Why are those who improve so strong?

"Maybe it's impossible now..."

If I were to put his dejected feelings at that time into words,

"No matter how many times I try, the results never change."

I think that is what he would say.

This is a story shared by a participant at one of our business seminars.

He was a 42-year-old owner of a small printing company.

He had been selling the same product for 10 years. It used to sell well in the past.

However, orders have been steadily declining recently.

He revamped his website. He ran advertisements. He even started using social media.

Even so, sales did not recover.

It happened one day when he visited a long-time client.

The president said quietly,

"Your company's product isn't bad. But it's the same as it was 10 years ago."

Those words pierced his heart.

In the car on the way home, he couldn't say a word.

He had worked hard. He had worked harder than anyone else. Yet, why wasn't it going well?

A few days later, he spoke with a young business owner sitting next to him at the seminar.

That person's company had been increasing its sales little by little every year.

"Are you doing something special?"

When he asked that, the young business owner smiled and replied.

I don't do anything special. I just change one thing every month.

Change one line of the product description. Change one photo. Change one question asked to the customer.

That is all. But he says he does it without fail every month.

He was surprised.

He had only been thinking about major reforms.

Create new products. Increase advertising. Change everything at once.

However, he had never accumulated small improvements.

His true goal was not to make the company big. It was to remain a company that customers would continue to need 10 years from now.

Let us consider the choice behavior of Japanese people here.

People seem to choose an amazing company now, but in reality, it is a little different. They feel secure with a company that seems like it will continue to get better.

They feel more trust in someone who is trying to improve, even if only a little, than in someone who repeats the same thing as yesterday.

The reason people who improve are strong is not because they have high ability. It is because they can change themselves to match the changes.

If they fail, they change a little next time. If they succeed, they make it a little better.

That accumulation creates a sense of security in those around them. And that sense of security gathers people and gathers work.

The lesson was,

People choose people they can feel secure with.

that was it.

After that, he decided to improve just one thing every month.

Change the product description. Change the way of contacting customers. Change the way of writing estimates.

He stopped doing major reforms.

One year later.

Sales did not suddenly skyrocket. However, the customers who had been steadily leaving began to return. And new referrals also increased.

He reportedly received these words from a customer.

"Your company gets a little better every time I come here."

He says that those words made him happier than anything else.

People are not chosen because they are perfect. They find comfort in the sight of someone trying to be even a little better than they were yesterday, and that comfort turns into trust.

This event has been accumulated as new improvement know-how in our business seminars.