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Tony Seaman uses his insight and experience to answer the question, ‘How do you make a business successful?’ with four simple pieces of advice.
It’s a F.P.P.A kinda day
Someone recently asked me “What makes a business successful?” A great question but very difficult to answer. I thought about it and believe a better question would have been How do you make a business successful?
I’ve just finished some really interesting work with an exciting on-line company setting up a travel division. They’ve had a great start but plateaued. It’s amazing how many companies inevitably get caught up in the day to day problems but lose track of where they were actually trying to get to. After a few days in their offices, talking to all their staff, the issues boiled down to 4 really simple things:
- Focus – Make sure you know what your vision is and stick to it like glue. The vision is what actually creates the “culture” of the company. It creates the motivation for staff who then really want to be part of that journey and hopefully success. People always like being on the winning team or part of a successful business.
- Planning – The strategy you put behind your vision is the roadmap that’s going to get you there. This includes the revenue targets and the profits of course but also the structure that will be needed over the coming years to achieve your vision. I think this is genuinely the hardest part for any company as sometimes the “burden of growth” can literally be overpowering.
- Pace – Put in time lines and stick to them as much as possible. One of the worst enemies of any business is slippage. It is very easy to just let things slide, particularly when it’s busy. With poor control over timescales, years can very easily be added to any plan.
- Accountability – Within your organisation be very clear what each member of your staffs responsibilities are, what are your expectations of them and how they will be measured and rewarded on meeting their goals. Also without accountability it is very difficult to remove poor performers and it is a sad fact that many organisations probably carry too many passengers on board.
So, make sure you have all of the above at some level and you should hit all your targets.
