Self-Motivation, Personal Growth and Entrepreneurship Development on DeoluAkinyemi.com

It’s been unduly long since I wrote, I’ve been on a hectic vacation schedule, and it has been difficult to spare 1hr in front of my computer and realy write something to my taste. My mind has beeen shifting back and forth on different topics. I’ve been mostly on the move as well, so there is a load of information that I have recieved on these amazing 7 days on the exotic laps of luxury. It’s exciting enjoying the vacation that others only dream about, take my word for it, tourism is higher education. This year seems an adventure already, courtesy of Holidays and Cash, we’ll be doing Sun City this month as well, Spain around the corner, Thailand and Las Vegas. Don’t die in the rut of running a marathon race with your life, rather enlist in a relay race, and enjoy your life.

There are quite a number of topics struggling for priority attention in my mind. I will simply write about them all, and then do the diligence of expanding the write-up as passion becomes available. I will jump from topics that don’t seem connected, but the thread that will join them all together are valuable wisdom nuggets that we can take away and add to our lives. Welcome through the lenses of my eyes, lightly tinted by my development bias into the world of India. With 36 million gods and religions, a population above 1 billion, host community of one of the wonders of the world – The Taj Mahal and rich historical content, I welcome you to Incredible India! Continue Reading »

Late last year and early this year, I have been active in a number of carnivals. Canivals are organized by some blog owners as forums to post articles on specific topics. They select amongst a number of interested bloggers posts and post on the carnivals. Incidentally I have been opportuned to be featured in every carnival I submitted requests to.

Submitting posts to carnivals is one other way of increasing your site ranking and popularity. Doing this allows many of the people on the carnivals to see your site, see the quality of your articles and keep visiting. I have put all the canrivals here and I will update them as I get more. These carnivals also have many other great articles on related topics that are so very informative and useful. I’m looking forward to hosting one sometime soon too. Check these ones out and start participating in carnivals today. Continue Reading »

I got asked a question today. I was asked by one of the readers of my site, who has become a friend, “Do you know about Customer Intimacy?” I first thought it was a trick question but eventually, rather than do all the work of writing and sending to just one person, I have decided to make this available here for you as well. Who knows, we all have customers, and it will be useful to somebody!

Customer intimacy? First it sounds like a concept fraught with more downsides than upsides, but no. Customer Intimacy is a currently growing terminology used to describe the act of becoming responsible for your customer’s results. This is not merely more customer satisfaction, but actually working with your customers to ensure that their objective of patronizing you is met. With customer intimacy it’s not only just a matter of goodwill to the customer it’s all the way support, loyalty and collaborative pursuit of results. Customer intimacy has actually been a topic of discussion now for over 8yrs. Fred Wiersema wrote a book in 1998 about customer intimacy. Continue Reading »

I was putting finishing touches to a training for one of our clients, and I felt like I needed to share this little part of it with a larger audience. Below are the facts of the reasons why customers quit. This means that customers cease patronizing companies for the following reasons.

1% Die
3% Move away
5% Other friends
9% Competitive reasons
14% Product dissatisfaction
68% The attitude of indifference of an employee Continue Reading »

The first time I heard the term networking was back in my Engineering days! In those good old days when I was an Electronics and Electrical Engineering student, my area of specializaton then bordered around networking. In fact right in my part 4 I became a Cisco Certified Network Associate. I understood networking well, knew all the layers and protocols or so i thought!

Networking in the real world of human beings is one of the most useful skills in building either your career or business. In achieving your life purpose, in career development or business, there are some factors called “Critical Success Factors” (CSF). These are factors that are necessary to your achieving anything significant. They are the make or break of your business or career, if any one of the factors you have identified as critical to your success is missing, then your business or career is in a jam. Networking is a skill that is critical to success in any area of business or career.

“More business decisions occur over lunch and dinner than at any other time, yet no MBA courses are given on the subject.” Peter Drucker

Coming from the world’s most respected management consultant, that’s a big one. Whether you get that deal or don’t, your next promotion, your next assignment, may well be finalized over a cup of coffee or over a bottle of rum. Beyond where your eyes can see, decisions are being made about you. You are not there to defend yourself, you can’t lend clarity to their arguements. What gives you a say in those places is your power of networking.

I’m certain you are wondering, what is networking? How can I leverage it to my own advantage? I’ll give you quick bullet points that we can build on with time into what it is and what it’s not.

First, networking is not bootlicking or ***kissing. No matter how good you are at bootlicking, you’ll always get replaced by real polish. If you always agree with everybody around you, you are not necessary- it will soon be discovered.

It’s not politicking either. This works shortterm. It involves forming parties, having cliques and painting other parties black. He that tells me of others will surely tell others of me. It’s only a matter of time. Soon someone will decamp, the winds will blow and the world will see the naked butt of the chicken. Trouble will break loose, and the world will know what you were cooking when the house got burnt.

“The successful networkers I know, the ones receiving tons of referrals and feeling truly happy about themselves, continually put the other person’s needs ahead of their own.” Bob Burg

Good networking involves meeting people at the point of their needs, having quality relationships with people, taking time and effort to seek win-wins, making the most of every contact, leaving a true and good impression and aftertaste on the tongues of people. Good networking is not about how many biggies you know, it’s about the quality and strength of your relationship even with the small people. That cleaner might just be there when they are discussing you…what will she have to say about you?

It’s so interesting how little things have the capacity to distinguish a company. I have been around a bit, in and out of Nigeria, and I think I have sufficient experience to say that customer service is an improvement area world over, but particularly for us in this country.

In many companies, we merely pay lip service to the mantra “Customer is Boss”, if indeed the customer was boss, some of us would have been fired way back! Our customers do not have options, we are big, we are it, alternatives are the same, and day in day out, we rub this realities in their faces.

Long haul buses, fast food restaurants, mega banks, airlines, hospitality, e.t.c, we have the industries where this skill is a necessary asset, so what do we lack? Most of these companies lack standards – and before you wonder what that means, let me quickly explain it. Standards are a set of ideals you have chosen as a company to be measured by. You have communicated them in your corporate induction, communicated it in a special customer service training to all your customer facing employees, it’s clearly engraved in the hearts and minds of all your staff. What isn’t measured isn’t done!

I know I’m certainly not alone in recounting experiences with different establishments where I have been treated as if I was being done a favour, despite that I had paid in full for the service. These Long haul buses are typical examples of the worst in customer service, I was once told by a friend that you are not even treated with the courtesy a bag of rice demands, you are treated like a log of wood- Pick, stack and drop! How appalling!

We certainly can all identify with these anomalies, but before you start pointing fingers, take a close look at what they other fingers are doing…they are pointing at you, asking you if you, or your company has measurable customer service standards. Don’t answer, ponder.

Is change possible? Is it possible to drive it for your organization and beyond? My answer is YES, and I’m willing to support that crusade! A dear friend just put this up, and is soliciting for comments, please visit this site and lets start a campaign that will start measuring and rewarding customer service events in some of our big companies. WHAT PEOPLE ARE SAYING ABOUT UBA Feel absolutely free to suggest others as well, and don’t forget to spread the word. Together we can change things!!!