If you find yourself working harder for clients that are not aligned with your business service just to keep the wolf from the door, this will lead to a painfully slow decline in your business. Moreover, you will likely make the wrong assumptions about why you are losing ground.
Providing a good service to the wrong customers gives rise to poor performance over time, resulting in a lack of clarity or confidence around the value you bring and a lack of appreciation for what you do.
This saps the enjoyment and energy from your team and dilutes your passion to drive on.
There are three easy-to-track principles for business success. So, ask yourself, and then ask your employees and your gold customers what they think.
On a scale of 1-10 what score do you get?
1: Are your customers happy with your service and product, and prepared to pay you a fair price? (One that ensures your required profit)
2: Are your employees engaged and energised or disgruntled and disappointed?
3: Is your product or service better or different than the competition, and do you consistently work at CANI? (Constant And Never-ending Improvement)
If any one of these three pillars is achieving poor scores, then the company is likely to go into reverse. Furthermore, there may be confusion about why.
– Start with what you’ve got.
– Get back to the basics by returning to the purpose of the business, the contribution you want to make, the customers you want to serve, the values you hold for your employees and how you want to do business.
– Shed the clients that drain the company and focus in on the Gold Customers at the outset. This may be nerve wracking and cause a transition and some short-term turbulence, but it will be worth it.
– Identify who your gold customers really are and find more of them.
Don't know how to research your customers or your employees? DM me, and I'll set you on the new path with your team.
