When you are setting up a business or looking at starting a new venture, your new enterprise must make a difference. Whether you make a difference to the lives of your employees, your customers, or your target market, the key thing to remember is to make a difference. If you cannot establish just what your new venture will improve or how it will make a difference, you could struggle to get it off the ground and make it a success.
Establish Where Change is Needed
Within your business plan, you need to ascertain just where change is needed, when, and why. Within the sector or market that you are targeting, you have to be able to show where space exists for you and your business offering. If you cannot establish where you could or would fit in, then your business may face uphill struggles from that beginning. Establishing where change is needed and why your business is needed will allow you to begin creating and writing core values.
Set Out Core Values from the Beginning
When you create your business and write your business plan, you need to set core values as soon as possible. These core values will act as a basis and platform for everything that your business offers and does. If you do not have core values for your business, then you could struggle to establish an environment that is healthy and productive. So, for example, are you going to have core values that focus on integrity and trust. Or, are you going to focus on loyalty and honesty? So, what are your core values, and why? Having these values in place as soon as you are able to will help your business get off to a strong start.
Decide What You Want to Achieve
To truly make a difference, you have to establish what difference you want to make. You cannot expect to achieve anything within your business if you do not know why or what impact you will create. So, taking things back to basics, you have to decide just what you want to achieve and why? For example, do you want to make a difference to the community you will operate in?
Have a Clear Vision and Purpose
Once you have established what you want to achieve, you need to ensure a clear vision and purpose. Without a purpose or clear vision, you will struggle to get the results you need and desire. In addition, having a purpose defined shows others what you care about and what you are wanting to achieve. For example, most households know about the purpose of redcross.org simply because they have made it clear in all the communications they have produced and provided to the public. Shaping your vision can be done over time, but what are you going to shape, develop, and grow if you do not have that vision and purpose in place, to begin with?
Talk is Cheap-Action is Necessary
When you are creating a new business, you have to get the balance just right. You can spend a lot of time working away behind the scenes trying to achieve perfection while neglecting the front-end (consumer-driven) section of your business offering. This, of course, can be detrimental to your new business and to its success moving forwards. It is important to plan as well as you can and ensure that you bring your plans well into action. If you get consumed or carried away simply talking about what you will do (without every actioning something or realizing a plan), then you will struggle to gain credibility. If you cannot establish credibility early on in your business, then you will be facing an uphill climb.
Making an Impact – Monitoring the Results
Once you have focused on what you want to create, you then need to focus your attention on the results. Once your business is up and running, monitoring your impact, and recording the difference that you have made to the lives of others, is just as crucial as anything else you undertake. Therefore, you need to focus your efforts on regularly monitoring what you are trying to achieve and what you have achieved. If you do not monitor the results or the efforts you are undertaking within your business, then how can you expect to realize your purpose and vision.
Acting on Results and Feedback
In those first few weeks or months of launching a business, what you do and why matters. You have to be prepared to change and to adapt to ensure that you realize your visions and goals. Monitoring results and acting on feedback early on in the process will allow you to move forward positively and efficiently and build on your success for the future.
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