Benchmarking

I want to talk about benchmarking.  I do a brief segment about this in some of my speeches and I’ve written several short articles that include this topic.  I read one of them today and felt it was worth giving some thought to.

I am an advocate of benchmarking.  Most people feel that benchmarking is comparing to others.  Think about doing this.  Find out what others are doing right, but don’t compare or try to copy them.  Use their excellence as a starting point.  Figure out how to do it better – improve on their greatness.

When a person or company benchmarks they are usually looking at a company within their industry.  Great, but there is more.  What are the companies and people outside of your industry doing?  Find out what they do best and figure out how to incorporate these ideas into your own business strategies.  Then try to improve on them.

The bottom line is that benchmarking is a starting point.

Finally, an appropriate quote.  Here it is…

“We are what we repeatedly do.  Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.”
–  Aristotle

Be excellent!

Shep Hyken is a customer service/CX expert, award-winning keynote speaker, and New York Times bestselling author. Learn more about Shep’s customer service and customer experience keynote speeches and his customer service training workshops at www.Hyken.com. Connect with Shep on LinkedIn.

(Copyright ©MMXII, Shep Hyken)