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DQ News: The 5 Best Business Tips I Can Give

For nearly 20 years I have assisted businesses all over the world in becoming more successful and profitable.  If one of my friends, who owned a small business, came to me right now and said, “What is your very best advice to help my company be more successful,” here is what I would tell them. 

1. Start with a Solid Foundation

Just to earn the right to even be in business, you must first make sure that you actually offer a quality product or service.  No amount of fancy marketing or manipulative advertising will allow a company that sells sub-standard products to survive for very long. 

So make sure you’re truly adding real value in the marketplace.  The second part of the foundation is good financial management.  Let’s put it this way, if you aren’t managing your money carefully, you won’t be managing much for long.  Financial discipline is essential for running a successful business.

2. Talent is the Key

The quality of the people that you have on your team will pretty much determine what the future of your business will look like.  Whether you are a sole proprietor or have 131,000 people on the payroll… the goal is to get the absolute best people you can possibly get to work with you in your business (which also includes your vendors, strategic partners, suppliers and other people in your value chain).

3. Own the Voice of the Customer

It is one of my favorite mantras that whoever “owns the voice of the customer,” owns the marketplace.  Through every means possible you need to become a fanatic for listening to your customers, asking them questions, observing their behavior and being a serious student of exactly what it will take to meet and exceed their expectations. 

Remember, your customers pay ALL of the bills, so it is a wise investment of your time to deeply understand the people who keep your business running by giving you a bunch of their hard earned money.

4. Moments of Truth

In every type of business there are many “touchpoints” where you interact with your customers, but out of all those touchpoints there is always a small few that can make or break the customer’s experience. These super important touchpoints are what I call a MOT… a “Moment Of Truth.” 

As a quick example, there may be several dozen touchpoints in the process of someone taking their family out to a restaurant for dinner, however there are four fundamental Moments Of Truth that every restaurant MUST deliver flawlessly or they simply will go out of business. 

For restaurant those four fundamental touchpoints are: good quality food, excellent service, reasonable prices and cleanliness.  It really does not matter what else they do if the food is terrible, the service staff are rude, the prices are completely out of line with the food they are serving, or the place is dirty.  Every restaurant must deliver these for moments of truth, consistently, at the highest possible quality level – as defined by the needs of the customer.  So here’s the question to you, do you know the key Moments Of Truth in your business and have you developed the systems and processes necessary to consistently deliver them flawlessly in order to exceed your customers expectations.

5. Word of Mouth

The last piece of advice I would offer to my friend is that you do the first four things I just mentioned… exceedingly well… and then create a system for asking your happy and loyal customers to tell all of their friends, neighbors, family and colleagues about your great business and strongly suggest they patronize it. 

I owned an advertising firm for eight years I can tell you that the single most powerful advertising tool you can possibly get for your business is enthusiastic, loyal and engaged customers who spread positive word of mouth about your business to everyone they know.  (By the way, the number one factor that drives creating happy, loyal and engaged customers… is happy, loyal and engaged employees!)

So there you have it, based on more than a decade as a business excellence expert, here are the handful of key things that I would say are the most important things to focus on in order to build and sustain a highly successful small business. 

About the Author: John Spence is the author of “Awesomely Simple – Essential Business Strategies for Turning Ideas into Action,” which was named one of the top 10 small business books of the year in 2009. He is an award-wining professional speaker and corporate trainer, and has been recognized as one of the Top 100 Business Thought Leaders in America.

Photo Credit: Hong Kiat

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