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Category: Personal Development

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Entrepreneurship Management Marketing Personal Development

5 Things to Avoid Startup Failure

We’ve all seen the depressing stats – over 50% of startups fail within the first 4 years.  This need not happen!  Businesses are launched for a variety of reasons – some are well thought out strategic launches while others are out of necessity when job prospects dry up.  There are many reasons for startup failures; but if you can avoid these 5 key ones, your chances of success go way up.

Product – Market Mismatch

As the chart below demonstrates, the #1 reason why companies dissolve is that they are producing and marketing a product no one wants.  Although this seems somewhat obvious in retrospect, many founders get an idea and accumulate enough funds to launch and work on perfecting their product for extended periods (burning through capital along the way) only to discover that there is no market for their product.  In essence, they have a solution in search of a problem.

The way to avoid this problem is to test the market as soon as possible. Many startups are scrapping the lengthy business plan in favor of a more dynamic approach. One of the key tenants of the Lean Startup Approach centers on creating a minimally acceptable prototype that is then market tested with real potential clients.  Based on customer feedback, the product is adjusted and then retested.

Lack of Funding

Even for those founders who are fortunate enough to obtain some funding, there can be a short runway until the money runs out.  Startups need to develop a summary of all expected startup expenses as well as ongoing monthly expenses….leave nothing out.  A cash flow budget will quickly reveal the burn rate of the business and (in the absence of revenue) how long their funds will last.  This will help founders plan how to allocate their limited resources.  In many ways startups are a race against time – not only to avoid running out of money, but also to stay ahead of potential new competitive entrants who may also be working on the same problem.

Founder Team

Founders may start out as solopreneurs, but soon will outgrow that and need additional expertise and support.  The key potential disruptors here are personalities that don’t mesh and lack of a common vision.  The best founder teams are those that knew each other before joining the company – the longer the better.  As founders add additional personnel, there is a dangerous tendency of hiring quickly to “just get it done” and get some help.  Hiring the wrong people can destroy a startup.  If the new addition is a poor fit with the rest of the team or if they don’t share the same sense of mission this can spell significant trouble. The result will be stress within the team and some loss of momentum.  Startups cannot afford to lose time or momentum.

Founders tend to have a view that they must do everything themselves to be sure it’s done right.  As the business grows, this must stop.  Founders are now leading the company – they need to learn to delegate whether to freelancers or fulltime employees.  Leadership involves focusing on what you do best and letting others do the rest.  Trust but verify is a workable approach.

“It doesn’t make sense to hire smart people and then tell them what to do; We hire smart people so they can tell us what to do.”

~Steve Jobs

Lack of a Business Plan

Business Plans are not just for Angel Investors or Venture Capitalist.  They keep the management team focused and moving in the agreed upon direction.  The key elements include a mission statement along with the Unique Selling Proposition (USP).  A detailed summary of the competition along with marketing and business development activities is also essential.  Every member of the founder’s team must be part of the process to assure buy-in on all goals.  In addition, the cash flow budgets fits into this process to assure the founder that the burn rate is not too high.  The danger is that funds will run out before the product is fully developed and sales have begun.

Lack of Brand Development

Successful startups need a defined repeatable sales process.  But first they must get their brand noticed in the marketplace.  Once the founder team has developed their Unique Selling Proposition; it needs to be conveyed to potential customers.  Social media can be a big help.  A solid website which includes a call to action and a way for prospective customers to ask questions has become table stakes for all businesses.  Well-crafted informational articles distributed on Twitter and LinkedIn can also reinforce the brand.  This is a slow burn approach, as social media cannot produce results over night. The drumbeat message should always include what specific problem the product is solving.

Final Thoughts

Starting and running a business is hard work and it may seem that success is a low probability outcome.  But with planning and focused execution, a positive outcome is much more likely.  It is also best not to go it alone.  Seek the advice of professionals – CPAs, and attorneys along with a business mentor or coach will help the founder keep out of trouble and protect their franchise.

Kevin FitzGerald is the founder of KevinBizGobal and a C-Suite Network Advisor working with entrepreneurs and business leaders from startup to international expansion.

Kevin has over 20 years of managerial/consulting experience across a wide range of industries including Financial Services, Pharmaceuticals, Tech and MedTech. Key services include: Lean Startup Advice, Business Plan and Pitch Deck Preparation.  For larger SMEs who are ready to scale internationally – go to market strategies with strategic alliances primarily in the US, Ireland, and the UK.

Kevin’s education includes an MBA from the Stern Business School at New York University and a BA with honors in Economics from Drew University.

Contact Kevin:  kevin@kevinbizglobal.com

Specialties: #startup #startups #entrepreneur #entrepreneurs #businessplans #pitchdeck #pitchdecks #scaleup #InternationalExpansion #CSuite

Categories
Growth Leadership Personal Development Technology

Check Your Email Please

As part of my social media advisory business I send out a monthly newsletter.  This month I noticed something as I reviewed my mailing list.  I was surprised to find dozens of people on my list that still have old school mailing addresses.  We are talking AOL, Hotmail and others.   Not only do some of these people possess these addresses, but they publicly display them on professional social networking sites, such as LinkedIn, as well as their business websites.

First impressions matter, and often people’s first impression of you is via Email, or a display of your email address.  The first impression these folks are giving is that I am older and not very technologically savvy.  In a business world where digital is everything, and ageism is rampant, this is the last impression you should give.

The movie “You’ve Got Mail” came out in 1998, near the peak of AOL’s business, which steadily declined in the new millennium.  Ten years later, articles started appearing about how old-fashioned AOL users were. Now, 20 years later, why are folks still using these outdated addresses?  I asked a few of my subscribers, and here is a sampling of their response.

“I didn’t think it really mattered.”  I wish it didn’t, but it does!  Another common response included “inertia.” One person told me “Warren Buffett doesn’t even have an Email address!”  Yes, but Warren Buffett became one of the richest men in the world BEFORE email was even invented.

Lastly, some said “my current AOL (or Hotmail) account is established with my friends, family and business associates.  I don’t want to lose those contacts.” This is a fair, but manageable concern.  No-one wants to disrupt connections unnecessarily.     But you can keep the same address for current contacts while presenting a contemporary one for new ones.

AOL users can set up a Gmail account that forwards messages from your AOL address to your new Gmail account.  Old friends and colleagues don’t have to change addresses, while you look contemporary to new people.  Hotmail users can do something similar with more contemporary Outlook addresses.

If you have an AOL or Hotmail Email address, it is time to come into the 21st century.  A contemporary e-mail address will improve the impression that you make with new friends and colleagues.

Now, can we talk about that MySpace account?

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Marketing Personal Development Technology

Give Me Another Dollop of That AI

You can be forgiven if the way we talk about Artificial Intelligence makes you think you can order it up like a scoop of ice cream. It seems that way because we constantly read that:

  • AI solves all our problems
  • AI experts cost an arm and a leg
  • AI analyzes data than any person can
  • AI will make us all unemployed

While each of these statements might turn out to be true (well, we hope the last one is wrong), they all suffer from the same problem. They act as though all AI is the same. That all AI is one monolithic thing that can be added to any system if you just have enough money.

It’s not true.

First off, there are many different kinds of AI applications and they require different techniques. Voice recognition is not the same as text analytics is not the same as optimizing search results. These applications are different from each other and they use different techniques to perform their “magic.” Most of them use multiple AI techniques. And they usually depend on the existence of data.

I have been phoned up by more than one expectant client who wants to solve this problem or that problem with AI. Often, that is perfectly reasonable, but just as often I have to tell them they need to take several steps first. Often, they need to set up a standard process that collects data in a standard way so that the AI techniques have something to work with. Luckily, even taking these initial steps has business value, if you do it right, so the clients are usually easily persuaded to move forward.

Wanting to use AI is not a problem. Forward-looking organizations are always pushing the envelope and AI is just the latest way to do it. But let’s make sure that we are getting the business value we expect and that we are ready to take the preliminary steps to get there. We shouldn’t make AI a problem looking for a solution.

Categories
Growth Management Operations Personal Development

Do You Know the Lifetime Value of Your Customers?

I read a surprising statistic. It said that four in 10 senior executives in large companies don’t know the lifetime value of their customers. According to MarketingCharts, Forbes and Sitecore conducted a study of 312 senior executives in North American companies and learned that not only did they not know the financial value of their customers, more than half had no plans to find out. Basically, they don’t understand the significance of this important number – or they don’t care.

There is so much wrong with this. If these leaders don’t know their customers’ value, how can they expect their employees to understand it? Employees need to know the lifetime value of the customer in order to make proper customer-focused decisions.

To understand this better, let’s look at a simple example. Everyone goes to the grocery store to buy food and other staples, and studies show that the average customer spends $80-200 at the grocery store each week. Let’s just say an average customer will spend $100 a week. Even if you eliminate a couple of weeks per year, assuming that the customer is away or on vacation, that still leaves 50 weeks, which multiplied by $100 is $5,000 each year. But we’re looking at an even bigger picture – the lifetime value.

Another statistic figures into this, which is that the average family moves about every seven years. So, assuming that with each move they shop at a new grocery store, one family is worth about $35,000 over the course of seven years. How does it help to know all this? Imagine that a customer complains about a carton of spoiled milk. Knowing that their true worth is $35,000, would you hesitate in refunding their money for the milk? Of course not!

Here are some steps to understanding and applying a customer’s lifetime value:

1. Calculate: Determine the lifetime value of the customer. A simplified formula would be as follows: How much the average customer spends per transaction x the number of transactions per year x How many years they do business with you.

2. Communicate: Share this information with employees so they can make better decisions.

3. Demonstrate: Give specific examples of the kinds of decisions they can make such as refunds, exchanges, upgrades and more.

4. Recognize: Show your approval and appreciation when employees make good decisions.

5. Teach: Conversely, if an employee makes a bad decision, kindly instruct the employee about the right course of action and coach him or her about how to handle the situation the next time.

6. Share: Tell the story. Share good and bad examples of decision-making based on the lifetime value of the customer. Look at it as part of your employees’ ongoing training.

In short, knowing the value of a customer makes sense. If you manage interactions with your customers while keeping their lifetime value in mind, you will make the most of each and every interaction.

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Accounting Best Practices Body Language Economics Entrepreneurship Human Resources Investing Management Marketing Negotiations News and Politics Women In Business

Do You Know the Hidden Secrets of Good Negotiators?

“Good negotiators know negotiation secrets that allow them to be good. To become better when negotiating, learn the secrets that good negotiators know” -Greg Williams, The Master Negotiator & Body Language Expert

Good negotiators know a wide range of hidden negotiation secrets, when to use them, and which ones to use in their repertoire of secrets when negotiating. That’s one of the things that distinguishes good negotiators from not so good negotiators.

So, what are some of the hidden secrets that good negotiators use? The following are a few of those hidden secrets. Using them will give you an advantage in your negotiations.

Reading Body Language:

Being adept, when it comes to accurately reading the other negotiator’s body language, will give you insight into his train of thought, and an edge in the negotiation. As one example, if face-to-face, note the consistency with which his eyes move when assessing information to questions you pose. If you pose questions that he should have to call on by referencing past occurrences, note the direction he looks in to obtain that information. When that pattern breaks, note it, along with the question that caused it to occur. They’ll be insightful information that you can use in that action.

Know What’s Really Important:

If you’re attempting to successfully entice a venture capitalist to invest in your business, you should know the main question she has about the potential investment is, will I make a decent return on my money and how long might it take to do so? The question is important to keep in mind because it’ll be the answer to that question that will determine what motivates her and what it will take to keep her engaged with you.

Throughout any negotiation, know the main points that will keep a negotiator engaged and determine how you’re going to use that information throughout the negotiation.

Emotions/Hot-buttons:

Always attempt to control emotions when negotiating. Emotions add an extra dimension to what is said.

In controlling emotions, you should know the hot-buttons that will push you and the other negotiator from one point to another, per the state of mind you or he will possess once in that state; you should already be well aware of your own hot-buttons.

To gain insight into the other negotiator’s hot-buttons, gather information beforehand about what ticks him off, and what makes him experience bliss. Then, during the negotiation, take note of his reactions when you push his buttons. If he doesn’t react the way you know he’s reacted in the past, you’ll gain insight into what he may be attempting to keep disclosed. If that’s the case, pick at that thing like a bad itch that begs to be scratched.

Good Listening Skills:

Good listening skills encompass not just listening to what’s said, but also listening for what’s omitted, the word choice used, and the way such words are conveyed; we’ve all heard a statement that sounded like a question. Unless you intentionally mean to pose a statement as a question, don’t do it. Also, note when the other negotiator sends hidden meanings inside of his verbal messages; it may mean he’s unsure of what he’s saying, or that he wants you to believe he’s unsure. Probing will uncover his intent.

When momentum is on your side, accelerate the negotiation. When you’re on the defense, slow the negotiation down. It’s the little strategies that you utilize in a negotiation that will pay the biggest dividends. Thus, when negotiating, don’t take small things for granted. It’s the implementation of small things, such as what’s mentioned above, that will allow you to accomplish bigger outcomes in your negotiation. Master those things … and everything will be right with the world.

 

After reading this article, what are you thinking? I’d really like to know. Reach me at Greg@TheMasterNegotiator.com

To receive Greg’s free 5-minute video on reading body language or to sign up for the “Negotiation Tip of the Week” and the “Sunday Negotiation Insight” click here http://www.themasternegotiator.com/greg-williams/

Remember, you’re always negotiating.

#HowToNegotiateBetter #CSuite #TheMasterNegotiator #HiddenSecrets

#psychology

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Best Practices Growth Management Personal Development Technology

Compliance – Is It Really Such a Bad Word?

Does the word compliance make your skin crawl, send shivers down your spin, and make you want to run for the hills? It seems to do that to everyone I talk to, and therefore, I want to change the story and tell you why compliance, when viewed through a different filter can be the catalyst your organization needs in order improve its security posture.

There are so many compliance regulations, both government-mandated and industry-mandated, it is hard to find an organization that does not have at least one acronym they have to be complaint with. Whether it is HIPAA, PCI, FFIEC, FEDramp, DIACAP, NIST-171, GLBA, NYCRR 500, FISMA, SOX, GDPR, etc., there is a better-than-good chance you are on the hook for at least one of them. And why has this happened? It’s because when left to their own devices, organizations in just about every industry are not taking security seriously and data breaches continue to get bigger and bigger, affecting more people, costing millions and billions of dollars. Depending on the industry even putting lives in danger.

Some of these regulations can literally put you out of business if you fail to comply and even with that threat people call me saying they need to be compliant in the next three weeks. Instead of creating and maintaining an ongoing compliance program they say what do I need to do to be compliant and avoid the fine? Oh yeah, and it needs to be done in the next three weeks.” They are looking to meet the bare minimum standard, check a box and move on and that is when compliance feels dirty and doesn’t solve the problems it was setup to solve.

The reason compliance feels like a four letter word and makes most people cringe is the way that it is commonly handled.

Smaller organizations often don’t have the staff to properly secure their networks and data and have often outsourced everything technology related to a third party vendor. They are in “fire and forget” mode, meaning that as long as the systems are running and nothing strange happens, they figure everything is fine and they don’t discuss security or compliance with their vendor. The challenge with this model is that security is being left up to a third party and unless you are paying extra for a secure solution, most of the time the vendor is not providing much if any security solutions. It’s only when the organization finds themselves on the hook for compliance that they start asking their vendor the security questions they should have been asking from day one. As a result the compliance requirement helps drive their security going forward. If you are a small business who has outsourced your IT to a third party, I strongly recommend having the security conversation early in the relationship, preferably before hiring them.

Even large organizations who have a security team and a large IT department do not approach security in a systematic or strategic way and they also get complacent. The mentality from executive leadership seems to be that as long as everything is working and they don’t hear of any problems, then everything is okay and they don’t have to spend money on security. But is it okay? There are reports that indicate 50% of organizations will fall victim to some sort of breach and only half of those organizations will even realize it. As we often say in the security business, it’s not about if you are breached; it’s about when and whether you will even know about it or be able to respond. It is compliance for these organizations that is often how security teams and technology groups are able to get the budget they need for security.

Regardless of the size of your organization or the industry you are in, when compliance is viewed as an annual audit, which is how many people view it, and someone in the IT department or worse in the Finance department is told they are responsible for ensuring the compliance work is done on time in order to avoid any fines or penalties, it leaves a bad taste in everyone’s mouth. This type of attitude results in everyone spending the next two months working around the clock to validate compliance and do their day job.

Once you realize that compliance is never an annual audit or a one-and-done effort; rather it is an ongoing program that has to be built into daily operational procedures it can stop feeling like a fire you have to keep putting out. During the process of ongoing compliance you are improving the security and longevity of your organization and protecting in some cases the health and livelihood of your customers.

Of course post-breach remediation lights a fire under everyone’s ass to get their security up to par, and as such it’s as compelling a motivator as you can get, but it’s also the worst possible motivator to face and why compliance should be seen as a good thing rather than a bad word. Not only does compliance provide the necessary budget and attention you need for your organization, it provides a systematic approach that can make implementing security more manageable so that you don’t have to face the post-breach clean-up, lawsuits, brand damage, etc.

When the story changes and compliance is viewed as a business driver, something that leads to a better competitive advantage, and everyone’s responsibility, it does not have to be so hard or “dirty.” When you have the right resources, whether internal or external, to help you set it up correctly from the start, teach the organization what it means, why it’s important, and why their role matters, it become manageable.

If  you are in business to stay in business and grow, security matters, and you will want to embrace compliance as a driver. As a consultant in this arena I work with a lot of clients where I come out knowing that they have made a real difference in their security posture and their future growth.

If you have questions about compliance or want to discuss strategies for making it easier, email sharon@c-suiteresults.com. If you don’t have a security team and want more information on how Virtual CISO services work, which are designed to help small and medium size organizations maintain their security and compliance posture reach out so we can talk in more detail.

Categories
Growth Personal Development

5 Methods to Boost Your Brand’s Relationships in the New Year

At this time of year, your key players are considering making changes, changes that could positively or negatively affect you. What better time to recommit yourself to the people who keep your brand together, and prove that you have their best interests at heart? Let them know why and how much you appreciate them. Remind them how much time and resources you’ve saved them. Make sure they know you don’t take them for granted.

Who are your key players, anyway? Why are they so crucial to your brand? They are the ones who think they’ll get ahead when you get ahead—they’re your strategic allies. It’s in your mutual best interest to work closely, make allowances for one another, and ultimately enhance each other. Your commitment should be clear as day.

Your Suppliers. Let them know how you’ve improved your procedures and policies to be easier to work with, and how you’ve increased your business with them. Open up to them. Share your future plans, and show how they fit in with your goals, which will enrich your relationship. Make sure to thank them for any allowances they’ve made to cut your costs and risks. Consider a long-term relationship based on future deliverables and concessions. Let them know what’s necessary for you to increase your volume with them. Ask them how you can improve your communication and relationship.

Your People. Congratulate your staff on a job well done throughout the previous year. Validate their improvements, and inspire and empower them to do even better. Include them in your business’s challenges. Prove that they are crucial to your business’s development and success by asking for their thoughts and suggestions. They should feel like it’s their business, too. After all, your people are your company’s most valuable assets. Your success is apparent in how they improve their skills, how they achieve security, and, most obvious of all, their paychecks. Take the time to plan out the upcoming year and what it means to their jobs and your company as a whole. Make sure to let them know that you, their coworkers, and your customers depend on them.

Your Retailers. Present a business report that shows how well your products sold in their stores throughout the last year. Show them your rate of growth in the previous year. Remind them of any and all allowances, refunds, or returns they received. Prove your reliability and your promotion of sales in their stores. Reflect on your community fundraisers and in-store demonstrations in their territory, and how you’ve contributed to increasing sales in their stores. Thank them for displaying your products and make sure they know how important they are to you and their community.

Your Middlemen. Whether they’re brokers, distributors, or jobbers, they allow your product to be available in spots you can’t cover. Thank them for prioritizing you and your brand. Demonstrate how your sales grew and became more important to them. Share your plans for growth over the coming year and where they fit in. Prove you appreciate them by committing early in the year to have representatives work in their territories to promote your brand’s awareness.

Your Consumers. This is the perfect time to launch a customer loyalty program, increase value, and give discounts. Thank your consumers not just for purchasing your brand, but also for suggesting it to friends and family. Utilize this opportunity to reaffirm their purchases with marketing materials that show the growing popularity of your brand, and the improvements you’ve made. Find out which charitable causes they hold dear, and donate goods and services to them. Let them know that you’re a member of their community, giving them a social reason to choose your products.

You can make a great impression at this critical time and set the stage for the new year by replenishing your commitment to your key players. Remind them how much you mean to them, and appreciate how much they mean to you. Make sure they know you are there for them—now and in the upcoming year!

For more, read on: http://csnetworkadvis.staging.wpengine.com/advisor/michael-houlihan-and-bonnie-harvey/

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Entrepreneurship Management Personal Development Women In Business

Four Reasons to Get Ready to Scale Up as You Start Up

Scaling your business may seem like a long way off. After all, you have concepts to finish, prototypes to create and money to raise. Why worry about scaling now?

I am sure I can share many more than four reasons to start now and I don’t want to frighten you. I do hope to inspire you and galvanize you into taking the right actions to prepare for scaling up. Here they are:

1. The mistakes you make when you are small have a greater impact on your viability than they will when you are a big organization. In large companies mistakes may go unnoticed, but when you are starting out every decision you make counts. The people you bring on board, even for sweat equity, the strategy you set, and every dollar you spend must be carefully strategized.

2. Once you have hired members for your team, some of which may be your college roommates or your family members, it’s really hard to make them “available to industry” later. It’s great to hire your brother-in-law as CFO, yet at this stage you only need a bookkeeper and offering the lofty title of CFO will no doubt present a problem later. Now it could be that your brother in law will grow into that position but if he doesn’t, then how will you demote him without hard feelings? At 10 million you will need a different level of expertise.

3. If you don’t lay the right foundation, execution of your big idea may make your dream turn into a nightmare. Planning and executing while at the same time dealing with all the unknowns that crop up, is the biggest challenge in business. Execution is about turning your revenue into profit. In order to execute well the disciplines of setting priorities, measuring performance and a rhythm of the right kind of meetings is important and this degree of discipline is extremely rare. Developing and executing a strategy that is balanced in both growth and profitability is a difficult and necessary task.

4. Chances are you’ll run out of money and you have no time for those kinds of lessons. You only have so many resources. You may have borrowed money from friends and family, and the dream you shared encouraged them to open up their check books to you. They believe in you. And now you have to perform. You know the funds were not a gift. Every entrepreneur believes they have the next great technology, service or product to change the world. What do you need to do to validate your idea? Do it first. Don’t spend all your time on writing a lengthy business plan for Venture Capital firms. Instead write a one page plan outlining all the processes, people and actions to take. Then get out there and validate that your target market wants what you are creating. Otherwise you’ll burn cash and just as in the game of Monopoly, when you run out of cash, it’s game over. There is time for the perfect pitch deck and business plan once you have validation.

Actions to take: Review your plan quarterly. Treat each quarter as a 13 week race to accomplish the goals you set. Make sure your goals are SMART (Specific, Measurable, actionable and Time –Bound). Find a thought partner, a strategic thinking team, or a peer group. Don’t be afraid to ask for guidance. Look around you – who do you know that you can reach out to? Plan your scale up as you start up.

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Best Practices Human Resources Management Marketing Personal Development Women In Business

Join the Attention Revolution

Are you ready to join an ATTENTION REVOLUTION?

Are you ready to commit to paying attention to what matters most?

In today’s society, people everywhere are overwhelmed, overstressed and overtired. We receive information at a lightning-fast speed, challenging our ability to remain focused. As a result, I believe our society is suffering from an attention deficit crisis.

Research suggests our ability to remain focused is being undermined by social media, smartphones and other digital distractions. Many experts believe excessive use of technology is making us impatient, impulsive and forgetful. As a result, we spin our wheels staying busy while rarely making forward progress. We wear busy like it’s a badge of honor.

Attention has become the new currency as everyone and everything competes for more of it. Attention is EVERYTHING!

Did you know that according to the Information Overload Group, U.S. businesses lose $588B dollars (yep that’s billion) each year, from a lack of people paying attention! Imagine the success of your business if employees were able to tune out distractions, avoid interruptions and connect with the tasks that truly matter.

Now consider your personal life. How many times have you tuned out in conversation to check an alert on your smartphone? What about personal connections you missed because as you were reading emails after hours.

It’s time we become intentional with our attention and realize we have the power of choice. We can choose who and what gets our attention.

Intentional attention is about creating moments that MATTER. Here’s the caveat to that however: Intentional attention may mean reducing your social media time, putting away devices and noticing those around you, canceling unnecessary obligations and learning to say ‘no’ to others. While that may seem a little stressful – your life will be richer for it.

I promise, if you join my Attention Revolution, you will see:

  • Skyrocketing productivity,
  • Growth in relationships,
  • Boost to profits,
  • Extreme focus and clarity,
  • Targeted accountability; and
  • More time for what matters most to YOU!

Let’s join together to start a new trend, learn to channel our focus and accomplish more each day. I challenge you silence distractions, avoid interruptions and join the Attention Revolution today.

Categories
Best Practices Entrepreneurship Management Personal Development Women In Business

Core Ideologies: The Heart and Soul of Scale-Ups

Core ideologies are a crucial part of the foundation organizations are built upon. They consist of two essential components of strategic thinking: core values and your purpose for existing, or why. There is nothing more important to your success than the people you engage with. They can be members of your leadership team, your board, employees, investors, or vendors. It’s alignment with your core values and purpose that will allow you to build a profitable and sustainable organization.

Codify your core values

Laying the foundation for your business begins with two key activities: understanding and codifying the core values that guide your business and your purpose for existing. I am not talking about the list of values that may be on a plaque in your office. We all know that Enron had integrity listed in their core values. Core values are deeper than that. They are the activities and beliefs that you act on every day. They are the guide for hiring the right employees and firing those employees who do not live your values.

Core values are considered aspirational when they are how you wish everyone around you behaved. True core values are always supported by the stories you can tell to demonstrate what you mean by each of them. When you can tell stories about how someone in your company lives that value, you’ll know it’s a real core value. If you like what a value means but don’t have a single story to share – I would call that aspirational.

Trevor is the CEO of a company that distributes goods to big box retailers. As I watched him struggle with naming his core values I reminded him how I have witnessed over and over how he has demonstrated caring for his employees. He recently interviewed a sales rep he really wanted to hire. The rep asked permission to snap a picture of the core values and shared that it was the values that made his decision to join the team an easy one – he was aligned with their values!

Teams often get stuck on getting the words just right. It might take a while to fine tune the wording but don’t let that stop you. That can come later. One of my personal favorites is Make Mama Proud.  Your mama would hate to see you on the front page of the Wall Street Journal for some nefarious deed! Too bad Enron missed that one.

Action to take to make core values come alive:

As employees congratulate some act of kindness, perseverance, an amazing customer experience or anything else they admire, send an email to them to honor them. Don’t stop there. Create a little book of emails and as you onboard new employees share that book with them. Usually new employees are immediately given the employee handbook, not what makes your organization a fabulous place to work.

Ask Yourself: Would you enthusiastically rehire all your stakeholders?

In answering this question for yourself, evaluate those that live your core values and at the same time are highly productive. If they do not live your core values, make them available to industry (i.e. fire them). If they do, but fail to be highly productive, first ask yourself if they are clear on the expectations for their position. Then coach them to be productive. They are worth saving. At every stage of your growth it is important to reevaluate your people. Having the right people in the right seats doing the right things is the most important ingredient for success. You can have the best technology and the best strategy but without the right people you will not be sustainable.

The second Core Ideology: Your Why, Your Purpose for Existing

Why does your organization exist? We all know that the purpose of business is to make money but that is not the right answer. There is some reason the business was started. There is some reason that you wake up every morning and keep on keeping on. Starting and growing a business is not easy – some days you might wonder why you stick with it. That’s your why or purpose for existing. Every member of your team should be able to deliver your why message.

Imagine an assembly line of people building rectangular glass boxes. You approach the assembly line and ask an employee what they are producing. The answer: I’m putting a door on this glass box. Then you approach another individual further down the line and get a completely different answer: with every door I put on this incubator, I save a baby’s life. Now which one of these answers gave you goose bumps?

Action to take to Find Your Purpose

If your purpose isn’t clear yet, ask every individual in your company to offer their opinion by secret ballot. See what they have to say and see which one of those gives you an emotional jolt. That’s what it takes. Watch Simon Sinek’s Start With Why TED talk for further inspiration. With more than 25 million views I can assure you it’s worth watching.

In summary:

Thinking about core values and purpose might seem soft. If you believe that alignment of team members is essential for success, then this is the place to start your foundation. Core values and purpose are the core ideologies that drive a company’s culture. Get it right, and you will have motivated loyal employees and a thriving organization.