People are your greatest asset and you are dependent upon them in your business on many levels. Whether you have employees or subcontractors or are a services or products business, you cannot escape people. Your customers are people. Your employees and suppliers are people. The bottom line is a business cannot run effectively or survive without people.
When you multiply yourself as the business owner times the people who work with you and for you times the people you serve, if managed and motivated correctly, the exponential possibilities for your business are unlimited. How are you empowering all the people connected with your company to help you take your company to its next level? Understanding how to exponentially impact the people you serve or who serve you is what I have identified as CRISP3 – Power of People. See how many of these questions you can answer “yes” to:
1. C3 = Conscientious, Collaborative & Committed: How conscientious are you and your employees in doing their jobs and serving your customers? How effectively are they working together to achieve your desired goals and objectives? How committed are they to your company vision and mission? Do they even know what your vision and the company mission is?
2. R3 = Resourceful, Responsive & Rewarded: How resourceful are your people in problem-solving and providing solutions either internally or for customers? How responsive are they to each other and to customers? Are you rewarding and recognizing efforts of your employees and appreciating loyalty in customers?
3. I3 = Intelligent, Insightful & Inspired: Are you doing all the thinking in your company, or are you allowing your people, as well as customers, help you think through potential strategies and opportunities? Are you gaining ongoing insights from your employees and customers? Are these revelations helping inspire new opportunities, ways to engage and better serve?
4. S3 = Strategic, Successful & Significant: Are you involving your employees in your strategic planning or just dictating the plan to them? Are you enabling your employees to be successful in their roles through development and well defined expectations? Are you acknowledging the significant contributions everyone makes to help the company succeed?
5. P3 = Passionate, Purposeful & Productive: Is there an underlying passion that prevails throughout your company that is almost contagious in what you are doing to serve customers? Are actions based on a higher purpose being demonstrated through pride in the work being done and a focused understanding of the difference your business is truly making? Are your people productive and efficient, continually identifying ways to be even more productive and efficient?
If you answered “no” to any of the questions above, take a step back and take some time to determine why. Understanding the real power your business has as a result of people is the true measure of the potential your company possesses for the long term.
Sherré DeMao is author of the nationally acclaimed books, 50 Marketing Secrets of Growth Companies in Down Economic Times, www.50marketingsecrets.com, and Me, Myself & Inc., www.memyselfandinc.com, Her column seeks to help business owners build and grow sustainable enterprises and businesses with economic value and preference in the marketplace.