9 Tips To Getting Your #1 Business Priority Back In Place!

Ask 5 Business Owners what their number one priority is and you'll probably get five different answers. Narrowing it down, given the choice of team, customers, or business, they might say "Customers! " After all, the customer comes first…right? But while they might be saying customers, in their minds they are thinking "Business, of course."

But what if I were to tell you that if your business is running well, your #1 focus as the business owner is not the customer, but rather your team.

Why? Because of a unique concept called "The Business Cycle." In the cycle, your team's #1 priority is your customers, your customers' focus is on your business, your business takes care of you, and like a well-oiled machine, round and round it goes.

That's how it's supposed to work, anyway. But, as is so often the case, focusing on team is not always easy, and that's where I can offer some pointers that will help keep you on track. After all, as the business owner you are responsible for acquiring and retaining the "dream team". Each member of that dream team plays a role contributing to the overall success of the business and the team!

To do that, your team needs to be trained, motivated, and must feel included. This involves offering them clear direction, a common vision that everyone is supportive of, and providing them with a mission that's specific, measurable, and results-driven. You must also have goals that are reachable and measurable. And, you need to have measurable levels of success that includes regular feedback, encouragement, rewards, and yes - consequences.

As a business owner, your own personal training does not stop with your title. Leadership and ownership are life-long learning opportunities that require the mother of all commitments!

A well-supported and fully engaged team is a happy team. Happy teams take good care of customers. Happy customers take good care of your business. How? Happy customers are free word-of-mouth advertisers that spread the news about you and your business. Your customers are your link to referrals. Your business grows and the return on your investment of supporting your team will come back to you in big ways. You'll achieve the things that are important to you, have time for family and friends, and even have time for yourself! You'll be afforded the time and money to dream bigger and go farther.

How you choose to spend that time, of course, is up to you. But by placing your team first, you get everyone working together for a common goal, improving business, improving their lives, improving your life, and acquiring instantly measurable success.

Tips for putting together a dream team include creating strong vision, mission, and culture statements. Revisit your vision statement, and if you realize now that you've never actually written one, this would be a good time to start.

Vision Statement

TIP ONE: Your Vision Statement should include your long-term goal for your company. Not year one, not year five…year 100. Think of the grand picture.

TIP TWO: Your Vision Statement should be visible to your team, your customers, and you on a daily basis. All of you must be on the same page. If a potential team member reads the Vision Statement and can't support it, invite him or her to leave. Everyone must be on board. A canoe with one half of the boat paddling one way and the other half of the canoe paddling the other will simply go around in circles.

Mission Statement

TIP THREE: Your Mission Statement should address HOW your business is going to accomplish your vision.

TIP FOUR: Your Mission Statement should identify who you are, what your business is, who your customers are, and what makes you different from your competition.

ActionCOACH founder, Brad Sugars points out that the questions you may want to ask yourself when creating your Mission Statement:

TIP FIVE: When creating your Mission Statement ask, "What do we, as a team, want more of?"

TIP SIX: When creating your Mission Statement ask, "What do we, as a team, want less of?"

TIP SEVEN: When creating your Mission Statement ask "What type of relationship do we want with: Customers, Suppliers, Shareholders, Competitors, Community, and Employees?"

Culture Statement

TIP EIGHT: Your Culture Statement should include 12 or so points, including 3 most important values as a leader, 3 most important values as a team, 3 most important values as a customer, and 3 most important values as a company.

TIP NINE: Your Culture Statement should help you select qualified and dedicated team members to join your organization and support your company's vision, mission, and culture.

Putting together that team involves understanding personality types, understanding leadership roles, understanding the key role of environment and systems, understanding how to recruit, understanding how to get across your values, understanding how synergy works in which the result is greater than the sum of the individual parts, understanding your key role in supporting your team and how that will result in their supporting your customers, resulting in your customers supporting you.

If you only wish things were running well, get help before things get even worse. Qualified business coaches can help you put the systems in place necessary for your business to grow. If things are running pretty well, but could be better, make your team your #1 priority by making sure the 9 tips above have been addressed.

Remember: Together Everyone Achieves More

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