What business are you in?
What is your business? What I am really asking is – what is it your company does that really keeps the doors open and profits flowing?
It is so easy to get distracted and lose your business focus. This can affect your customer service and sales, and ultimately your bottom line.
What causes this?
- No Clear Vision Statement – Gino Wickman in his book Traction talks about a client who’s sales had stagnated and had not grown in years. The fact was they did not have a central vision that was written and shared with all employees. Once they defined a clear vision statement and had everybody on board, they were able to focus their efforts and grow again.
- Lack of Focused business divisions – Too often it is tempting to go after the ‘shiny’ objects – we see new businesses or functions that we think we should be in and rush to add these to our existing business without considering their impact on our business. ComRes has added many products/services through the years, and take on projects/tasks that we believe will improve our company, increase sales or decrease costs. Sometimes they work, and sometimes they are a disaster. We must always ask ourselves ‘What business are we in?’ or ‘Will this distract us from our core business?’. Don’t get distracted by the new, shiny objects that take you away from what you do best.
- Too much time – Everybody says they don’t have enough time, but this is simply not true. We see clients every day (including ourselves!) that because they lacked focus, and had too much time, have taken on things that they should have hired others to do. Rather than focusing on their core business and growing it, they distracted themselves with busy work that took them away from accomplishing their objectives. This was easy to do during the Recession – companies were trying to save jobs when sales were down, and started doing things they used to outsource in order to save money, and avoid more layoffs. However, we are now in the middle of a fast-paced recovery and businesses simply do not have the time to do things that are not part of their core business that can be outsourced. If you are doing your own IT work – you are trying to be in the IT business (unless you are an IT company!). If you are doing your own phone work, you are trying to be in the phone business. If you are doing your own books, you are trying to be in the accounting business. Get my point? What business are you in?
So how do how correct these problems and grow your business? There are many good consultants and systems (e.g. EOS Traction) that can help you do this. Some good first steps to growing your business are:
- Vision statement – sit down with your leadership team and develop a solid vision statement for your company, and share it with all employees.
- Avoid the new, shiny objects – get rid of business divisions, products, services or processes that do not fit into your core business or help you achieve your vision.
- Outsource whatever you can – in a growing economy, you cannot afford to be distracted. If you can hire somebody else to do what you are doing yourself today – do it. This will free up your resources to accomplish your vision more quickly.
ComRes can help. ComRes is an out-sourcer. We help companies manage their technology such as telephones, VoIP, cabling, access control and surveillance. Customers who use our services tend to have a clear vision. They are growing. They are vibrant. Their employees like working there. What business are you in?
