BUILDING BLOCKS FOR BUSINESS SUCCESS – PART A

Welcome to this week’s blog in our series on Building Blocks for Business Success. As an entrepreneur, the work of moving from a concept or idea to a successful business is not easy. There are several factors involved, and today, I would like to share with you what I’ve found to be the fundamental foundation steps to build a business on. 

STRATEGIC PLANNING

Early on, as I was building Bankers Mutual, I put together my strategic planning team. They were all key leaders from within the company. I’ve always felt that promoting from within works best.

My hiring process has always been a deliberate and pointed one. I hire people whose values, goals, and ethics are similar to mine. I have found it’s easier to teach the elements of the business than it is to change someone’s foundation and values. So, I was intentionally to build my strategic planning team from within. 

Four members of the team were home grown. Three were loan officers and the other was our Chief Financial Officer. The only outside hire was our in-house legal counsel, as we needed an attorney with extensive experience. We worked exceptionally well together as our values were well aligned. I believe having a good foundation to build on is what kept us together. Ensure that you and your team are connected equally at the foundational level.

My decision to put together the strategic planning team was based on several factors. 

1. I believe that I can learn from another persons’ perspective – even when not in line with mine, and it often adds great value., Proverbs says, “Iron sharpens iron,” so a healthy discussion on a strategic plan will go much further than me trying to figure it out on my own. 

2. My motivation was to build a management team that would eventually free up some of my responsibilities at the company. My first goal for being in business for myself was based on gaining financial independence and my second goal was based on having more control of my time. One without the other was not attractive to me.

I would encourage you to get strong advisors in your life who know enough about what you are doing so they can offer good insights. You can either build a team from within your company or bring in a few people from the outside to act as a team/advisory board. 

If you build from within the company, they’re already motivated as they are already invested in the company’s mission and opportunity. I wanted the team to benefit from the growth in the company’s value and be impacted by the downside risk.  Therefore, I decided to offer them the opportunity to become partners in the business and own stock. I didn’t want to just give them stock or stock options, as I really wanted them to have “skin in the game”.  I made them a unique offer to purchase stock at a 70% discount. This discount was in an effort to acknowledge the previous contribution they had made to the company’s success.  Having them pay the 30% with the money they had worked hard to earn caused them to feel it was a significant personal investment. 

Having my strategic team was extremely valuable, and I benefitted greatly from them. Today, I am still surrounded and have a different group of individuals who speak into my life.

Of them, my wife, Kathy, was and has been a key voice in my life. She is incredibly wise and more intuitive than I am, and I have benefitted greatly from her perspective. If you are married, I would strongly encourage you to have your wife as one of your counselors. An additional benefit is your marriage also benefits from working together and your spouse seeing you trust them for input.

Our objective as the Strategic Planning Team was to deal with all facets of the company. Together we worked on strategies for every aspect of the business. I have always been a believer in long-term goals as a way to focus on where someone is going, so once we had clarity and buy-in on our 10-year goals, we identified the 5-year goals we needed to achieve that would set us up for success in 10-year goals. We would then break that down further and look at our 2-year and 1-year goals.

Having my team allowed me to accomplish my two goals of financial independence and freeing up my time. The last six years I was at Banker’s Mutual, I was able to spend six months a year away from the company, and my team continued to run it successfully.

MARKETING

I’ve always focused on being the expert at a few things rather than being good at a lot of things. This has served me well throughout my career and allowed me to grow my businesses. I’ve noted that a lot of customers come back if you continue to deliver and remain the best at what you’re doing. I find a sharp focus is better than a broad focus in most situations –marketing included.

As you develop your marketing plans, seek to identify your competitive advantage early on. Your competitive advantage is the area or item that makes you unique and distinguishes you from your competition. Develop a clear understanding of what it is and be good at communicating this in every possible way both internally to your team and externally to customers.

As you launch your marketing campaign, ensure you develop the best way of tracking your results to determine what tactic is truly paying off. Clearly define what your goals and expectations are and have some benchmarks to measure against before you get started. Your goal may be to drive traffic, conversion, or sales. Whatever it is, make sure you define it clearly and track it. It’s important to invest in marketing, but it’s critical to ensure your marketing dollars are also providing a return.

SURVEY YOUR CUSTOMERS

Something I think most companies don’t do enough of is survey their customers. Banker’s Mutual was a business that didn’t have thousands of customers, so we were able to do more one-on-one interviews with customers. However, no matter the size of your business, it’s important you pay enough attention to your customers. Position yourself well so they feel they can be honest and candid with you. 

Develop a system where you can regularly get insight from your customers on your product or service. It could include questions such as how they heard about you, why they chose you over other companies, what you could do better, or their thoughts on your process.  Be sure and let your customers know how their feedback helped you improve things at the company.  They will feel appreciated and more connected as a valued customer. There is so much to learn from your customer if you take the time.

ACTION STEPS

Take some quiet time alone and think through the principles shared today. Review them regularly and make adjustments based on your goals.

In the next blog I will continue to share more foundational building blocks for success in business. Thanks for taking the time to read this. If you have any thoughts or feedback, please share in the comments section.