The 4 Things Every Business Needs

While every business is unique, and operations vary drastically across different industries, there are still some universal truths that apply to every company. Regardless of how your business measures success, implementing an maintaining these four principles will get you set it the right direction!

Aggressive and Consistent Marketing

We’ll begin with marketing, because it is at the same time, necessary, often misunderstood, complex, and frequently neglected. Indeed, the term “marketing” is broad, but it generally can be defined as any effort put forth by a business to show who they are. This includes advertising, self-promotion, and branding, both internal and external.

While it’s wonderful for a company to work with a digital marketing agency to manage their brand, every company needs to pay close attention and devote resources to their image, regardless of their size or budget. If your industry is highly competitive, like most, you need to advertise to differentiate from your competition. If you are a new entry in a business category, or a new business category all together, you need to advertise to create top of mind awareness. If you are lucky enough to be a category leader, you need to advertise to stay on top.

That said, it’s true that some industries work on specialized products or services and don’t need to invest in advertising to bring in business. It’s still essential to invest in marketing to let people know who you are and what you do. It helps with recognition and recruitment of employees, if nothing else. This can be as simple as having a social media presence, or well-maintained website.

Competent and Confident Leadership

A company’s reputation and philosophy come from the top down. There are many schools of thought on management style, from CEOs that lead by example showing up first and leaving last, to master-delegators who are seldom seen because they surround themselves with great subordinates. Other organizations, such as non-profits, have an executive director who is answerable to a board. Regardless of your company’s structure, it is the leader’s job to set the tone and vision for the workplace, and to effectively communicate across the organization.

Realistic and Measurable Goals

A key component of vision is goal-setting. Maybe you want to increase revenue by ten per cent year-to-year or overtake your nearest competitor. Perhaps you have an internal goal, like fewer workplace accidents, or a higher rate of employee retention. These are all good examples of clear, measurable, and potentially attainable goals. Unfortunately, far too many leaders set broad or unrealistic goals that set their companies up for failure or at the very least, a major blow to morale.

Let’s say that by whatever metric is appropriate, your business is #4 in its field. Setting a goal to become #1 within a year is unrealistic. Or, if your net revenue was $800,000 last year, a goal of $3,000,0000 dollars the next year is pretty outlandish. Beyond being realistic, your goals must be clear and measurable. If you say, “make a better product” or “do better at sales” without stating measurable numbers, these goals are vague and subjective. “Introduce stronger raw materials into our product line that result in 10% fewer items that don’t pass quality control,” or “Hit sales quotas for first quarter and raise revenue 5% year to year” would be much more effective. You can’t track what you can’t measure.

Passionate and Engaged Employees

Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, your company’s success lives and dies by the quality of work your staff performs. Defining what makes a good employee is another tricky measurement that varies greatly between industries, but it’s safe to say engaged employees produce better work than dispassionate employees who are just punching the clock. Recruiting quality candidates and giving stellar employees incentives to stay should be a top priority for any business leader.

The business world places different and challenging demands on people at all levels, from interns to executives. Using these four principles to guide your operation will only benefit all of them!