I was revisiting some of my older blog posts and I found one that I felt was really worth while.  The original post is called What are your Real Goals and it covers a powerful exercise that will help you look at what you want to do differently.

One of the traps that we all fall into is more of a wish fulfillment state rather than an honest and actionable set of goals that actually mean something.  “I want a lot of money” is not an actionable or even inspirational goal…however something like “I want to be free from concerns about money so that I can do the things I love” might generate more direction and be more inspirational.

Take a few minutes to go through the exercise (actually write things down) and I guarantee you’ll get something out of it.  Here’s a link to a form you can fill out for the exercise:  Real Goals Worksheet

Now – go and find out what your Real Goals are.

Shawn Kinkade  Kansas City Business Coach

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In today’s competitive environment it’s more important than ever to have a competitive advantage – something that puts you above the general fray of your industry.

Maybe you have a unique technology advantage…a patented something or other that no one else has.

Maybe you were first in your space and really own the marketplace (95 of the top 100 companies use our service…).

Maybe you’re faster, better a different business model – there can be lots of ways to build a competitive advantage.

However if you’re stuck on what yours might be, you should look at your core values and your vision as a possible way to stand out and make yourself different from the crowd.

Do you have customers that buy from you because of what you stand for?  Great employees that do more than you expect because they believe in the bigger picture of where you’re taking the business?

I’ve written before about how to find your core values, but even more importantly you can actively use those core values as a differentiator…a competitive advantage.

(photo by Zach Dischner)

Putting your Core Values and Vision to work

Here are 3 ways to use your Core Values and Vision that can take you from being an average business to one that stands above the competition in every way!

Steer the ship

When you started the year, you took the time to layout where you’re going, but that activity isn’t a one time event. Just like ships on the ocean are constantly re-charting their course based on conditions, you will need to adjust your steering at a minimum once every 3 months or so (if you’re growing quickly you’ll want to do it more often than that).

You likely go through an annual planning process to set goals and priorities for the coming year. Your vision and core values should be the touch stone for that process. As you go through potential opportunities, run it through the Vision and Core Values filter – here’s an example:

If we pursue acquisition of a specific competitor, will that move us forward in meaningful way towards our long term vision? 

Does that company share any of our core values?

Will the outcome create a bad situation or be at cross purposes with who we are? 

What core values will this outcome support?

That same thought process should be used in your quarterly planning sessions as well – the course corrections are likely smaller, but just as important. The sooner you can detect that you’re going off course the less damage it will do.

When you are making decisions that resonate with who you are as an organization as opposed to just looking at the financial side of it, you’ll start standing out.

When you use your core values in a public way it enables everyone to be pulling in the same direction.  Your employees are faced with decisions all of the time – bureaucratic businesses run these decisions up the chain of command, causing slow response, indecision and poor outcomes. 

In a high performing organization that clearly understands and shares core values, decisions become much easier.  As an example, at Nordstroms – employees know and share the core philosophy of the company, so when a customer complains they just take care of it without having to get approvals or hold anything up.

Next Steps – Steer the Ship:

• Make sure you’ve uncovered your core values
• Find the stories that emphasize those core values and share them at company meetings to reinforce what they are and how important they are
• Start actively using your list of values as a decision making tool during quarterly and annual planning meetings

Getting and keeping the right people

As a business grows, a key to ongoing success is bringing in the right people. Part of that process is making sure the people being hired have the skills needed…but more importantly the new hires need to share the core values of the organization.

Southwest Airlines is famous for their approach of ‘Hiring for attitude and Training for Aptitude’.  They understand that you can’t train friendly personalities but you can train skills.

Using your core values as a very active and visible part of your hiring process will help you in two ways:  finding the right people and keeping the right people.

Finding:  If you accurately describe the kind of people you’re looking for (i.e. we need people who can make hard decisions on their own) then the applicants will self select based on the job descriptions. People who are excited about the core values you describe will step up and those who don’t fit will move on and look for something else.

As a more extreme example:  woot.com shares a very clear view of how they operate as a company, if that doesn’t resonate with you, you’re not applying for a job with woot!  (Along the same lines – here is a very funny letter from the woot! CEO on their recent decision to be acquired by Amazon)

Use your Core Values as a key criteria for the interviewing process. Add questions designed to draw out examples and stories of how the applicant fits with your core values and then grade them on how well they fit. If they are perfect from an experience and skills standpoint but only 60% fit when it comes to Core Values, you don’t want to hire them.

Keeping:  A major part of the performance review process in your company should be a check-up on how people are living up to the core values. If one of your core values is ‘Helps First’ but you have an employee that doesn’t act that way then you’ll likely need to let them go (give them a chance to address the issue first).

The biggest risk to keeping great people is that if you don’t truly live your core values on a day to day basis then those values become watered down. Your business loses it’s identity and you will drive great employees away because the company no longer stands for anything (or what they thought it stood for).

Next Steps – Getting and keeping the right people

• Develop a clear list of your core values, your 10 commandments, whatever it is that really describes what you are and why you do things.
• Use core values in your job descriptions and interview process
• Actively use core values in a regular employee review process

Being Authentic with Customers

People do business with people that they know, like and trust. By having a clear, powerful and authentic set of core values that you live up to as a company, people can get to know you and if they resonate with those values they will want to do business with you.

As an example, online shoe retailer Zappos has one of their core value as ‘Create Fun and a little Weirdness’:

“One of the things that makes Zappos different from a lot of other companies is that we value being fun and being a little weird. We don’t want to become one of those big companies that feels c
orporate and boring. We want to be able to laugh at ourselves. We look for both fun and humor in our daily work.”

Some potential customers are going to look at that (or experience it) and find it very intriguing and attractive – that’s who Zappos wants to do business with. Others may not get it or find it offensive in some way – they’re not a good fit as a customer for Zappos…and that’s okay.

By being clear and living up to who they are, Zappos will have their fans talking about them and making it clear who might want to hang out with them in the first place.

Build on your differences:  A competitive advantage is a core fundamental difference that your customers find meaningful and your competitors can’t easily duplicate.  Here’s an example:

37Signals is a software company that specializes in Web Based applications. They have a clear set of Core Values they operate with (and share on their website) that are very powerful – here’s one that especially differentiates them:

Software that requires training is failed software. Our products are intuitive. You’ll pick them up in seconds or minutes, not hours, days or weeks. We don’t sell you training because you don’t need it.

Assuming they consistently live up to that core value means they are delivering software other companies can’t easily compete with.  It works as a competitive advantage because other companies can’t (or won’t) mandate ‘no training allowed’ as a fundamental approach because it’s really hard to do.

It comes back to authentically sharing who you are, what’s important to you and makes you different.  Not everyone will like you, but the ones that do will feel strongly about it and will talk about you…as Seth Godin would put it, you will be remarkable, which is a nice place to be.

Next Steps – being Authentic with customers

• Make sure your core values…at least the ones that impact customers or your service are spelled out clearly where people can see them
• Constantly focus on living up to who you are and what your values are

What examples of companies have you seen lately who stand out because of their core values?  What could you do with your company’s core values that would really stand out?  Share your thoughts below, I’d love to hear them.

Shawn Kinkade  Kansas City Business Coach

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A lot of people struggle with establishing processes for their businesses.  It feels bureaucratic, stifling and it can be some serious work up front to get things documented and figured out.

However it’s not rocket science…by any stretch of the imagination.

The trick, assuming that you’re a business that’s already up and running is that you are already following a process.  You may not be following it consistently, you may not have a great handle on all of the components (i.e. it’s not written anywhere) but in order to get the work done you are following certain steps to go from start to finished.

Let’s take an example that every business is dealing with – paying bills (note – if you have a business without any expenses, you’re probably leaving opportunities on the table).

There’s a chance that you pay bills in a very reactionary manner – when they come across your desk and you have a couple of free minutes you write a check or go online and just pay whatever needs to be paid.  Hopefully you record the checks and validate the amounts on the bill, but it’s a start.  As simple as that is – it’s a process and you could document it fairly easily. 

It’s more likely that you have a set period of time (maybe the end of the week, the 1st and the 15th of the month, etc.).  At that point, your person responsible for accounts payable picks up all of the invoices that have accumulated (you probably have a bill folder).  You may have a review step where the invoices are checked with who ever should have the details and with ownership.  You may have a step to confirm there are adequate funds for payment.  Assuming everything is good, no disputes and there’s money in the bank, then checks would be written and you would do whatever’s needed to make sure the expenses are reflected in your accounting (a different process).

That’s a process…it might be missing a few details and you’d need to outline what needs to be done if there is a dispute or if there’s not enough cash, but overall it’s pretty straightforward.

Why bother?

If you’re a single person business without a lot of change or growth going on, you may not need to worry too much about processes.  However, if you ever want to get out of doing everything yourself, or if you have employees who own the responsibility for different aspects of your business, a written process is critical.

When you document, use and improve processes on a regular basis, you can turn your business into an incredible machine that can eventually run without you.  Imagine taking a 2 month vacation and everything is running smoothly…without you!

When you don’t use written processes – especially with multiple employees, you are asking for failures, inconsistent delivery, miscommunication and general chaos.  You will be unable to grow and things will be a struggle.  (no vacation for you!).

The six elements of a good process

A client of mine recently sent me (and his staff) this concise and powerful description of the elements that are needed for a quality process:

1. Must produce desired result
2. Must be in writing
3. Must be accountable to someone
4. May be duplicated by anyone
5. Must be simple
6. Must bring clarity to the whole team

The goal is to eventually make everything as simple as possible (and no simpler) and maximize your results.

That doesn’t sound like rocket science to me.

Does your company have written processes?  Are there any additional elements missing from the description above?  I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments below.

Shawn Kinkade Kansas City Business Coach

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Running a business is a uphill climb, even in the best of times (although the views from the top make it worthwhile).  Regardless of the kind of business you have and how far along you are in that business – there’s some kind of challenge facing you.  It could be something significant, if you don’t take the right path you could fall off a cliff or it could be the kind of challenge that just wears you down over time.

I had a great opportunity the other night to take an informal poll and discussion with about 20 small business owners here in Kansas City and get some great feedback on the types of challenges they’re facing.  I was holding a demonstration ‘event’ for the Peer Group Advisory boards that I run – looking for potential members for a new board and it gave me a great excuse to ask everyone to share a big challenge that they’re facing in their business today.

And we got some great answers…

There was a pretty good mix in the room, mostly service businesses with some established business owners and a lot who were relatively new to their business.  Many were on their own – solopreneurs, but several had employees and a few with partnerships and collaboration arrangements.

In all cases, they had a challenge on their mind – here’s what was shared with the group:

Staying Organized

Life moves fast these days and there are a lot of moving parts…that’s even more true for business owners and several people indicated a significant challenge with having a clear idea (and focus) on what needs to be done and staying on top of it.

Finding new business / Lead Generation

It’s not surprising that finding business and generating new leads was a big challenge for a lot of people.  Although several people mentioned this (or a variation of this) as their top challenge, it came out in a few different ways.

• Looking for marketing that works, getting some momentum
• Getting in front of the right target market and decision makers
• Being consistent with new business efforts (feast or famine problems)

All common challenges (unfortunately) but still difficult to deal with.

Backing Off

We only had 1 person bring this up at the meeting, but I’ve run into a lot of people that are challenged by this (I think that’s partially due to the entrepreneurially approach).  Specifically his challenge was finding a way to put things into perspective, stop pushing so hard and learn to relax a bit.  In this case, the owner has had a successful business for over 11 years…but he’s only had about 4 weeks of vacation total in all of that time!

Delegation

They say the first step in solving a problem is recognizing you have one, so in this particular case a couple of the business owners are at least on the path to a solution.  A lot of business owners I talk to don’t recognize that they have become the bottleneck for their business…if every significant decision or activity has to pass through any one person, there’s a serious problem.

Recognizing that you as the business owner doesn’t delegate but needs to is indeed the first step to solving the problem! 

Finding (and keeping) good people

As we discussed at the meeting, there are a lot of great people out there looking for a job, but from a business owner’s perspective it can be very difficult to find the right ones.  Get the people right and you’ll get the business right, but first you have to know what you’re looking for and then you still have to be able to find that perfect fit.

Training

Keeping with the people theme, there was a challenge with getting employees (and business owners) the right skills that were  needed to really get things to take off.  There were a couple of issues with training – one was cost, being able to afford training and find the time for it.  The other issue was finding the right kind and the right provider of training.  There are thousands of providers out there, but a lot of them don’t actually deliver what you need…so how do you know where to go?

Time Management / Productivity / Getting things done

This was alluded to by almost everyone, but a few people raised it as their primary challenge as well.  It’s different from staying organized or focused – they know what needs to be done, they just don’t seem to have the time to be able to do everything!

I think most of us can relate to that – we would all like to get more done!

What am I missing?

This was a great group of business owners and we had a fantastic discussion, so this is a pretty representative group of challenges, but I’m wondering if we missed anything?

What challenges are you facing that aren’t mentioned here (or that you might be facing sometime soon).  Share your thoughts in the comments below – I’d love to hear about the challenges that are out there (and then we can start talking about solutions!).

Shawn Kinkade   Kansas City Business Coach

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photo by albertopveiga

Does it ever seem like life gets too complicated? 

Does your business get so crazy that you constantly feel like you have to play the ‘Hero’ – come in and pick up the pieces and save the day?

Have you ever had a potential customer say to you:  “Now what is it that you do…exactly?”

Simple is underrated when it comes to success in business.

Let’s start with your potential customers…what’s the simple benefit that you offer to them…boil it down, get it to the essence.

Mitch Meyerson – Mastering Online Marketing and Guerrilla Marketing Coaching has a great (and simple) take on this in a recent video clip and blog post on keeping it simple:

(Click through to the blog post if you can’t see the video).

In today’s overwhelmed world – people don’t have time for complicated messages.  One of the reasons Twitter and Facebook status updates continue to grow in popularity is because 140 characters will force you to keep it simple.

His point about what Google does is very telling:  “Google provides access to the world’s information in one click” .

If Google can keep it simple, then we should all be able to do the same.

The other benefit to keeping it simple…from an operational and delivery perspective is that it’s much easier to streamline and optimize simple processes (and delegate them to the appropriate level of staff people).  Running an overall McDonald’s franchise is a complex operation, but when you break it into small enough…and simple enough pieces, you can have the new ‘Fry guy’ up and running like a pro within a couple of hours.

What could you simplify in your business…or in your marketing message?  What’s one process in your business that’s over-complicated? 

If you had to describe the benefits you deliver in one sentence, what would you say?  What would your employees say?

What are some great simple business models that you’ve seen?  Share your thoughts in the comments below…but keep them simple and to the point! 

Here’s my latest ‘simple’ take for Aspire:  Kansas City Business Coach selling focus, momentum and clarity to business owners who are ready to grow their business.

What’s yours?

Shawn Kinkade  Kansas City Business Coach

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