Some really interesting things have been emerging in our team of late and I wanted to chat with you about them here. Before I dive in please take a moment to ponder how you’d answer:
“who is your client?”
At first stab this will be super easy for some of you.
Sales is a no-brainer; the partner and the customer. Those are the external clients or end user if you must. Peel off some layers and you’ll soon discover that there’s another type of client that sales need to serve. The internal client … and the reach here is wide and extends across many departments and individuals across our company.
Now think about our design team, their client is the end user for sure; our external partners, our clients needing presentations, our websites etc. And then there’s you, the one requesting their brilliance to translate your message both internally to the team and externally (both your clients too) .
And what about me, who’re my clients? Internally there’s our CEO, our exec team and you. I need to serve you with excellence, in a way that helps you feel heard, part of the tribe, valued and valuable. I obviously have external clients too, the board and our partners. Both internal and external clients are important to me and to our business … but sometimes I forget and favour only the external client.
So while a lot of attention is placed on understanding this from an external customer lens, I’d like us to start understanding how we can OPTIMISE for the REQUESTING PERSON (internal or external) vs optimising by the best tool for the job or our own agenda/personal preference:
1. IMPORTANT: ponder your thoughts on your internal customer and how you can serve each other better (as a department + as an individual)
2. MORE IMPORTANT: challenge your full team to spend time checking in on whether you treat your internal customer differently to your external one, and
3. MOST IMPORTANT: start building a culture where your departments serve ALL your customers best. We all play a part in that which is super empowering.
