Two Questions Every Business Needs to Answer

There are two questions your business needs to Answer.

1. What do we want to be known FOR?
2. What are we known FOR?

Your business isn’t growing because there's a gap between what you stand for and what you’re known for.

What Causes a Business to Grow?

A good friend, Brian Harrington, shared a book with me several weeks ago, Know What You’re FOR: A Growth Strategy for Work, and Even Better Strategy for Life, by Jeff Henderson.

Much of the book is like many other business books in content and ideas, however, the principle behind it is simple to understand just not easy to execute. 

It is a formula to follow for business success.

The best businesses are established with a purpose and live this purpose by fulfilling a customer's need. This is why Net Promoter Score (NPS) became so popular and why Fred Reichheld’s Ultimate Question, and Winning on Purpose reflect businesses satisfying customers as the key to success. In Reichheld’s opinion, the purpose of every business is to satisfy its customers. Noted business expert Peter Drucker said, "The Purpose of Business is to create and keep a customer."

Author Henderson believes what causes a business to grow is customers!

Henderson sees three causes for growth:

1. When our focus is on growing people, people grow your business.
2. When we think more about how your business can help and serve people, the more people we will eventually help and serve.
3. When we think more about the customer than we do our business, it is the best way we can think about our business. When we’re thinking about our customer, we ARE thinking about our business.

Henderson worked for Chick-fil-A and got to know Truett Cathy. Chick-fil-A’s corporate purpose is well-known. In 2018 when Henderson worked for Chick-fil-A, they generated over $10 billion in sales and achieved 51 years of consecutive same-store sales growth. A remarkable testimony to success and living these two questions successfully. Simon Sinek’s Start with WHY – The Golden Circle Story provides great examples of the power of purpose.

“What do you want your organization to be known FOR?”

As we shared in Compassionate Accountability, the Purpose of life isn’t to get rid of the struggle, but instead to find the meaning in the struggle.

When purpose lives in an organization, the organization lives in purpose.

To GROW - Shrink the gap!

Here’s the key to achieving success. Anderson sums it up, “When what you want to be known FOR is actually what you are known FOR, customers become a sales force for free by telling others about you.”

Do you know what your brand stands for?

Do you have a purpose? Do you have a Brand Promise your business is known for? Is your purpose clear, and known by everyone on your team? If you asked, would your team immediately know? Or would they have to look it up in a file somewhere?

Ask your customers what you are known for.

What do your customers say you stand For?

Get your customers to advertise for you!

How can you expect your customers to know if you don’t know what you’re known for?

Bridging the gap between what YOU are known for, and what your customers know you for is the ultimate test for success.

Would you like to build your business to achieve differentiation and guarantee your success?

Creating Your Purpose, building your Brand Promise, and developing a differentiated strategy is what we help you create through Scaling Up and Metronomics business coaching.

To create an environment where everyone is inspired to give their best, contact Positioning Systems to schedule a free exploratory meeting.

Let’s help you to turn your business into a growth organization!    

Growth demands Strategic Discipline.

Next blog we continue exploring Core Purpose through a book by Jim Stengel, Grow - How Ideals Power Growth and Profit at the World's Greatest Companies, profoundly illustrating how purpose-driven businesses outperform their competition.

Building an enduring great organization requires disciplined people, disciplined thought, disciplined action, superior results, producing a distinctive impact on the world.

Discipline sustains momentum, over a long period of time, laying the foundations for lasting endurance.

A winning habit starts with 3 Strategic Disciplines: Priority, Metrics, and Meeting Rhythms.   Forecasting, accountability, individual, and team performance improve dramatically.

Meeting Rhythms achieve a disciplined focus on performance metrics to drive growth.

Let Positioning Systems help your business achieve these outcomes on the Four most Important Decisions your business faces:

Positioning Systems helps mid-sized ($5M - $500M+) businesses Scale-UP. We align your business to focus on Your One Thing! Contact dwick@positioningsystems.com to Scale Up your business! Take our Four Decisions Needs Assessment to discover how your business measures against other Scaled Up companies. We’ll contact you.

NEXT BLOG – Purpose-Driven Businesses Outperform Competitors