Preference Building: The Power of Non-negotiables

Being an agile, quick-on-your-feet business owner is why you are still able to conduct business amidst economic uncertainty, competitive pressures, global innovation, and the list goes on. The ability to flex and adapt is what has always made America’s entrepreneurs the foundation of economic recovery. Just as important as your agility is your capability in knowing what is in the best interests of your customer to the point of inflexibility. What … you might be asking? Inflexibility? 

1. Being customer-centric: What is your approach to being customer centric. Is it that “the customer is always right” or that “the customer is #1”? If your mantra is “the customer is always right,” that could be contributing to your inability to be a preferred provider. If the customer is always right, then why do they need you? They can be right at a plethora of other competitors too with no reason to have an allegiance to you. The preference-building answer is that the customer is #1. This means your business makes them feel that way in the experience they receive, and your employees embrace this from a service and delivery perspective.  

While serving as chair of a board of directors for a non-profit, we learned that the association management firm had recently sold to another owner. This firm had been servicing the non-profit membership association along with its philanthropic charitable association for 20 years. What was so eye-opening about this announcement was that this firm did such a phenomenal job of servicing the dual associations, it was felt by all on both boards that we were the only clients that the firm had. They made our leadership feel so taken care of and served that it was just assumed that we were their only clients. We learned that the reason the new owner found great value in this association management firm was because of its customer-centric approach that boasted decades of client continuity. The customer being #1 was demonstrated in everything the firm had put into place to serve an impressive client base.

2. Mission & Values Driven:  How do your mission and core values drive your approach to conducting business and making momentum-building decisions? Are you willing to walk away from a big book of business or contract if it goes against your mission and values? A powerful example of this non-negotiable is when Chobani yogurt first hit the streets as a new brand of Greek yogurt. Their mission from the start was to make high-quality, nutritious food accessible to more people. For Chobani, this meant figuring out a way in the production of their Greek yogurt to keep it high quality, while making it more affordable to the general public. This also meant that they were going to insist that their Greek yogurt product was placed in the dairy section, not the natural foods section, where everything was much higher priced. The founder and leadership team were united in being willing to walk away from big contract, even from desired retailers such as Wegmans, if their yogurt was not placed in the dairy isle. Within 5 years, Chobani realized $1 billion in sales and transformed the industry, still to this day driven by the same impassioned mission. 

Chick-fil-A has made being closed on Sundays a non-negotiable, reinforcing its emphasis on honoring family and a day of rest. Despite this, it is still among the most successful fast-food chains with decades of positive sales growth. 

3. Quality Assurance: What is essential to ensure that quality will be maintained to the point you will not shortcut or eliminate a key step or component in your offering? A language services firm was owned by two master-degreed linguists who developed a five-step process to language translation that added a key layer of confirming and validating accuracy in delivering the intended message from one language to another. This became a differentiator that ultimately resulted in being the language translation company of choice for the Social Security Administration for multiple contract years. 

The typical remanufactured ink cartridge is refilled through splitting and resealing the cartridge, which causes potential ink leakage and damage to a printer. A remanufactured cartridge company owner refused to split cartridges in its process, determining a different way to refill the ink, while assuring its internal environmental and quality standards. This resulted in these re-engineered cartridges performing better than brand new OEMs at significantly less cost resulting in national contracts and the sale of the business to an eager buyer.   

4. Desired End Results: Doing what is best for the customer to achieve the desired end result can also mean stressing certain aspects of what you do or provide as essential and non-negotiable. This does not mean you are being unaccommodating. It means you have time-proven that these aspects are critical to successfully meeting and exceeding customer expectations.  In addition to establishing clear expectations of how to serve the customer, you have also determined which aspects of your product development, service delivery, or your approach cannot be altered or eliminated. 

For example, a landscape architectural firm realized its non-negotiable was the expectation that every client would invest in an irrigation system in conjunction with its landscaping design/build services. This was in the client’s best interests to avoid their thousands of dollars of investment on design and plantings literally drying up. If a client stated they would make sure they would take responsibility for the watering of the finished landscaping, the company would decline the project. The company had allowed this argument to win in the past, and then later had very unhappy clients with brown or wilting landscapes because they did not hold up their end of the bargain. The owner determined for the sake of his company’s reputation and his client’s best interests, the irrigation system would no longer be an option, but non-negotiable. This resulted in a higher caliber of homeowners who appreciated the added assurance of care to their landscape investment. 

5. Accountability: Are you willing to hold your customers accountable to provide them with the best possible outcomes and deliverables? The accountability factor is especially powerful in combination with the other factors when you are willing to take a stand on the customer’s role in what is being purchased. By having a non-negotiable around accountability, you are setting expectations in a two-way relationship dynamic with the customer and among your team. By holding your customer accountable, you are demonstrating just how much you care about delivering as promised and their critical role in making that possible. 

A diamond blade distributor for the construction industry was impassioned to help the small guys out in the field perform better through his company’s products. However, the industry standard was to give away blades for trying out in the field, and this was not reaping sales. In many cases the free blades would get lost in the shuffle and could not be tracked with any reliability. Serving as a COO on-call with the distributor, I declared there would no longer be any free diamond blades given away. Instead, the offer would be a quantity discount price with a Blade Right Guarantee. Discounts were not often given to small subcontractors for a single blade. The discount pricing was contingent on the expectation that the blade would be put to the test and feedback would be provided on how well it achieved its purpose. Being that the business owner had great knowledge of the variety of blades and what would work best, he rarely had to replace a blade with another option. His team would also deliver the blades directly to the job site, saving the subcontractor time and money. By holding his customers accountable, he increased sales and conversion to quantity buying without having to give away any blades. Most important, he gained trust and respect.