As a leader or business owner, you are faced with challenges every day-operational efficiencies, customer demands, employee turnover, product innovation and, of course, sustaining the longevity of your business.
Yesterday in Promotional Consultant Today, we shared four ways successful leaders ensure the longevity of their business. Today, we’ll share four more, as identified by business consultant Jill Johnson.
1. Be adaptable to market changes. Markets change and technology advances. Those who are successful over the long term understand and adapt to change. They invest in people and technology to enhance productivity. They stay on top of competitors and respond as necessary. By continually adapting, they are able to leverage the evolving trends and fundamentally transform their industries. Effective leaders create enterprises that last well beyond their tenure, always looking ahead to identify what’s needed to ensure continued success.
2. Build substance into the enterprise. Some businesses succeed brilliantly, but most fail to meet the expectations hyped by their founders and owners. The primary reason businesses fail is lack of substance; most of what is promoted is smoke and mirrors. Sustainable enterprises have substance. They deliver on their promises. Clients, vendors and employees can count on them. These enterprises demonstrate a consistency of product and service quality that can be trusted over time.
3. Manage growth. Those who focus on growth ensure they have adequate finances, equipment and staff to meet their evolving needs. Those who maintain a smaller size often find they can better manage the stability of their overhead and fixed costs. Maintenance-oriented enterprises may even make more money and have less stress than their growth-oriented peers. Both growth- and maintenance-oriented leaders who succeed over the long term effectively manage their appetite for risk and keep the business’s scope within their comfort zone.
4. Maintain motivation. Once the day-to-day activities begin to become routine, most people lose their enthusiasm. Even harder is dealing with the real stresses of leadership. Leaders of enduring enterprises motivate themselves and their employees by continuing to look for new opportunities to better meet client needs. This provides an atmosphere of innovation and ongoing success measured in revenue, customer satisfaction and employee retention.
Source: Jill Johnson, president and founder of Johnson Consulting Services, is a highly accomplished speaker, an award-winning management consultant and author of the Bold Questions series. She helps her clients make critical business decisions and develop market-based strategic plans for turnarounds or growth. Her consulting work has impacted nearly $4 billion worth of decisions.
