When Does The Learning Curve End?

When Does The Learning Curve End?

Never.

With almost 40 years of business experience under my belt, I still walk smack dab into new levels of learning how to do something new, every single day.  It never seems to end.  In business, new trends are being uncovered every single day.  New introductions are continually designed to improve upon past uses and applications.  New methods for delivering routine products are constantly finding necessary adjustments.  New laws are introduced to modify how business works its patterns.  New technologies are offered daily on how business data is tracked, processed and delivered.  New resources are combined to strengthen new policies for improving consumer support.  The landscape for business is faced with multiple levels of daily changes that no one leader of a business can escape.  The need to add effort to their learning curve increases with time.

The level of knowledge required to operate a successful business is a process that seems addicted to constant change.  Accepting and managing constant change is a requirement for operating a business successfully.  It has become a 'must' for every business leader.  The longer a business owner stays in the field they are trying to master, the more they discover how much more needs to be learned.  This process can eventually run a leader dry.  The challenge to work ahead of the curves and to be always arranged in front of all of the changing curves a business faces is a daunting task.  The simple requirement for securing a healthy effort for managing a business faced with daily changes can easily destroy the spirit of a good business leader.  Good business leaders like to be consistent and accountable for the knowledge they expose in the business they manage.  How do they cope with the ever changing pressures their business model faces?  When does the learning curve become a part of the decisions to stop?  When does the learning curve end?

Never.  The answer is never.  The learning curve never ends.  However, managing how much change will be accepted is one of the great choices a business operator is permitted to enjoy.  Not all change faced by a business is necessary to perform.  The art of running a great business is left up to the owner to decide how their business model will be painted!

Painting the business model in a fashion that manages change is one of the great enjoyments a good business owner will face.  The model an owner designs is the one that is governed by the choices the owner selects.  As changes in the marketplace occur, that owner will have the ability to recognize how those changes affect the returns they desire from the business they manage.

We were on a small island in Hawaii and while shopping in a quaint retail gift shop, we discovered the owner did not operate with a computer.  All sales were handled by simple hand-written sale slips, with the important sales information posted immediately and very subtly onto a simple spreadsheet chart for daily tracking.  I am sure the owner compiles only the information they find worth tracking, maybe monthly.  It appears as if this process had been part of their original business design.  I asked the clerk, who turns out to be the owner, if they enjoyed working in this business.  It was the answer to their dreams, he said.  They had been operating it for almost 25 years.  He looked content, young and happy.  He definitely appeared to be stress free.  He was a very pleasant business owner.

His shop was immaculately appointed.  He offered to box what we purchased, delay-ship it to our home when we returned from vacation, and asked permission to share a cup of coffee with us.  It was a delightful experience.  The vases we purchased are placed nicely in our hot tub room, today!  They serve as a good reminder of that part of our trip.  That business owner has learned how to sift through the world of constant change and determine what parts of all those changes he was willing to accept.  Instead of getting too wrapped up with what he might be missing, he carved out how he wanted his business design to look and used only those technologies and formats which could serve his plan the best.  Change was part of his model but limited to what served his plan the better.

Many business owners get wrapped up with countless impulses about the subject of change and as a result may eventually believe they need to dovetail their decisions with many of those changing suggestions.  Although many business models need desperately to engage in making some heavy changes, most do not need to get wrapped up tightly with every whim and suggestions coming down the 'constant change' trail.

Maintaining a certain level of consistency is often times more vital to business success than first understood.  Being a particular model of design that consumers find interesting is very often the main driving source for the reasons why they elect to trade where they do.  A business who changes too often may be a business model that truly does not begin to develop a special method or atmosphere the consumer can become attached to loving.  Be very careful making changes too often.  Be especially careful making changes too often on many of your methods for marketing designs and procedures.  It may not be healthy to re-arrange a display floor that covets a more endearing level of approval from a quiet but large level of consumer acceptance.  If you are a farmers market with old natural wood floors and sport some open beamed ceilings with a rustic affair, a newly poured...stamped concrete floor may actually improve your cleaning efforts but it may also kill the charm that drove the reasons why your customer selected you in the first place.  Be careful when you work on changes that are motivated by the effort to improve profitability.  A new concrete floor may be easier to maintain and with less employment energy expelled.  Yet that new concrete stamped floor may actually compromise the cost effectiveness with too much lost revenues from eliminating a part of your market attractions.  I watch big companies make this type of mistake, often.

The desire to become more cost effective has in some cases, compromised the charm that was a big part of why consumers were attracted in the first place.  Designing facilities for working more efficiently does not always equate to improved traffic flows.  Be very careful making these types of changes.  The experience a consumer 'feels' is far more important than the quickness in which they are served.  We live in a fast paced world that believes it must shuffle folks through as rapidly as we can to make sure they get onto the next item on their pressure-filled list.  Maybe, maybe not.  Watch closely before these kinds of changes are engaged.

Make sure the changes you make to the business model you manage are made with huge respect to how the consumer prefers to be served.  I frequent an office supply giant box store that recently changed its telephone answering policies.  I know this because I work with the manager of that particular outfit.  They now require the clerks at the registers to answer the phones within two rings when consumers call in.  This is true even if the register clerk is ringing up a customer sale at the counter.  I have been at the point of getting my purchase scanned when my register clerk became sidetracked with answering an in-coming phone call.  I, too, had to wait while the customer on the phone was bumped up ahead of my sale.  Be very careful making changes that work to improve a segment that needed to be improved.  In this case, the number one complaint consumers reported when given a survey from that big box store was the slowness for receiving telephone calls when the customers called in with questions they had.  This new policy change was the solution suggested by the management folks of this particular chain.  After witnessing this new change several times, being unnecessarily delayed at the registers, I no longer use that store.  I have shared this change of my buying behavior with the store manager, to no interest, it seems.  When does the learning curve end?  Certainly not here!

Keep the learning curve alive and well where it matters the most.  Do not cease to participate where it may hurt the most.  Be smart when you elect to engage participation with the pressures and responsibilities for accepting new levels in the learning curve process.  When does the learning curve end?  Never, if customer service is compromised!


Until next time...