What is the purpose of your business?
This is a question we ask many of our clients. Purpose and the related strategy seem to be more accidental than driven, by the people we chat to. So what does it mean to have a Purpose Strategy for your business?
Defining the purpose of a business comes from a number of different purpose statements. The first is for the reason for starting a business. Many people start their business due to financial reasons. They need to earn money. This is true for all businesses but there are often underlying reasons such as wanting more personal freedom, to do good in the community or to gain fame and fortune. What is yours?
The second purpose statement comes from the long-term purpose. Where is the business destined to go in 10 or 20 years from now? This may be a very long-term view and often too far ahead for any clarity, but knowing an idea goal determines the actions of today. Is your business going to be handed down to family members to build a legacy? Do you want to sell it in a few years and do something else? Are you planning to franchise or list on the stock exchange? Each of these options is key to the actions of incorporation that you take when registering your business.
We can now progress onto the initial problem you want to address as a business. This purpose statement is now more focused as you define the attention of the business. This needs to clearly define the problem, the people you address and the proposed solutions you will implement, sell or offer in order to address the defined problem.
Join us on Wednesday for more explanation of these and others on this week’s webinar
How to get a Strategy for your business
To get from HERE to THERE requires a strategy. Not just a plan with a dash of hope: but a full strategy. But what is this thing called a strategy? What does it contain? What does it mean? And how can I get one?
The webinar video this week unpacks the various elements of a good strategy. Watch the video below (27 min) to get a full understanding of the different elements. Here is a short summary:
Vision: A written image of what the future will be if all goes according to plan.
Focus areas: select up to 5 areas that require focus and change to realise the vision.
Goals: write out 5 goals per focus area that need to be achieved in order to obtain the vision
Actions: What actions are required and by whom and by when in order to achieve the each goal.
Watch the video for the full story and an explanation of the WIGS required to get all this done.
Performance Measurement: Let’s Measure Performance!
Last week we looked at the history of performance measurement and how it has improved over the years. This week we will look at how business owners and managers can measure non-financial performance indicators (NFPI) and give practical examples.
When you call the call-centre of most companies these days, they ask you to rate the service at the end of the call. When you enter a bank, they have a machine on which you can rate the quality of the service. A good example most of us are familiar with is when you call SARS; and after you are done with the call centre agent, you are asked to rate the service from 1-5. You are requested to rate it on the friendliness of the agent, their knowledge of tax issues, their attention to detail, the time it took to be serviced and the number of times you had to call until the issue in question was resolved. This is very much a non-financial performance measurement strategy.
A restaurant can measure the % of meals delivered in say 30 minutes. Quality of meals rated by an independent reviewer, average customer rating of their experience there. This customer rating is now available on Google maps for any company or Hello Peter and other review websites; where your clients can rate you or air their complaints. It would help visiting these sights and see what the customer thinks of your business and how you can improve. Through search engines, you can now rate the number of searches your business has had and the number of website visits. You can then ask the question: through which platform have you gotten potential client enquiries? You can rate the number of complaints the business has received and what the company has done to address these. All these NFPIs can then be compared to industry averages to see how the company fairs in comparison to the competition. These can be compared year to year to measure trends and see where the business has improved and where it has faltered; and how this can be remedied.
Another important NFPI is employee satisfaction and turnover. Staff surveys on happiness on the job, one on one personal development and welfare meetings, and staff turnover and exit interviews can help create a culture of valuing people. Business owners should always remember that a happy employee will always equal a satisfied customer and return sales. Yes, the customer is king, but the staff are in the business of king-making. Companies can also have competence surveys to review training needs. You can also measure absentee rates/sick days to review how satisfied the staff is. The higher the rate, the less satisfied the employees are.
We will continue discussing practical issues regarding performance measurement next week.
Reid Hoffman- Founder of Linkedin
Reid Hoffman is known for saying that an Entrepreneur is someone who jumps off a cliff and builds a plane on his way down.
You should never be too determined about what you’re going to be, your life plans change as you go. Reid Hoffman also went on to say he worked better off in a smaller environment.
This video is an extract from Khan Academy keynote speech about how in late 2002, Reid recruits a team of old colleagues from SocialNet and PayPal to work on a new idea. Six months later, LinkedIn launches. Growth is slow at first—as few as 20 signups on some days—but, by the fall, it shows enough promise to attract an investment from Sequoia Capital.
Business Growth Strategy Part 1
October is here and with only 3 months until 2018 we are embarking on a final 2017 strategy sprint to help us all get to those items on the list that we planned to get done in January.
This month we are going to take a trip through some of the Business Growth Strategies that we use to coach our clients. So please join us over the next four weeks as we go under the covers a bit and unpack the secrets of business growth.
The first item we need to define and unpack is STRATEGY. Strategy is a word we throw around a lot in our business: we use it in marketing, coaching and a lot when doing talks. But what is strategy? What does it imply or contain? Let’s unpack for a bit.
Strategy is a means to an end: it defines the process of getting from here to there. But it assumes that you know where here and there are and that there is where you want to be. Got it?
So first we must assess where we are, in all aspects of our business. Then we must discover and understand where it is that we must or want to be. This second destination is determined based on available resources, market-driven indicators and a desire to change.
Now, with an understanding of here and there: we can employ our strategy to reverse engineer the process and then drive it forward from today into the future. But just having an ideal of a future destination is not enough: this needs to be developed with a plan. The plan has actions, accountability levels with resources, a critical path and defined outcomes. This is a strategy.
Join us this week on our Weekly Wednesday Webinar as we unpack the elements of a growth strategy and create a framework for the next 90 days in your business.