What is the purpose of
business? If you’re like 99% of the people we ask this question to the
first response is usually “to make money”. Our assertion is that, the purpose of
business is to meet or exceed the needs of their customers. Period. Perhaps half of you might say that upon further consideration you agree that this is the purpose of business. The other half of you however are saying, this guy is off his rocker. I work to make money. In our opinion, this misconception of purpose is hurting your bottom line.
Regardless of which camp you are in , my point is that, if you want
to make more money, which is one of the results of business but not the purpose, it is important to be clear on your purpose as a business entity.
I have been in marketing and
sales for 20 years in one form or another and over and over again it has been
proven to me that no matter how good your marketing is, or how effective your
sales team, without a focus on service, or meeting or exceeding your customers
needs, you will not build lasting success.
Of course, branding, advertising, and other
marketing and sales efforts are important but they will be doomed to failure or mediocre results over the long term without a solid grounding in the purpose of your business
which is to meet or exceed your customer’s needs.
What is your
employee’s purpose for working? To make money? My first job at 14 was with
dominoes pizza. Was my purpose for working there to make sure that each and
every customer got the best pizza experience possible? No way. My purpose was
to make money to buy teenager stuff. Would it have helped if the
supervisor or store manager told me that this was my purpose? Maybe. Would it
have helped if every day I went in to work that purpose was demonstrated by the
actions of my supervisors and co-workers. If any time I was out of line with my
purpose for working there I was helped to understand how and why that was not
acceptable and recognised for efforts that were in line with the purpose of the
company. What do you think? Of course it
would!
Why didn't this happen? Because
the supervisor and the manager were not clear on their purpose either! And if they did know they
certainly didn't share it with me. Sure I was given policies and procedures to
help me do my job but they did not achieve the results that the company wanted.
For anyone who ordered pizza from the dominoes pizza in Burnaby 25 years ago, I
would like to personally apologise.
So now what? More bad news. If your staff are not delivering the service
that you would like it is a failure of the leaders in your organisation to
communicate your purpose to your staff and hold them accountable for the
results they produce. Most managers and business owners I say this to reply with something like,” I tell
them again and again what the expectations are and they still don’t do it. What
am I supposed to do?”
You must engage your employees. What do we mean by employee
engagement? According to Towers and Watson “Engagement measures the level of
connection employees feel with their employer, as demonstrated by their
willingness and ability to help their company succeed, largely by providing
discretionary effort on a sustained basis.” We thinks that is a great definition.
The question is how do you
create this on an ongoing basis and how does this affect the bottom line. The
key is a commitment to focusing on the needs of all three stakeholder groups.
not just your customers because if your employees needs are not being met, they
are not going to deliver the discretionary effort that will result in your
customers saying “ wow” and wanting, not only to buy again themselves, but also
to tell their friends and colleagues about their experience.
