Discover Your Company "why"
Connect Straight From The Heart
Clearly defining and articulating your “why” can have immediate effects on propelling a company forward. Your company “why” establishes the platform for long-term business strategy, creates a bigger competitive advantage and differentiation in the marketplace, inspires innovation, increases brand trust and loyalty, and ultimately, enables the company to stand the test of time
As a leader in an organization or the owner of your company do you truly know why you do what you do or why your company exists? If the answer is yes, are you communicating this to everyone in the organization or to the customers, clients or partners you are aiming to attract? If you are, great. If not, studies and research have proven that you are missing a huge progression opportunity that not only impacts your top and bottom line but the right people you are trying to attract and sustain within your company.
In practical terms, having a “why” is vital for everyone in a company, from the CEO to the new hire. If we understand why we do what we do, we can decide what to do next and when to do it. And in many cases, we can do so autonomously, knowing that we’re working towards a common cause we all believe in.
Inspiration is never enough to keep you, your leadership team and all your employees going when things get hard or when you lose momentum. You must have something that is going to motivate you to push passed the obstacles and challenges when they arise. Anybody can start, but not everyone will finish what they set out to do. The most successful companies succeed because they are clear on their why. Whether you’re an entrepreneur, a creative, a leader, or someone who is simply committed to achieving your goals, Applied Excellence can make sure you, your company employees, are clear on your why and how to immediately incorporate it into your company, sales and marketing program.
When you truly understand your purpose and communicate it well, the effect on your team is nothing short of euphoric. When you’re working in a common cause, in harmony and united by a single purpose, things will begin to happen that inspire you, your employees and your partners and attract customers and clients to want to partner with you.
Make a smart business move by letting us partner with you to develop and market your unique “why” statement and realize the improved revenue and profitability that will be driven out of your company progression.
Identify Your Company Core Values
Align With People Who Believe What You Believe
Values support the vision, shape the culture and reflect what a company value. They are the essence of the company's identity – Company values offer alignment and provide direction to employees and educate clients and potential customers about what the company is about and clarify the identity of the company
Consider these corporate values: Communication. Respect. Integrity. Excellence. They sound pretty good, don’t they? Strong, concise, meaningful. Maybe they even resemble your own company’s values, the ones you or your leadership spent so much time writing, debating, and revising. Values can set a company apart from the competition by clarifying its identity and serving as a rallying point for employees, but many corporate values resemble each other so what is the difference maker? It’s not so much coming up with strong values but a company’s ability to dig deeper into the meaning behind each value they stand for, in essence, actually personalizing the values —and then sticking to them and communicating them—it’s the execution of standing behind the values, living, breathing and holding each other within the company accountable to its values that is the real difference maker. Companies, therefore, should establish some basic definitions to ensure that people know what they’re talking about and what they’re trying to accomplish.
Core Values and Aspirational Values:
Core values are the deeply ingrained principles that guide all of a company’s actions; they serve as its cultural cornerstones, they can never be compromised, either for convenience or short-term economic gain. Aspirational values are those that a company needs to succeed in the future but currently lacks. A company may need to develop a new value to support a new strategy in order to meet the changing circumstances of the industry or evolving generational audience that is now its target, however aspirational values need to be carefully managed to ensure that they do not dilute the core values that create the platform of company identity. Core values should be integrated into every employee-related and process—hiring methods, performance management systems, criteria for promotions and rewards, and even dismissal policies. From the first interview to the last day of work, employees should be constantly reminded that core values form the basis for every decision the company makes. In essence, core company values are the beliefs, philosophies, and principles that drive your business. They impact the employee experience you deliver as well as the relationship you develop with your customers, partners, and shareholders. Your company values are your company's DNA and they help you differentiate your business from the competition.
At Applied Excellence we partner with you to help develop your core values or enhance the relevancy and meaning of the values you’ve already incorporated with the goal of marketing your values internally in order to meet today’s ever evolving, ever changing and highly competitive business world.
Create Your Value Proposition
Pull People To What Matters Most
A value proposition isn't just the product or service you agree to deliver to the customer -- it's the ingredient of your business that solves a problem that competitors can't. Your value proposition is your unique identifier. Without it, people don't have a reason to work with you over somebody else.
A value proposition is designed to be used internally and externally. Internally in order to align every employee and partner with a precise, clear understanding of the value your company and product offer and externally, by sales and marketing teams, to attempt to sell the product or service to potential customers.
A good value proposition can give you an advantage over your competitors and is often what your prospects use to evaluate you. And for many clients, your value proposition is the first thing they encounter when exploring your brand. So, in a world where time is becoming more and more invaluable having a clear, concise value proposition is more important than ever.
A value proposition is a statement that answers the ‘why’ someone should do business with you. It should convince a potential customer why your service or product will be of more value to them than from your competition. In its simplest terms, a value proposition is a positioning statement that explains what benefit you provide for who and how you do it uniquely well. A value prop may determine if a potential customer responds to a sales pitch or stays on a website to read more or decides to leave the page and continue looking elsewhere.
Identifying your unique value proposition is the main pillar that establishes your success in both marketing and sales. If you had just ten words with which to describe why people should buy your company's products or service, what would you say? Remember, your company value proposition isn't just the product or service you agree to deliver to the customer -- it's the ingredient of your business that solves a problem that competitors can't. Your value proposition is your unique identifier. Without it, people don't have a reason to work with you over somebody else.
Applied Excellence not only help you and your team to identify and create your company value proposition but also how to incorporate it into your sales and marketing in order to increase overall effectiveness.
Position Your Company Differentiation
Communicate What Others Cannot
Let’s face it, you probably have competitors offering similar products or services, and through the internet many of your potential customers will have easy access to compare their options, so you will need a well-executed strategy to convince them that you are different and better than all their other options. Even if you already have an idea of your differentiating factors, it’s a good idea to spend some time doing some competitor research. The best way to go about doing this is by checking out their sites and examining their marketing campaigns.
To start the process Applied Excellence partner with you in the focus on what your company and your product or service can do for the prospect that’s different from what the competition can do or different from the way the company you are targeting is doing it now. Your ability to communicate a compelling story that clearly shows the contrast between the gaps and deficiencies in the way your prospect is doing things today, and how those issues will be resolved with your new approach and unique strengths will trigger unknown dissatisfaction and elevate the need for what you are proposing. Arm yourself with proof points of times when comparable companies have identified the stated challenges, agreed to make the changes you recommend, and come out the other side with documented success. These proof points help defend your story as being different from your competitors and underscore the positive business impact you’re claiming.
Establishing Product and Company Criteria
Once you have established your product and company differentiation, you will be in the position of using these features to set the new criteria. It will be the responsibility of marketing and sales to ensure customers understand that these specific features must be added to the criteria they have already established in order to make their buying decision. Although many potential customers may not be conscious of it, all of them will have criteria they are looking for in a new product or that they want to sustain in an existing product. Criteria simply means how they will measure or gauge what is important to them, which, once identified, will usually dictate what they will buy and who they will buy from. This is why it is critical to not only ensure you establish and meet the criteria the customer is looking for, but also make it your goal to set new criteria.
Applied Excellence are focused on supporting your ability to not just identify your company differentiation but support your ability to create the right marketing message that allow your differentiation to immediately be understood. Additionally we partner with you to ensure your sales and customer service people are fully versed on the strategic questioning that communicates how you don’t just meet the criteria the customer is asking for but set new criteria that eliminates your competition, resulting in more closed sales and greater margins.
The Go-Giver Way
Ultimate influence that attracts
Creating a culture of excellence requires a consistent underlying belief that transfers through a company and there is no greater platform than shifting your focus to ensure that you are constantly reinforcing a message to add value to others.
The strategy and framework within the Go-Giver way has proven to have a positive impact on each and every individual who is exposed to it, regardless of profession, position or industry. We are all human and the ability to authentically connect with others and focus on how you can add value to their world is proving to be a communication gamechanger that will not only ensure you professionally move forward, but personally move forward too.
Universal principles that shift your focus from yourself and to the people that you're talking to and without any emotional connection to the result achieve leadership commitment and not compliance, in sales the focus of the best interests of your client result in pulling people to you and not pushing, in fact any human interaction where your focus in genuinely and authentically on making the other person the star of the show will create an unseen flow of energy that naturally attracts people to you.
Applied Excellence will offer you, your team or your company a framework to support this shift creating the platform for enhancing, advancing or creating a culture where everyone is focused on adding value, touching lives, being real, collaboration and establishing trust.
