What have you done for your customer lately?
Presented by:
Susan Phillips Bari
www.leadertoleader.org
Participant
Workbook
Facilitator’s
Guide
Peter F. Drucker – The Father of
Modern Management
(1909 – 2005)
The Social Sector
“It is not business, it is not government,
it is the social sector that may yet save
society.”
- Peter Drucker
Why Ask the Five Questions?



Appraise performance,
anticipate change, and set
direction.
Create a learning
organization that values
and fosters leadership
development.
Manage limited resources




Strengthen
strategic planning
Encourage
constructive
dissent
Validate
assumptions
against actual
customer values,
and
Learn to say
“no”
Who Can Use the Five Questions?
The Five Questions can be used by all
sectors, during any organizational phase:
strategic planning, start-up, growth, etc.
Social Sector
 Private sector
 Public Sector

The Self Assessment Tool is used
to:






Deepen understanding of the mission.
Conduct organization-wide strategic planning.
Purposely, listen to the customer.
Define results.
Clarify organizational goals.
Plan to achieve results.
Planning Process
The Five Questions:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
What is our mission?
Who is our customer?
What does the customer value?
What are our results?
What is our plan?
The FIVE
Questions
1. WHAT IS OUR
MISSION?
Mission Defined
Mission: Why we do what we do; the
organization’s reason for being, its
purpose. Says what, in the end, you want
to be remembered for.
Drucker on Mission
“The effective mission statement is
short and sharply focused. It should fit
on a T-shirt. The mission says why you
do what you do, not the means by
which you do it.”
- Peter Drucker, p. 14
Leader to Leader Institute
Mission Statement
“Should fit on a t-shirt”
Some require an XXL….
Your Mission Defines Your
Purpose
Why the organization exists.
 What the organization would like to
be remembered for.
 Not prescriptive; not ‘How.’

Inspires
Powerful.
 Compelling.
 Motivating.

The FIVE
Questions
2. WHO IS OUR
CUSTOMER?
The Customer Is Key
The customer is the
heart of the matter
for Drucker.
Drucker on Customer
“Who must be satisfied for the organization to
achieve results?”
“When you answer this question, you define your
customer as one who values your service who
wants what you offer, who feels it’s important to
them.”
Peter Drucker
Customer Defined
Customer: The one who must be satisfied for the
organization to achieve results.
Primary Customer: is the person whose life is
changed through the organization’s work.
Supporting Customers: individuals and groups
who, in addition to the primary customer, must be
satisfied for the organization to achieve results.
Customers Change
“Customers are never static. They will
become more diverse. Their needs,
wants, and aspirations will evolve.”
- Peter Drucker
Customers Change (Cont’d)
“There may be entirely new customers you
must satisfy to achieve results—individuals
who really need the service, want the service,
but not in the way in which it is available
today.”
- Peter Drucker
There is no budget large enough to
be all things to all people…
According to marketing guru Seth Godin…


Marketers rarely think about choosing customers... like a sailor on
shore leave, we're not so picky. Huge mistake.
Your customers define what you make, how you make it, where you
sell it, what you charge, who you hire and even how you fund your
organization. If your customer base changes over time but you fail to
make changes in the rest of your organization, stress and failure will
follow.
Choose your customers wisely


When you find great customers, they will eagerly co-create with you.
They will engage and invent and spread the word.
It takes vision and guts to turn someone down and focus on a different
segment, on people who might be more difficult to sell at first, but will
lead you where you want to go over time.

Seth Godin
The FIVE
Questions
3. WHAT DOES THE
CUSTOMER VALUE?
Drucker on Customer
Value
“You cannot arrive at the right definition
of results without significant input from
your customers.”
- Peter Drucker
Value Defined
Value: that which satisfies a customer’s:



Needs (physical and psychological well-being).
Wants (where, when, and how service is provided).
Aspirations (desired long-term results).
Kouzes on Value
“Clearly customers value an organization that
seeks their feedback and that is capable of
solving their problems and meeting their
needs.. . .”
- James Kouzes
Kouzes onValue
. . .. “But I would also venture to guess that
customers value a leader and a team who
have the ability to listen and the courage to
challenge the ‘business-as-usualenvironment.’”
- James Kouzes
What Does Our Customer
Value?

So how do you find out
what the customer
values?

Ask.
Opportunities
What does the customer value? may be
the most important question. Yet it is
the one least often asked. People are
so convinced they are doing the right
things and so committed to their cause
that they come to see the institution as
an end in itself. But that’s a
bureaucracy. Instead of asking, ‘Does
it deliver value to our customers?’ they
ask, ‘Does it fit our rules?’ And that not
only inhibits performance but also
destroys vision and dedication.”
- Peter Drucker
Mission
Opportunities
Commitment
Competence
Methods for Understanding
What Customers Value



Collect/analyze customer information.
Gather customer feedback (program evaluations).
Conduct customer research:
 Pre-post program questionnaires.
 One-on-one interviews.
 On-line surveys.
 Focus groups
Has Your Customer Changed?

How?







Richer or poorer
Downsized – upsized
Older
Younger
Education level
Access to Services -local
New Customers?



Younger
Global
Remote Access to Services

What People Want









The same thing everyone else is having, but
different.
A menu where the prices aren't all the
same.
More attention than the person sitting next
to them.
A slightly lower price than anyone else.
A new model, just moments before anyone
else, but only if everyone else is really going
to like it.
A seat at a sold out movie.
Access to the best customer service person
in the shop, preferably the owner.
Being treated better, but not too much
better.
Being noticed, but not too noticed.
Being right.
A Closing Word from Peter
Drucker
“We have to have discipline rooted in our
mission. We have to manage our limited
resources of people and money for
maximum effectiveness. And we have to
think through very clearly what results are
for our organization .”
n
- Peter Drucker
Contact me:
Susan Phillips Bari
susanbari@thesusanbaricompany.com
sbari@bondnewyork.com
561-613-3397 (M)
646-666-2247 (O)
Follow me on Twitter@SusanSellsNY