging on a wall with a bunch of darts stuck in it. This image was a painful, but insightful wake up call for me at two levels:

1. It gave me some insight into how difficult a system transition can be and our team needed to be more sensitive of this.

2. I thought to myself what if this gets out on the internet? How would this tarnish our brand?

The owner did me a great service by sending it to me. Back in 2007 when I received this feedback, I would never have imagined that I would be publishing this story. After all, I am the CEO of the company that makes DockMaster. Shouldn’t we always try to paint a rosy picture for the world to read or spin a story to our advantage? To all the other company managers reading this post: you can’t do that anymore. The world doesn’t want “rosy” or “spin”. They want the truth. This includes open, honest, engaging “conversations” with customers, suppliers and the public at large.

This is a "word cloud" of the MarineManagementToday.com blog. It was generated from a cool app called Wordle . It was no surprise to me that "time" was so prominent as I often talk about the lack of it or how to manage it.

In December of 2009 I posted a blog called Threads of interruption: How to keep your day from spinning out of control . In it I described a process that I use to keep myself focused on what’s important and abstain from being distracted by the "seemingly urgent". In the second part of this series, I will explore the Pareto Principle , more commonly known as the 80-20 rule, and how you can use procrastination to your advantage.

The 80-20 Rule (applied to time and task management) basically means two things to me:

- Limit tasks to the important to shorten work time
- Shorten your time frame to ensure heightened levels of focus

Following these two principles will allow you to focus on execution with a very clear deadline.

Remember in high school or college when a teacher assigned a term paper three months in advance? What most of us did is procrastinate until the very last minute to get it done. When you think back on that experience, can you remember the final days or hours before the paper was due and the intense focus you had on completing that task?

That same level of intensity should be utilized in your professional life as well. I am not saying that you should freak out management by doing nothing for weeks and then pulling a handful of ‘all-nighters" to complete a project. But what I do advocate is to create short, compact time lines to immerse yourself into projects. Block out that time on your calender so you can focus on the project. NO PHONE CALLS, NO E-MAIL. I don’t care if you are a programmer, outboard engine mechanic or a writer; this act of compartmentalizing a project into a compact time line and then executing with intense focus to complete the task in my experience produces the best results.

Working on a project a little at a time far in advance of a deadline is ineffective. That’s because there is a ramp-up period each and every time you start working on a project. What people tend to do who perform a "little at a time" is attempt to multitask. The illusion that you can effectively multitask is the biggest time waster of them all.

QUICK TIP: Keep your calendar empty. Some of the most effective time managers I’ve met guard their calendar’s with their life. They will not schedule meetings too far in advance, so that they can remain nimble and thus shorten their work time. If something important comes up last minute they are able to make time for it on their calendar. In addition, don’t be afraid to say "NO". If the meeting, event or task you are being asked to do isn’t in alignment with what’s important to you politely decline.

Further Reading:

Tim Ferris: 4 Hour Work Week Blog: How to Learn Any Language in 3 Month

@about.com: Pareto’s Principle: The 80-20 Rule

In the All Hands presentation I outlined 3 Words (themes) that should help shape the company in 2010. As per my personal 3 words , the words I’ve selected for Exuma are designed to challenge both me and my team to take our company to the next level. The 3 words are: CHANGE, LEARN, GROW.

CHANGE: It’s cliche, but change is everywhere and accelerating. Look at how quickly Social Media channels have been accepted into the main stream of life and compare the rate of adoption to e-mail. I have no data to back this up, but it seems like it took 10-years for e-mail to garner the same number of users that its taken Social Media outlets like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn to gain in a year. We must not only embrace change, but we need to seek it out. I’ve instructed my team that phrases like "we’ve always done it this way" or "we don’t work that way" are no longer acceptable at our company.

LEARN: Learning is the antithesis of talking. In other words I am coaching my team to spend more time listening than talking. We are too quick to react - to answer a question before its completely stated. We will never learn and grow if we can’t listen. By listening I mean doing it emphatically and actively. Not simply to placate someone. We also need to look outside of our industry for examples of systems and ideas that work well, so that they can be evaluated and adapted in our own company. Lastly, learn from the mistakes of others as this is often more instructive.

GROW: Last year was about survival. This year we are back in growth mode. We are excited about expanding both in our market and in other markets as well. 2010 won’t be a walk in the park - its going to be full of challenges, but if we can stay focused we can grow our businesses.

I’ve challenged each of my team leads to carry this message through to their respective groups and to develop meaningful incentives to embrace these themes.

(Part 1: Running Time 20:07)

(Part 2: Running Time 19:16)