Grandview Consulting

Don’t you often wish that technology would just get out of the way?

I am appliance shopping these days – that is, shopping for a new fridge and stove. As I do so, I think about how useful and unobtrusive appliances are. We may focus on their features at the time of purchase but on a day to day basis they just do their thing – whether that be keeping the milk cold or heating a pot of soup. A few days or at most a few weeks after we have put a new appliance in place we forget about it. This is the way it should be.

I yearn for office technology that could be as unobtrusive. In the ever-faster scramble to create new hardware and applications, technology makers can lose track of the fact that most of us, most of the time, just want things to get done. We want to talk to someone around the corner or on the other side of the globe. We want to print a photo for a friend who doesn’t do email. We want to buy something, or pay a bill.

I think of the long line of computers that have graced my desk and lap top over the years. That Kaypro II beast was not only my first computer but my first “portable” computer. In no way was it a laptop, but you could fold its keyboard into its sturdy metal frame and hoist it around. When I went on a writing retreat to my brother’s cabin in the woods, I could pack my Kaypro and a box of big floppies along.

Heavy. But it worked.

The Kaypro’s green-on-black screen, cluttered up with computer code, was a necessary evil if I wanted the computer’s other attributes – namely, the ability to edit and save documents electronically. It was a debatable trade-off.

My first Mac, a Macintosh SE, was a big step up mainly because it came closer to replicating the tried and true typewriter experience with its black text on paper-like white screen. The screen was tiny but most importantly I could focus more on the words, the ideas, the writing.

Over the years, a series of Mac, DOS and Windows machines have come and gone. As a small business owner, I own a handful of computers and my current favourite is my MacBook Pro. Why? It gets out of my way.

When I have a brilliant new idea I want to capture it asap – before it gets lost in all the twists and turns of my mysterious cerebral cortex. My MacBook fires up quickly and is ready to record that whim, or search for that source, in seconds. When the moment passes and I want to move on, I just close the lid. This is so much more friendly than my previous laptop – a Lenovo / IBM ThinkPad – that it’s as if they were two entirely different tools. My ThinkPad was so slow to load, I would have to literally jot my “must remember” inspirational note on a sticky so that I could be sure to remember it when, seemingly hours later, the laptop finally told me it was ready. And heaven forbid if I ever just closed the lid without giving it ample warning that I was done using it.  The machine would punish me severely the next time I tried to use it.

It’s interesting to note that in the current discussions about e-books, paper keeps being mentioned as the near-perfect technology. I think about how I never really took to mechanical pencils or fiddly fountain pens and realize that it’s the same issue as with balky electronics – when I was ready to put ideas to paper, I didn’t want some mere tool coming between those ideas and their holding place – the paper. Generic ballpoint pens are great appliances: they do their job without drawing attention to themselves.

Just the other day, in a Twitter chat involving bloggers (Twitter hashtag #blogchat), I noticed how many bloggers say they still find paper to be the best place to keep their quick ideas for future blog topics.

Much is being made, recently, of Facebook‘s rapid ascendancy to the upper realms of online interaction. There are many reasons for Facebook’s success – primarily, I think, its basic premise that we trust our friends more than we trust unknown online sources – but I have a theory too about Facebook’s functionality.

Facebook, I’m sure you have noticed, is dead simple to use. You now see very ‘non-techie’ people actively sharing links, uploading photos, and using multiple multimedia tools online through Facebook – due in good part because the Facebook interface is as simple as point-and-click. In comparison, many other interactive tools still deliver high levels of frustration.

In our line of work – communications consulting – similar principles apply. Our clients really want us, the service providers, and our work (our words, plans, strategies) to be invisible to their customers and stakeholders. The message, the ideas, the goals – those are what count. Not the “how.”

Get the job done, and get out of the way. That message continues to make sense.

- Lorne Daniel, Managing Partner

Ed Williams store in Calgary

Here’s what it feels like to be a customer at Ed Williams Mens Wear. It feels like being a celebrity – minus the snapping cameras.

You have heard, I’m sure, about celebrities (the very rich and very famous) who enjoy private shopping times at upscale retailers? Madonna, movie stars, CEOs and billionaires can command such attention. Shopping at Ed Williams is a bit like that, but for those of us who are count the twenty dollar bills in our wallet, not the millions in our investment accounts.

I have been a small business owner since 1997. That means that I’m ultra conscious of how one adds value to a business service. The crew at Ed Williams really has it down.

As a clothes buyer, I am a conservative and hesitant consumer. Far from following the season’s fashion trends, I’m lucky if I’m in the right century, sartorially speaking. I don’t buy clothes often, and I don’t often buy upscale. Working as a consultant, for the most part away from slick urban environments, I can get away with casual business wear. Neat and clean will usually do it for me.

So why, every once in a while, do I venture into Ed’s upscale clothing store? Well, let’s talk about what value really means. First, I value my time. I initially discovered Ed Williams after an exhausting day of pawing through sport jackets at chain men’s wear stores, mostly in mall and downtown environments. I also hit a few independents. The experience was very much the same from store to store. I wasted a lot of time looking through racks of clothes, and inevitably I didn’t find jackets that fit my long, long arms (envision knuckles dragging on the ground and you sort of have the picture).

On that day, some years ago, I must have invested a few hundred dollars of lost consulting time in the pursuit of a jacket that fit and made me look OK. Finally, a clerk at one store referred me to Ed Williams, out of the way in a suburban location.

How different the experience was at Ed’s store. First, the warm and friendly greeting. Not smarmy and not slick, just personable. It turned out that I was being served by Ed, the owner. And served is the right word. After a few moments of chit-chat, Ed was on the case. Asking intelligent questions about my lifestyle and preferences, he started pulling jackets, bringing them to me, refining the idea of what would work on my back and what wouldn’t. I was transformed from being a needy customer into being the focus, the purpose for the store’s existence.

Ed called on his son Lowell to pull a few more samples. I stood in front of the mirrors and just modeled. Ed and Lowell quickly identified the sizes, materials and price ranges that suited me.

Let’s talk price. I am financially ‘comfortable’ (if we ever get comfortable with money) but as mentioned, I am no millionaire or celebrity who can write blank cheques or toss platinum cards on the counter without thought for the bank balance. I quickly realized that the clothes at Ed’s store were significantly higher priced than those at the chain stores. Yet just clearly they were high quality. Ed and Lowell gently but convincingly pointed out design and construction features as I slipped items on and off.

And the service! As I said, my contribution was to stand in one place, provide some feedback, and model. In little time, with zero stress, they were fitting me with great looking clothes that felt great to wear. Calling on their tailor Luigi (a great clothing store just has to have an Italian tailor named Luigi, right?), they fussed over a slight gathering of cloth here or there and agreed on tweaks and snips that would make the fabrics conform to my irregular shape.

That was the introduction, years ago. I don’t go back often, but did recently, to buy a new suit. This time, Ed quickly assessed that none of his off-the-rack suits would quite work and started measuring me for my (first ever) custom made suit. Of course, the customer’s first thought is that this is an upsell, but Ed assures me that he can do the custom suit for the same price as the rack suits, with better results. Why would I refuse that?

When I come back to pick up the suit, the perfectionists at the store quickly identify slight fitting nuances and promise to have Luigi make adjustments. They think it will take a few days but when Ed, in the back room, overhears, he’s quick to remember that I’m from out of town and move my adjustments up on Luigi’s list so they can be done the same day. The store is there to serve me – not just to generate revenue from me.

I have been in other upscale clothing stores where I knew, from the early moments, that the person serving me was glancing with disdain at my well-worn walking shoes, or my somewhat ill-fitting shirt, and making conclusions about my ability to pay their prices or to discern the quality of their wares. They do their quick ‘size-up’ of me the customer and I do a quick size-up of them and soon we part ways. I have no need to prove my worthiness as a customer at any store.

At Ed’s shop, I don’t doubt that the owner and staff also assess each customer’s economic status and clothing style. But my sense is that they do so with an honest focus on finding something that works for the customer. On my most recent visit, I was trying on a few sport jackets and quite liked one but blanched when I peeked at the price tag, so I set it aside. Ed must have noticed and, moments later, without a word about price, had brought out a similar jacket at half the price. His goal was to make me feel and look good. He succeeded.

The small business lesson, to me, is that it really is all about making that customer feel special. Creating that ‘celebrity’ experience, in one way or another. How does that translate to other types of business? Well, reflecting on this leads me to review how many consulting clients I have at any one time, for the simple reason that I want each one to feel that they are receiving ‘celebrity service.’ Every business can get busy, and get distracted with just completing jobs. I want clients of Grandview Consulting to feel that they receive special attention from us.

My experience at Ed Williams shows me how to do that. So after my brief time in his store, I came home with not only a suit and jacket but a valuable business lesson as well.

- Lorne Daniel, Managing Partner