What would be your answer if you were asked to name the five greatest critical success factors for your business? Would it be the most creative marketing … the best knowledge of your market … your customer experience?
The competitor to be feared is one who never bothers about you at all but goes on making his own business better all the time.
Henry Ford
Of course, those answers are important. But our top 5 factors deal with your team, your customer, and your adaptability.
Studies show that over 90% of startups fail. Even for those rare few that make it big, life doesn’t get much easier. In fact, only slightly more than 10% of the firms on the original Fortune 500 list are still in business today. Making an enterprise successful and keeping it that way is a staggeringly hard thing to do.
So it’s not hard to see why there has been so much effort devoted to narrowing down a company’s performance to a single factor. Some say that focusing on the customer is key. Others believe that building a great culture is the real path to success. Still, others preach the gospel of developing capable leaders.
Doing what you love: Help in Doing What You Love: 20 Enablers for Success at Last
Here are the top five most important critical success factors to a winning business that we use most often with our clients:
Critical success factors marketing … customer understanding
The one who best understands the customer, his needs and priorities. Customer and market insights are critical to your success, and their understanding should be a continuous process. It starts with knowing who your target customers are.
I love brands that pay attention to detail as much as I do because it takes a relatively small seed and sparks it to life. I could buy shoes from a local store or anywhere online, but I want to shop Zappos and become part of their story because they show they care and focus on me.
It’s evocative and personal. It creates a desire within me that most brands don’t.
They often show me things by combining behind-the-scene insight with real-world examples. This stimulates me to share.
We all need shoes, and there are many options out there, but Zappos is the kind of brand that develops a cult status through its style and culture. This isn’t achieved overnight and without care, though it takes a lot of work.
Customer relationship building
The one who can best build relationships with both new and existing customers. The better the customer relationships, the better the confidence your client has in you and the greater the trust. Both are essential to building customer advocates.
The Disney brand is a huge favorite because I love their products so much. Magical, fantasy entertainment. Being bringers of joy, affirmers of the good in each of us, to be — in subtle ways — teachers. To speak, as Walt once put it:
Not to children but the child in each of us.
Success drivers: Life Success Lessons: 10 You Need to Learn Early in Your Career
Disney’s brand does this through focusing on customer relationships and by giving guests a few hours in another world where their cares can be momentarily put aside and by creating memories that will remain with them forever. I love living in their world of imagination.
Critical success factors … motivated team
The one with the best motivated and talented team is usually the one that comes out on top. People are the business.
Your team is your business quite literally, and no matter how good you are, your business is no better than the people who represent it. Hire for personality and motivation and grow the talent.
Starbucks is a favorite of mine for their aggressive innovation style and the way their team engages customers. Starbucks brings us a space to enjoy the products they sell, rather than a just a product.
Related: Starbucks Marketing Strategy … Making Social Media a Difference Maker
Some would say that it fills a psychological need that other companies have not had to do in quite the same way. The emotion is all about uplifting moments and daily ritual. Stimulating all our senses.
List of critical success factors … honed skills
Look for the ones who keep the knowledge and skills of his team highly refreshed and honed.
First and foremost, the best have great coaches and mentors for their people with continuous hands-on training. Ensure everyone has an assigned and trained backup.
Zappos brand is the top of my list for their awesome culture and skills from the top to bottom of their company. They don’t sell shoes. They deliver that extra dose of love we all need from time to time. There is no secret here. Zappos became Zappos because of the fanatical skills in customer support it offered. That is the company’s brand.
Related: What the Zappos Company Culture Teaches About Branding Your Business
As Tony Hsieh, the Zappos CEO puts it,
Back in 2003, we thought of ourselves as a shoe company that offered great service. Today, we think of the Zappos brand as about great service, and we just happen to sell shoes.
Business adaptability
Look and be the ones who carefully observe the changes in the environment and best adapts to those changes and trends.
Watch your competitors, both locally and on a national scale, and learn from them. Experiment with new ideas fearlessly.
I prefer brands that are most innovative and very eager to try lots new and different ideas. And not afraid of a failure or two. KLM Airlines certainly deserves to be this camp. Real social media marketing innovators. They frequently come up when marketers are discussing the best in social media marketing.
They have been successfully executing their social media marketing plan for over four years, and their strategies have played a key role in their marketing and customer engagement.
Related: How KLM Airline Marketing Uses Social Media for Winning Campaigns
If you’re not familiar with KLM Royal Dutch Airlines, known by its initials KLM, it is the flag carrier airline of the Netherlands. With headquarters is in Amsterdam, KLM operates scheduled passenger and cargo services to more than 90 destinations worldwide. It is the oldest airline in the world, still operating under its original name (Founded in 1919).
Their brand identity is built around a culture of innovativeness. Over the past four years, KLM has launched some social campaigns – some big, some small. They had a few failures along with great successes, but they keep exploring and testing what consumers like the best.
Do you have the winning equation for the success of your business?
Do you have an element of the equation you’d like to add? Which one of these five would you substitute?
What are some of your experiences with the success factors of your business?
Please share an experience with this community.
Need some help in finding ways to grow your customers? Such as creative ideas to promote the differentiation with potential clients? Or perhaps finding ways to work with other businesses?
Call today for a FREE consultation or a FREE quote. Learn about some options to scope your job.
Call Mike at 607-725-8240.
So what’s the conclusion? The conclusion is there is no conclusion. There is only the next step. And that next step is entirely up to you. But believe in the effectiveness of collaborative innovation. And put it to good use in adapting to changes in your business environment.
It’s up to you to keep improving your learning and experience with innovation and creativity efforts. Lessons are all around you. In this case, your competitor may be providing the ideas and or inspiration. But the key is in knowing that it is within you already.
All you get is what you bring to the fight. And that struggle gets better every day you learn and apply new lessons.
When things go wrong, what’s most important is your next step.
Try. Learn. Improve. Repeat.
When things are not what you want them to be, what’s most important is your next step. Call today.
Are you devoting enough energy to improving your continuous learning for yourself and your team?
Digital Spark Marketing will stretch your thinking and your ability to adapt to change. We also provide some fun and inspiration along the way. Call us for a free quote today. You will be amazed how reasonable we will be.
Check out these additional articles on business and its performance from our library:
The Business Intelligence Process Part 3 Competitive Analysis
Competitive Growth Strategy … the Story of In-N-Out Burger
10 Entrepreneur Lessons You Need to Know
Collaboration and Partnerships Are Key to Business Growth
Mike Schoultz is a digital marketing and customer service expert. With 48 years of business experience, he consults on and writes about topics to help improve the performance of small business. Find him on G+, Facebook, Twitter, Digital Spark Marketing, and LinkedIn.