Communicate the ‘what’ and the ‘why.’ The most significant message that we are talking about is the relevancy of what we do in the marketplace that we cater to and why that is important.
Convey the message that there are several categories of solutions in the marketplace, all the way from nice-to-have to the must-have. Where do we fit into it? How do we have to look at it? How do we put ourselves in our customers’ shoes so that we can empathize with the things that they have to go through so that we’re able to make our solutions significantly (friendlier), easier, more useful [and] improve the productivity?
It is important for us to be able to explain and continue to teach the customer opinion and customer feedback on what we provide and what we provide helps their life. We also convey why are we in the market that we are in.
What happens is when you don’t quite understand that people within the company could think, ‘Well, that market seems hot, this market seems hot, there is money in this market, why are we not going here, why are we not going there?’
It becomes a distraction, and you want to be able to curtail that. You want to be able to specify that, ‘Look, here are all the things we looked at. Here is what we looked at and why we looked at [it]. Here’s what we have chosen to pursue and why this makes sense, why this will not make sense and what will make sense for us to look at in the future.’
You want to crystallize that as much as you can so that everybody marches to the same goal. It is so important to be able to clearly articulate what that goal is. Only then you will be able to make sure everybody goes there.
Monitor whether your communication worked. No matter what you think, you always hear through the rumor mill who has bought in to it and who has not. What you really should be concerned about more than anything else is, has the critical mass of your company’s employees bought in to it?
You can tell by the way they work, by the way they are committed to what they say they’re going to do and if they’ve delivered on it. Those people that have not bought in to it, their refusal to buy in to it bubbles up and eventually it weeds itself out, meaning that either they leave the job or they are asked to leave the job because it reflects in the way they perform.
We focus very hard on trying to make sure that there’s personnel alignment. That goes back to that face-to-face dialogue that needs to be had to be able to understand.
How to reach: Pilgrim Software Inc., (813) 915-1663 or www.pilgrimsoftware.com
