Business Improvement - Start by Understanding Yourself
Business Improvement - Start by Understanding Yourself
By Laddie Blaskowski
It's a good idea to take a good hard look at all areas of your business at least once a year. But I believe that before you can fully understand what steps may need to be taken to improve your business,you first need to evaluate your own core values and personal goals. Let's begin with the purpose of your business.
Your business exists to serve you!
Why?Because as an entrepreneur, your business is reflection of your value system and exists to serve you and your family. Your overall goal for your company is, no doubt, to provide you with present and future income, and perhaps become a legacy you leave for your children. Therefore, it's vitally important for your business to be in sync with whatever is important to you.
Here are some things to think about:
1. What are your core values? Write them down and then compare them to how your company operates. If, for example, integrity is extremely important to you, is that apparent in your company's operations, management, employee behavior and customer relations? The culture of your business should reflect your values.
2. Are you and your staff operating in areas of your natural abilities? The next chapter will discuss natural abilities, but they are simply those tasks that come easily to you and which you are best at doing. If you are not making use of your own natural abilities and those of your staff, you are probably wasting time and money, and missing out on some of your company's most valuable resources.
3. What are your personal goals? Do you want to someday have sizeable blocks of time for vacationing with your family? Do you want to own a vacation home someday? Would you like the flexibility to take a mission or humanitarian trip? You need to clearly understand your personal goals before you can address how your business will help support and achieve them. Once you've established your goals for the future, you can create a roadmap, or benchmarks, to plan for how your business will get you there.
4. What is your desire level for your business? In other words, do you find your interest in the company increasing, staying about the same, or decreasing? Many factors can affect how someone feels about business ownership, such as the economy, personal issues,or simply aging. But if you find yourself in a long-term slump, it might be time to consider making a change by transferring some of your work responsibilities to someone else or selling the company.
I honestly believe the best way to run a successful company and enjoy business ownership is to ensure that it conforms to your personal values and goals, and I stress this to my consulting clients. Only you can decide what's truly important to you and the path your company should take.
Laddie and Judy Blaskowski are speakers and authors of the popular book The Step Dynamic: A Powerful Strategy for Successfully Growing Your Business. Their company, BusinessTruths®, works exclusively with business owners to help them create successful companies that are easier to run and enhance their personal lives. This article may be reprinted only in its entirety and with the following byline: Laddie and Judy Blaskowski are authors of the popular book The Step Dynamic: A Powerful Strategy for Successfully Growing Your Business and may be reached at http://www.BusinessTruths.com/
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