As the world continues to slide towards what seems like further inevitable economic strife, the future success of your business hangs in the balance.
Now, more than ever, it is absolutely vital that your company’s offer is crystal clear to both your prospects and customers.
In the months ahead, those of you who take the time to really examine what your company is all about will be in pole position for the challenge that faces us all.
Success depends on ensuring every single person in your organisation lives and breathes your company’s brand values, all day, every day.
Over the next few weeks you need to think long and hard about your business. Write down as many thoughts as you can about what your company does, what it stands for, what it says and what its core values are.
Get your fellow directors, managers and staff to do the same. Then set a date in a month’s time to meet and write down all the different expressions of what your company is all about.
With all the information in front of you, now’s the time for some brutal honesty.
Does it all hang together in some meaningful fashion? If it doesn’t work for you, then there is no way on God’s earth (or anybody else’s earth for that matter) that it will mean much to your prospects and customers.
Twenty years ago business life was much less complex for small to medium sized (SME) companies. With a good product and a sound strategy you were at least in the ballpark. Not anymore.
Even great product with a fantastic strategy will find it hard to succeed. The internet and mobile communications have re-written the rule book; in fact, the rule book has been torn up and thrown out of the window on a very windy day.
To have a chance in today’s global market you have to be consistently outstanding. You have to offer exceptional service and value.
Value doesn’t mean cheap, but you do have to understand your customers like never before and consistently give them what they want before they know what they want – think Apple, think Google, think Amazon.
All these great companies have two key attributes in common – they all give their customers products and services they didn’t know they wanted and they all convey rock solid brand values delivered consistently.
The time has come right here, right now for you to step up to the plate. Thinking deeply about your business is the hardest job to do, but you have to do it if you want to succeed in these exciting and demanding times.
Get down to the essence of what your company is all about. Ask Socratic questions, dig deep and get real.
Take time to do it now. In four weeks you’ll be excited or maybe dismayed by what you discover about your business. No matter which it is, you’ll then be able to clearly enunciate your company’s offering and brand values to your prospects and customers, and that’s half the battle.
If you’d like help defining your company’s ethos and brand values please contact us.