adminrunning a very successful haulage business in Ruwa near Harare.
He told me that this entrepreneur (Kashaya) started his business by transporting people and goods across Mucheke River using his wooden home-made canoe. Later on he used his savings to purchase a non-runner Peugeot 404 which enabled him to go into emergency taxi business.
He worked tirelessly until he launched his haulage business. Regardless of his wealth and success he still comes to Mucheke to repair the canoe which he has donated to the community and to mingle with some of his old customers.
He said: “Muzukuru utondere kusapisa zambuko kana wayambuka. (Don’t burn the bridge after crossing).”
This success story gave me time to reflect on how we treat our customers after attaining success. Whichever way one looks at it, success comes from our customers. The thorny issue is how do we repay them after achieving our desired destination?
Do we treat them with respect or we dump them like used tissues? Sometimes we are very quick to praise ourselves on our success and forget to acknowledge people who were instrumental in making us what we are today.
We are in most cases tempted to dump people who supported us to achieve milestones in our lives.
Most businessmen tend to forget that the Zambezi River is a big river because of very small streams that flow into it. Without these seemingly small streams, there will be no Zambezi River.
No matter how big Zambezi is, if the small streams which flow into Zambezi are diverted for some reason Zambezi will cease to be a big river.
One big temptation that comes with success is that of thinking in terms of people within our social standing forgetting those who supported you to attain that social standing.
In any case people of your current social standing are more of competitors than customers or advocates. They assist you in stretching your ego trips than enable you to expand your business empire.
Why most businessmen burn bridges
In our culture we say, “Usapunyutse chawakabata nekuda kuombera. (Do not lose what you are holding because you want to clap).”
However, this is exactly what most businessmen do when they attempt to grow their businesses through either related or unrelated diversification.
This is better explained by the challenges a senior wife faces when her husband marries a “younger and more exciting” wife.
Most husbands tend to shift focus to the “newer and more exciting” younger wife at the expense of the older wives.
Not all polygamists do this intentionally but with every new wife one acquires, there is need for more time investment in getting to know and understand the new wife.
This inevitably disrupts the existing peace and tranquillity with the existing one.
One crucial relationship bonding attribute one loses when he is involved in polygamous relationships is the willingness to listen to the original wife. Similarly, when companies diversify the original bond between the business and the customers tends to break as soon as it demonstrates that it no longer listens to them.
Most polygamous relationships are run using cohesive powers instead of consensus. Most polygamists are individual-oriented instead of family-oriented.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with diversification since it helps companies to spread their risks by hedging with either related our unrelated businesses.
Diversification takes entrepreneurs through a new learning curve with no specific learning deadlines as to when they will be able to satisfy the needs and wants of the new customers.
The longer it takes to understand the new customer, may result in shift of focus from old customer to the new customers only.
Similarly, when one becomes a polygamist, the focus of the man might be on the new wife at the expense of the older one who helped him to become what he is.
One sad story about most diversification failures is that most diversifiers tend to ignore their original markets for newer ones.
Most business people always want to impress new customers at the expense of the older ones who are “boring and uninspiring”.
True old customers seems to be “uninspiring” to non-dynamic companies who do not innovate well enough to be in sync with customers “maturity”.
Customers are not abandoned because they are in the growth or decline stage in the life cycle of the business relationships but the businessman must find ways of rejuvenating such a relationship.
This is a common human error of judgment of thinking that they have competencies to solve customer needs of a market they don’t quite understand at the expense of the market they understand.
The cornerstone of customer care is “loving your neighbour as you love yourself”.
Love is not only extended during “crossing the river” but even after crossing the river.
The importance of a bridge to people who cross the river is as important as customers are to any business entity.
The writer is a Managing Consultant at CLC Training International. E-mail [email protected]
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