Build a great company on a powerful foundation!
Last week I talked about the depressing race to the bottom. That’s a strategy of focusing on reducing prices over all other considerations.
When several companies do this at the same time, it destroys profit for everyone and can even kill an industry. We see this all the time.
Fortunately, there’s a different strategy you can embrace. It’s not any easier, but it sure can be more rewarding.
Read the rest of this entry »I’ve heard several reports recently which talk about companies doing everything they can to drive profit. And of course the quickest variables to fiddle with are cutting quality and cutting employees.
Cut expenses, then you can reduce prices, so you’ll gain market share and win more profit. Here’s the problem with that logic. In a competitive market with multiple companies doing the same strategy, you don’t gain market share (or profit) at all when you reduce prices. Not unless you can do that faster than the competition for some reason – but that destroys your profit.
Unless you have a magic wand, of course. Most people out here in the real world don’t have one. You just have a bunch of companies all racing to the bottom, where NOBODY is eking out any kind of profit.
Fortunately, that’s not the only way to play the game.
Read the rest of this entry »Some industries are getting more nervous.
Tariffs. Wars. Interest rates. Softer consumer confidence.
The question is what you choose to do with all this swirling information. Because it’s always something. If you want a reason to avoid committing to a decision, there’s always something you can blame it on.
Read the rest of this entry »We all feel blown around by events, I get that. The employee called in sick with no warning. That customer is being a total pain. You just found out that the health care costs will be going up next year, and a lot more than you expected.
When you’re reacting to each of these, how are you showing up? It’s a question that we often don’t think about – or want to think about.
But it’s in these daily interactions that you’re showing the real character of who you are.
Read the rest of this entry »Very few of us can change the world all by ourselves. That’s the price of having a vision that’s large and has a significant impact.
So we work with others along our journey.
I try to capture this concept with the word “partnering.” But that’s not primarily about the legal structure of being Business Partners. That’s totally fine, but only a small fraction of the people you’ll need to work with.
Read the rest of this entry »This landscape of values-based businesses can be quite confusing.
I had a chance to discuss this with a researcher in the field recently, and we started off with the term itself. Purpose-driven. Conscious. Values-based. Mission-driven.
Such a mishmash of buzzwords! But if you look underneath that, you see a common thread:
Read the rest of this entry »What you measure gets attention. What gets attention gets worked on. And what gets worked on is improved.
This is such a basic train of thought, yet how often do we actually lead this way?
Let’s say that the key to your particular business success is developing personal, nurturing relationships with your customers. Yet when you have meetings and talk about progress, you’re showing revenue, expenses, on-time delivery and defects. Where did customer relationships even get mentioned?
Read the rest of this entry »I get it. People are a pain. Employees. Customers. Random people in the store.
Not you, of course. You’re perfect. But everybody else is so annoying sometimes!
So how do we deal with this reality? Well, first, it’s about recognizing that this is the human condition. We’re all flawed and make mistakes.
Read the rest of this entry »Customers are the lifeblood of a business. You’re delivering value to someone, and in return they pay you for that value.
So why do so many companies make it hard for an interested person to connect? It’s almost as if they don’t really want the business.
Sure, customers can be a pain sometimes. They … want stuff. They’d rather have it their way than the way you currently do it. But I assume you’d rather have customers than not. Right?
Read the rest of this entry »I recently had the opportunity to lead a workshop about building marketing from a strong foundation of mission or purpose. But there was a sticking point for many in the room: They weren’t the business owner, so they didn’t feel they had the right, or the power, to declare what their company’s mission might be.
And they were right. This is the kind of stuff that gets created by owners and executive teams and such.
But that’s not the end of the story!
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The Values-Based Business 