Do you have good business habits?
Would the top business leaders emulate you?
“Continuous, unflagging effort, persistence and determination will win. Let not the man be discouraged who has these.” (James Whitcomb Riley)
THE PURPOSE OF A BUSINESS
What is the purpose of a business? In today’s world much has been made of success and money which are byproducts of serving your customer.
Some people say that it is to “make a profit.”
However, Peter Drucker the famous management consultant says that…
“The purpose of a business is to create and keep a customer.” All profits are a result of creating and keeping a sufficient number of customers and serving them in a profitable manner.
The most important habit you can develop for business success is the habit of thinking about your customers all the time. The aim of all business activities is customer satisfaction. Businesses succeed and grow because they satisfy their customers better than their competitors. Businesses shrink and decline because they fail to satisfy their customers with the products and services they want, at prices they are willing to pay.
To be sure that you are doing the right things, one of the most important questions you ever ask is, “What does my customer consider value?”
1. THE POWER OF CLARITY
Perhaps the most important word in business and personal success is the word “clarity.”
In today’s noisy world that takes you from one shiny object to another. You must be absolutely clear about who you are as a person, and what you are trying to do or accomplish in your business or work. You must develop the habit of thinking carefully about every detail of your business life, and then take the time to achieve absolute clarity in several different areas.
Begin with your vision.
What is your vision for your ideal business future? If you could make your business perfect in every way, what would it look like?
Without a vision, you and your followers will lose their enthusiasm and commitment and simply go
through the motions of operating the business day by day. We all need an uplifting and inspiring vision for yourself and your life, you also need a vision for your business.
Make it a habit to daily to continually define and hone your clarity.
2. A MISSION
What is your mission for you and your business?
A mission is always defined in terms of what you want to accomplish with your business for your customers. A mission always contains a measure of some kind, that you can use to determine whether or not your mission has been completed.
Mission Statement – FedEx will produce superior financial returns for shareowners by providing high value-added supply chain, transportation, business and related information services through focused operating companies. Customer requirements will be met in the highest quality manner appropriate to each market segment served. FedEx will strive to develop mutually rewarding relationships with its employees, partners and suppliers. Safety will be the first consideration in all operations. Corporate activities will be conducted to the highest ethical and professional standards.
With a mission like this, strategic planning, marketing and sales, policies and procedures, all have a central focus that make it much more likely that this mission will be accomplished.
What is your mission for your business and your customers?
3. PLANNING
The first requirement for business success is the habit of planning. The better, more thoroughly and more detailed that you plan your activities in advance, the faster and easier it will be for you to carry out your plans and get the results you desire once you start to work.
For example: Planning your Social Media Marketing is lacking for most businesses. Most just post to post without any planning or strategy involved. Sadly most will fail to move the needle.
Will things speed up in the future or slow down?
There is a “Six P” acronym that says, “Proper Prior Planning Prevents Poor Performance.” Very often, the first 20% of the time that you spend developing complete plans will save you 80% of the time later in achieving the business goals that you have set.
To plan better, develop the habit of asking and answering the following questions:
- Who exactly is my customer?
- Why does my customer buy?
- What exactly is my product or service?
- What does my customer consider value?
- What is it that makes my product or service superior to that of any of my competitors?
- Why is it that my prospective customer does not buy?
- Why does my prospective customer buy from my competitor?
- What value does he/she perceive in buying from my competitor?
- How can I offset that perception and get my competitor’s customers to buy from me?
- What one thing must my customer be convinced of to buy from me, rather than from someone else?
Once you have asked and answered these questions, the next stage of planning is for you to set specific targets for sales and profitability. You must determine the exact:
- People
- Money
- Social Media Advertising
- Social Media Marketing
- Distribution
- Administration and service people and facilities you will require in order to achieve your goals.
The more thoroughly you plan out each stage of your business activities, before you begin, the greater will be the probability that you will succeed once you commence operations.
4. INSPECT WHAT YOU EXPECT
Develop the habit of proper supervision.
You must set up a system to monitor the task and make sure that it is being done as agreed upon. The rule is, “inspect what you expect.”
Once you have delegated a task to the right person in the right way, it is essential that you monitor
the performance of the task, and make sure that it is done on schedule, and to the required level of quality.
Remember, delegation is not abdication. Do you like surprises? You are still responsible for the ultimate results of the delegated tasks. You must stay on top of it.
When you have delegated a task, set up a system of reporting so that you are always informed as to the status of the work. Be sure that the other person knows what is to be done, and when, and to what standard. Your job is then to make sure that he or she has the time and resources necessary to get the job done satisfactorily. It’s important to be supportive and remove hurdles in helping them complete the task successfully.
The more important the job, the more often you should check on progress.
5. WHAT GETS MEASURED GETS DONE
Successful entrepreneurs and executives develop the habit of measuring performance. How do you know if you are winning or losing?
You must set specific, measurable standards and score cards for the results that you require. You have to set specific time lines and deadlines to make sure that you “make your numbers” on schedule.
Everyone who is expected to carry out a task must know with complete clarity the targets that he or she is aiming at, how successful performance will be measured, and when the expected results are due.
What are the goals and objectives for you and your business?
Jim Collins, in his book, From Good To Great, refers to the importance of selecting the “economic denominator” for a company, and for individual goals and objectives within that company. Whichever number you choose, it must be clear to everyone, and it must be monitored continually to make sure that everyone is on track.
6. NEVER BE SATISFIED
There is an old saying, “He who rests on his laurels will get knocked on rear!”
Develop the habit of continuous innovation. You should encourage everyone to be thinking creatively all the time. Innovation is what drives our economy, and the SPEED OF CHANGE is accelerating. Daily we must battle “THE COMFORT ZONE.”
One way to encourage creativity is to ask each person to bring an idea to each weekly staff meeting. Start off the meeting by going around the table and having everyone contribute their ideas. Lead the general discussion about these ideas.
When someone comes up with a great idea, lead the group in applause for the idea. Thank and congratulate the person. Encourage them to keep thinking in this way throughout the week.
The most important area for you to apply the habit of continuous innovation is to your products and services. One of the best examples is Facebook constantly marketing and innovating almost daily. As annoying and frustrating as it is, they develop some pretty good social media tools for business. Not all succeed, but that doesn’t stop them from innovating.
Remember, fully 80% of products and services being sold today will be obsolete within five years.
“If you don’t like Change, you’ll like Irrelevance even more.”
You must be developing and producing product and service innovations as a regular part of your business activities. If you don’t, your competitors will. One major innovation by a determined competitor can put you out of business.
Be a leader, not a follower.
Think ahead and look at different ways that you can organize and reorganize your business to do things better, faster and cheaper for your competitors. Think of new products and services that you can offer.
Think of new markets that you can enter.
Think of different ways that you can offset advantages enjoyed by your competitors. Think of different ways that you could dominate your markets. The more you dedicate yourself to generating ideas, the more and better ideas you will come up with.
7. ABL- ALWAYS BE LEARNING
My father taught me the day you stop learning is the day you die. He believed and lived that up until his last breath.
Whatever you want to learn, become a student. Find all the information you can, absorb it like a sponge. Filter out the good from the bad, and apply it in your daily life.
Learning for learning sake is fine for academics or people with lots of time on their hands, but as a busy achiever your learning needs to have purpose. Understanding the need will help you assess how much and how fast you need to learn something. When you start out to learn a new skill set or master new knowledge, envision what you will do with it. Get a very clear mental picture of how it will change the way you work and live. Taking a language class? See yourself conversing with a new client in a foreign country. Training on new software? Picture the problem you’ll solve with it and how it will streamline activity. Successful learners identify the objective at the start, and create a strong, emotionally compelling vision of what will happen when they reach that objective.
Action Exercises:
1. Determine the most important thing you could do immediately to increase the probabilities that you successfully achieve your most important business goal, and then take action on it immediately.
2. Create an ideal future vision for your business and your career; if your situation were perfect 3-5 years from now, what would it look like?
3. What is the most important difference or improvement you make in the life and work of your customers, and how could you do this in an excellent fashion?
4. What is your greatest personal strength in your business, and how could you organize your time so that you are doing more of it?
5. What is your biggest weakness in your business, and how could you develop yourself in this area, or compensate for it?
6. What innovations could you make in your products or services that would make them more attractive to your customers of today and tomorrow?
7. What are your most profitable products, services, markets, customers and activities, and what steps could you take immediately to focus more of your resources in those areas?
8. What are some of the new skills you would like to learn? How will you apply those in everyday life and business?
What habits do you feel you need to be successful?
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About Blair
Blair Evan Ball is a Social Media Coach and founder of Prepare1, a company that works with businesses, individuals and non-profits. He is a former executive with a Fortune 50 company, and his national division did $1Billion+ in sales annually.
Blair has written three e-books: Facebook for Business Made Easy, Facebook Pages for Business Made Easy, and WordPress Blog Setup Made Easy.
Blair also educates, trains entrepreneurs and business professionals how to amplify their brand, increase revenues, and raise more funds.
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