Related Posts

• Your Customers Define Your Value; Customer Advisory Boards provide the framework to listen

  Truly understanding your customer’s needs and the value they place on your products and services is paramount to success in business. Defining and refining your value to the customer takes total organizational alignment. Alignment around the importance of the information and collaboration around collecting it, communicating it, and acting on it are vital. [caption id="attachment_199" align="alignnone" width="300"] value concept handwritten on blackboard[/caption] Customer Advisory Boards are a great way to engage the leadership in your own organization. They allow you to capture candid feedback on measuring existing corporate value statements against your messaging across the company. Are your value statements landing? Do they resonate with the people receiving them? What would your customers say is most important to them? Customer Advisory Boards provide three major benefits to an organization. 1. Deepening Relationships with Customers 2. Understanding Your Customer’s Value Language 3. Identifying Your Product/Service Gaps Deepening Relationships: People do business with people they like. Putting people together with one purpose, “How can we help one another achieve more together?” or better yet, “How can I help you over ...

• FIX WHAT BUGS YOUR CUSTOMER - Getting LEAN beyond the manufacturing floor

  During a recent visit in Rhode Island, a customer and friend of our organization complained about the features of our WiFi thermostat and Iphone App. He just didn’t like the interface with the control application. He struggled with understanding if the HVAC equipment was running and he didn’t like not being able to program the system settings directly from the Iphone App. Our phone interface bugged him. What happens when our customer’s get repeatedly frustrated with experiencing our product, services or people? You know the answer. They’ll be gone. We have been learning and growing in our LEAN journey at Cambridge. My key learning has come in the form of exposure to the energy and passion of our Operations staff for documented improvements in our plant. I’ve been drawn into the LEAN vortex in operations because of our people and their commitment to improving things every day. Unfortunately, the passion for LEAN has not translated to the same awesome level of enthusiasm and commitment beyond the factory floor. Like many in the sales, the customer service and the ...
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  Revolutionize Your Business: Transforming Company Culture for Unbeatable Employee Retention

   Employee retention is a complex puzzle that requires a multi-faceted approach. By providing a comfortable and safe workspace, creating autonomy for employees, celebrating their achievements, providing opportunities for growth and development, and fostering a positive company culture, you can create an environment where employees feel valued and supported, leading to increased loyalty and long-term commitment. Here are some key strategies to achieve these goals: 1. Make them comfortable.  According to Occupational Health & Safety Magazine, extreme heat "can reduce the energy, focus and passion employees can dedicate to their tasks." Discomfort that crosses dangerously with workplace safety in extreme climates needs to be addressed by facility leaders and planned for ahead of the seasonal changes. Employee retention is a crucial aspect of any successful business. Still, creating a workplace where employees feel a sense of loyalty and are motivated to advance their careers can be challenging. It requires a combination of factors, including a comfortable and safe workspace, opportunities for growth and development, and a positive company culture. At Cambridge, we approach every initiative with a lean mindset, which means eliminating waste ...

• Move from Presenting to Selling for Improved Sales Results

  Have you ever found yourself in this situation? You go to a meeting ready to engage in a discussion and you wind up listening to a presentation that includes a massive data dump. I’ve heard it called “death by PowerPoint.” Entering into a customer meeting with your presentation deck provides the presenter with a comforting safety net but often times misses the mark in allowing one to build real momentum in understanding the customer’s core challenges and their primary need for the solutions that you and your firm can provide. In an effort to provide the attendees with as much information as possible, we often times miss the opportunity to truly engage with our customers on the topics that are most important to them. Presentations are great when you are engaged in an educational session and your audience is seeking educational content especially as it relates to new concepts, new product categories and ongoing educational agendas with your listeners. Educational sessions lend themselves well in these types of situations. Presentations are dramatically different than selling situations. Selling situations ...
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  How do you extend a company culture beyond four walls?

  Extending a Company Culture across Multiple Facilities When a company decides that their strategic goals and growth plans include the need for additional space – be that office, production or warehousing space – it begs the question: “How are we going to do this?” To add to the complexity of multi-facility continuity, Covid introduced a unique situation where many companies offered the ability to work from home and plan to incorporate these workspaces in some fashion moving forward. The reality is that a company might operate at four business addresses but have remote workers dialing in from home offices across the country. The good news is that a spirit of creative and intentional planning with the understanding that everything can be improved upon can make the process seem less daunting. The operational “How?” starts to get sorted out through interdepartmental organization, communication and infrastructure investment. Planning for leasing, staffing, IT expansion and beyond becomes a beautiful challenge of logistics and operations. As these plans start to formulate, you can start to see the light at the end of the tunnel and envision ...
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  Diversifying Your Team Starts with Culture

  Tugboat Institute – an organization we’re a part of that unites other purpose-driven leaders – just shared an article showcasing our very own CEO, John Kramer. In the article, John delves into our journey of fostering a more balanced workforce. He sheds light on the shifts we observed in our applicant demographic during the challenging times of COVID-19. Interestingly, we noticed an increase in female applicants, and when we dug into it, they shared insights about feeling genuinely welcomed, supported, and more! Here is a quick snip from the original article: In the world of manufacturing, achieving or even approaching gender balance has historically been challenging. The physical work that it requires was once considered more appropriate for men, and though we now know that is not the case, it’s been a hard stereotype to dismantle. However, in recent years, here at Cambridge Air Solutions, we have managed to defy the odds and create a more balanced workforce. It happened partially on purpose and partially by accident, but as we look back and study the changes we’ve seen in recent years, we ...