CPPL harps on business strategies to drive growth, profitability

Not deterred by the pre-election mood of Nigeria, Customer Passion Point Limited (CPPL) recently held the March edition of its monthly training programme for small and medium business owners and personnel. Despite the apprehension preceding the general elections, the programme had more businesses and their core staff attending compared with previous editions.

Ikechukwu Kalu, lead consultant/facilitator of the training, was impressed at the quality of attendance and discussions, saying “the CPPL Monthly Training Programme has become a must for Nigerian businesses that see themselves as forward-looking. It is not just about learning skills, but getting the burst of motivation required to excel in the prevailling business environment.’’

According to Kalu, “the highpoint of the March training was the discussion on the essentials for business growth. These are concepts that border on the content of our marketing plan, capacity to implement excellently and the ability to ensure that there is a strong invitation in our communication. “Also critical is leadership – the business must be driven by someone who knows what he or she wants to achieve and is prepared to selflessly pursue it. Other factors are technology (and innovation) and a ‘value creation’ mindset that runs across the business.”

To buttress his thoughts, he said “one of the main goals of any business should be for the customer to say ‘Wow, how did you do that?’ This should come through in the way customers perceive your service, pricing and distribution. Customers must have the general feeling of ‘they know what they are doing.’ We must make our customers scratch their heads in wonder about something every day, week, month or year of their interaction with us irrespective of the touch point.

“Communication is extremely important. It’s the totality of the invitation we make to our customers. Each invitation must be unique and personal every time. The more unique and personal our invitation becomes the better the chance of receiving quality response. We must desist from message blasts and avoid being perceived as treating everyone the same way. Message automation is good and helpful to geting more done but it should be implemented with some creativity that makes the customer feel important. We must understand the need to ‘hit the nail on the head’ in trying to court the customer.’’

He went further to say that, “a leader must have skill and will. Without a leader in place who can, and will do everything to ensure success, any business will flounder. If a business is being managed by someone who struggles to keep up with the current business volume and flow, how will that same person have the ability to grow or double the value of the business over the next two to three years?’’

The CPPL is a firm of value creation consultants registered and operating in Nigeria and Tanzania, and focusing on partnering with SMEs, entrepreneurs and large organisations that do not have capacity in-house, for strategy development and execution, to create value for their stakeholders in a consistent manner. These they achieve by leveraging expertise in marketing, communication and training.