Is Your Business Built On Firm Foundations?

 
As with many important things in life, when you get the basics right the rest falls into place. Business is no different.
 
Let’s make a few assumptions here:
 
You’re passionate about what you are doing. Running a business isn’t for the fainthearted. It involves blood sweat and tears and much, much, more if you’re serious about being successful. The most successful businesses are not consistently so through luck (although you will need some). But if you’re going to invest that kind of time and personal resource, shouldn’t it be something that you’re passionate about?
 
Your business does solve a problem. Which means that you need to do your research, be clear about who your client really is and then create a product or service that meets their needs.
 
You’re marketing the right things to the right customers. Is it time-saving, luxurious, one-upmanship, nostalgia, status, comfort …? You need to know this so that you can accurately direct your marketing activity with messages that support and develop what is most important to your existing and potential customers. Ignorance will result in money wasted and the wrong kind of customers. Or at worse, no one.
 
Sometimes though, businesses fall flat at the first hurdle. They simply have no comprehensive sense of who they are and what they stand for. If you don’t know, how will your customers? Whether you’re a newbie or a seasoned entrepreneur it’s always good to establish and review constantly the foundations from which your business is built.
 
This means thinking hard about why you started. The idea is that the very core of what you are about (because that’s where it starts, with the business owner) can permeate throughout every aspect of your business – that’s the look, the feel, the personality of your business. That’s how you build your brand.
 
Here are the first steps to creating those foundations. Ask yourself:
 
Philosophy. How does the organisation relate to the world? This is deeper than values. What is the organisation’s purpose? When things go wrong in an organisation people commonly point to causes, problems or mistakes closer to the point of delivery – or typically in operational management. Generally however, major operational or strategic failings can always be traced back to a questionable philosophy, or a philosophical purpose which is not fitting for the activities of the organisation.
 
Values. Ethics, integrity, care and compassion, quality, standards of behaviour – whatever the values are – are they stated and understood and agreed by everyone? Do the values resonate with the customers and owners or stakeholders? Are they right and good, and things that we feel proud to be associated with? Those values are enabled by and dependent on philosophy and leadership.
 
Vision. Where are we going? What difference will we make? How do we want to be remembered? In what ways will we change things for the better? Is this vision relevant and good and desired by the customers and staff and stakeholders? Is it realistic and achievable? Again this is dependent on values and philosophy.
 
Mission. How do we describe what we aim to do, are and achieve? What is special about what we are and do, compared to any other organisation or business unit? Do our people understand and agree with this? Do our customers agree that it’s what they want?
There may of course be a number of missions, depending upon if there are separate businesses that make up a whole.
 
These vitally important business building blocks, once pinned down, make for focussed goals, strategies, targets and objectives and performance indicators which will provide the tangible measurements of your success.
 
The full, 8-Point Firm Foundations Check List will help you to extract what your business is about and what it stands for. It will enable you to embed your collective thoughts into the very fabric of how you do business. Download it at: Firm Foundations Checklist
 
Jo Sealy runs To Market, a marketing agency that works with business owners that are serious about achieving what they set out to do in business.
 
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