If you are starting a business it’s oftentimes easy to forget what the main focus should be. The answer is an all too obvious–the customer! Even though most everyone knows this, we all can get caught up in a self absorbed, ‘what’s in it for me attitude.’ Of course, no one goes into a business totally selflessly, no matter how philanthropic a pursuit it may be. Even in these cases, an individual is seeking something for what he or she is giving, whether it be personal fulfillment, admiration, a reward in the afterlife.
A search for meaning, etc. Nevertheless, for any endeavor to be successful, the attention should always be on the recipient of your giving, of your product, of your service, or whatever the interaction entails. Put your mind in the head of your customer, and what he or she wants, and your chances for success will be so much greater. For instance, are your customers really interested in how many years you have been located in the same spot, or how cute your kids are in your commercials? No, they aren’t. They care about what’s in it for them. They want their needs fulfilled.
So, the bottom line is that if you fulfill your customers needs yours will be fulfilled also. This is not original advice, nor is it particularly insightful. It’s just a gentle reminder from the author of this article who has sometimes forgotten himself where the focus should be. You can change your advertising campaign, online marketing promotion, decor of your store, or whatever the case may be to increase sales and revenues, but real change won’t happen unless your customers’ needs and desires are met. If they are, you’re in business!…
You’ve had numerous conversations about your ROI-the Return on Investment-your company achieves.
But what about your RROI-the Redefined Reality on Investment-you achieve?
Think of your RROI as what’s different-new and improved-about your business and lifestyle since you started your company. If you previously worked for someone else, what’s better now that you own a business?
A desire to Redefine our Reality is the #1 reason most of us buy or create our own company. But is your investment of time, energy, and money redefining your reality in the ways you imagined?
Give your attention to three key areas within your business to truly Redefine your Reality through your Investment:
Unique Contribution
What primary activities do you invest your most valuable resources-time, energy, and attention-in daily?
Are they activities that are uniquely yours, i.e., tasks that you do best, that maximize your profits of money and lifestyle? Or, are they lower-producing duties that someone else could do, either outsourced or by an employee?
We all start out doing everything, which is part of the entrepreneurial blessing and curse-blessing because at first, we feel the need to do it all; curse because we’re just good enough to think we have to do it all the time.
You define your USP-Unique Selling Proposition-that distinguishes you from the competition. Have you defined your UCP-Unique Contribution Personal-that you make to your business that is yours and yours alone to do?
To grow your RROI and receive the lifestyle you want, define your UCP and be vigilant in outsourcing or employing everything else.
Core Values
How do you achieve your unique contribution daily at work?
For many of us, we start with high ideals, expressing our desire to do business differently; core values like integrity, honesty, commitment to exceptional customer care, etc. But after we do business a while, we get worn down, particularly if we are still doing it all. Less beneficial core values sneak into our practices.
These unpreferred core values come in via the cracks of our business kind of like the “stink bugs” that somehow keep finding their way into our home this spring. Despite our best efforts to seal and spray, these odiferous critters show up in the strangest places.
What stinky core values creep into the way you do business? The intense pressure this negative world brings to bear on us today as business owners provides opportunities to either shine or stink.
To grow your RROI and receive the lifestyle you want, define your core values and guard your business practices as a valuable asset.
Focused Priorities
When the phone rings, the email bings, the Facebook messages sing, the Twitter feed dings, and the text messages ping, you understand this is an ADD world. Getting your UCP done while driven by your core values sounds good, but is like trying to do physics while caring for a toddler…
…which makes it all the more important for you to focus laser-like on your priorities. All of that technology has a place, …