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Firing on All Cylinders
by

Jim Clemmer
with Barry Sheehy
and Achieve International/Zenger-Miller Associates

Summary and Review:

I have read all books written by Jim Clemmer and I found business and personal wisdom in his books very good. Firing on All Cylinders is for Business. How to make sure the Business is working at its full potential? How to understand various cylinders of an organization and ensure all of them are going at full power is what the book is about. Book is full of quotes stated appropriately for each section. It is worth a read and implementing the ideas. As written on the cover it is THE service/quality system for High-powered corporate performance.

Following is a brief extract from the book. More links are available at the bottom

(Chapter 10): Section: Managing customer expectations:

• Be very careful of the promises you make or imply in your advertising, brochures, marketing and public relations activities.
• Ensure that your salespeople, schedulers, dispatchers, receptionists, order-desk staff, designers, or anyone in your organization who has contact with your customers are promising less than your organization can deliver
• Continually research and test your customers' expectations and the factors that most influence them
• Pay close attention to the expectations set for your products and services by their pricing levels
• Make it a personal and ultimately an organizational habit to promise a little and deliver a lot.
• Make sure everyone inside your organization is working flat out to close the expectations - reality gap with their internal customers so the chain of service/quality isn't weakened.
• Choose your dealers, distributors, and other organizational representatives carefully and stay close to them to ensure they are not overpromising
• Train your sales force and then make it a corporate strategy to go after only those market niches whose expectations match your delivery capabilities. All sales dollars are not equal. Some customers come with expectations that you can't meet or that will prove to be very expensive to your organization.
• Don't try to negotiate your customer's expectations downward. Not only will this become a lost improvement opportunity, but you also risk losing this customer to someone who can meet their expectations. Trying to lower expectations is too often done with internal or "captive" customers.
• Resist the temptation to pump up short-term sales or respond to a competitor's extravagant promises by inflating your sales and marketing claims. In time (and much quicker than it used to be) your customers will learn the truth and take revenge in painful monetary ways.

You can read table of contents and chapter summaries for each chapter here

Book Review: Growing the distance