What Does Your Business Do?


By Anthony Hernandez


At this point in the business startup (or reinvention) process, you should be clear about your life’s mission. Your next step is to determine what goods and/or services your business should offer that will best contribute to that mission. Never forget that your business must exist to serve your needs, never the other way around. Far too many entrepreneurs trade the “oppression” of the 9-5 workday for the “freedom” of the 6-midnight at a job they can’t simply walk away from. You don’t want to be in that position.

Resist the temptation to offer too broad a spectrum, especially in the early stages. Focus on doing one thing extremely well instead of many mediocre things. I’m not saying you must only offer one product or service. You should, however, make sure that everything you offer falls into the same narrow range that will greatly simplify your marketing and management. Keep in mind that the actual things your business offers are almost afterthoughts compared to the many things that must occur for the business to remain open. For example, if you are opening a bakery, then the actual baking will be a very small part of keeping your doors open every day. Every variable you add to your offering mix ha s an exponential impact on management.

So you’ve determined that your business is the right one for you to be in and have settled on a suitably focused range of offerings. Now it’s time to look at the other businesses in your area that offer similar things to determine how your business will stand out from the competition. This process involves the following three steps:

First, get out a blank sheet of paper and a pen (I strongly recommend doing this by hand instead of on a word processor). On this sheet, list every conceivable benefit to customers of doing business with you. Don’t confuse benefits with features. What’s the difference? A feature is a “what” (a bell or whistle). A benefit is a “so what”, (what customers get from doing business with you). Be brazen! Hey, if you’re not your business’s loudest advocate, who will be?

Second, examine the competition. If you’re opening a traditional “brick and mortar” business (storefront or office), then take a good look at your local area. If you’re opening a virtual (online) business, then your search must be much wider (nationwide or even worldwide). Each of these businesses offers benefits, many of which duplicate yours. Find and eliminate these duplicates from your list, which will soon bear an almost painful number of scribbles and deletions. Fear not, because this is a good thing. In fact, it’s a very good thing.

Third, look at the remains of your once-proud list. If you did your job correctly, then most of your work will be obliterated. How can this be a good thing? Take a closer look and you’ll see a few things that you haven’t deleted. This is what sets your business apart. This is where you are going to hang your management, marketing, and planning hats. This is the foundation upon which your business will be built or rebuilt.

What about you? Now that you have the raw blueprint for your business in hand, you need to start thinking about your ideal life (the life you’d live if freed from all constraints) and life’s mission and start figuring out what your role in this business is going to be. How will you balance the three competing forces of forward-looking visionary and dreamer, present-day technician who actually does the work, and backward-looking manager who constantly tries to apply some logic and order to the whole endeavor? Chances are very strong that you are a technician, a very grounded live-for-the-moment person who loves doing whatever your business does (such as baking). I’ve lost count of the number of people who tell me “I’m a _______, not a businessperson!” The time to start defining your role in this business is right now. If you are in business or are thinking of starting a business and you have not read Michael Gerber’s The Emyth Revisited, then I urge you to run, not walk, to your nearest bookseller.

By now, we’re fairly far along in the process of defining your business and how it fits into and serves your needs. Notice that I haven’t talked about a business plan yet. Starting with a business plan makes the whole effort revolve around the business when it should revolve around you, then around your customers. Next week, we’ll start talking about how to make sure your business revolves around its customers. Stay tuned!

Anthony Hernandez is a Certified Guerrilla Marketing Association Business Coach with over 20 years of business and marketing experience. To learn more about Anthony and the services he provides, visit him on the web at Coach Anthony (http://www.coachanthony.com/index.htm) and The Enlightened Savage (http://www.theenlightenedsavage.com/). Anthony lives with his family in Ashland, Oregon.


More Resources

Unable to open RSS Feed $XMLfilename with error HTTP ERROR: 404, exiting

More Management Information:

Related Articles

Truth or Consequences: How to Give Employee Feedback
In the bestseller, Good to Great, Jim Collins discovered that, "the good-to-great companies continually refined the path to greatness with the brutal facts of reality."And, in his recent autobiography, Jack Welch reports that he spent about half of his time on people: recruiting new talent, picking the right people for particular positions, grooming young stars, developing managers, dealing with under performers, and reviewing the entire talent pool.
Building Shareholder Value Through Your People
Increasing shareholder value is the most important driver for organisations in the modern business world. Shareholder value is built through growing profit and building confidence in the organisation, which moves share prices upwards.
Employees - Treat Them the Way They Expect to be Treated
When you have to deal with one of your team who's complaining to you, rather than allowing your negative programmes to take over, get your thinking part in gear and try to see the situation the way they see it. You don't necessarily have to agree with them but perhaps you can empathise with their point of view.
Hiring a Book Keeping Service
Whether you choose to do your own books and accounting or hire those services out there are a few things you should know first.A good book keeping service will normally charge you around $200 -500 per month while you are still somewhat small and you can receive: Profit and Loss Statements; Balance Sheets; Bill Paying Services; Checking Account Reconciliation; Journal Reconciliation; Tax Information Preparation; Tax Return Filing; Etc.
Communicating Effectively In The Workplace: Four Vital Steps
Ineffective communication is a major, yet avoidable, obstacle to business productivity. And yes, it can be avoided.
Cold Water Comments - What They Are and How to Manage Them!
Cold Water Comments are those comments, phrases and ideas that are meant to discourage, disparage, discredit and generally douse your ideas! There are several things you can do to keep those comments in someone's bucket or warm them up once they've been tossed.
The Challenges of Human Resource Management
IntroductionThe role of the Human Resource Manager is evolving with the change in competitive market environment and the realization that Human Resource Management must play a more strategic role in the success of an organization. Organizations that do not put their emphasis on attracting and retaining talents may find themselves in dire consequences, as their competitors may be outplaying them in the strategic employment of their human resources.
The Compliance Officers Killer Application
It used to be that only the largest multi-nationals needed a Compliance Officer. Today most practices, regardless of size, would be wise to charge someone within their organisation with the responsibility of keeping abreast and managing the compliance process.
Know Your Business! - 7 Key Questions You Must Ask
You need to know all that is going on around you to be successful in business, whatever the size of your organization. Yet how do you keep all those plates spinning? Here are just 7 quick and easy questions for your checklist - use them and they will serve you well.
Why People Resist Us
There's a one-word reason most ideas never see the light of day: Resistance.Resistance is often behind the glassy-eyed stares you get following a presentation, the sarcastic put-downs you have to put up with when you describe your vision for a new product or service, and other people's abrupt departure from the water cooler when you approach, enthusiastic and ready to share an idea.
Five Essential Hiring Practices
Recruiting and hiring are often done in haste, leaving the company to repent in the long run. Today, there's a reason to be concerned about negligent hiring.
Creativity and Innovation - Large Firms Versus Small Firms
There is a pervasive assumption that small firms are more creative and innovative than larger firms. That is, they identify problems and generate ideas (creativity) and idea select, develop and commercialise (innovate) those ideas to a greater degree than larger firms.
The Seven Cs: Partnership Danger Signs - The 6th C: Changing Vision
A series of articles exploring the seven critical areas that can indicate a partnership is in trouble.The 6th C: Changing VisionIn order for a business to be a success the vision and mission must be reflected in all aspects of the structure, the culture and the strategy by which business is conducted.
Objects in the Mirror are Further Than They Appear
Definition From http://www.merriamwebster.
Five Key Strategies for Making Your Nonprofit Business More Effective
I love tennis both as a spectator and a weekend player. I also believe that effective nonprofit organizations are an essential part of vibrant, engaged communities.
The Professor Makes A Minus Power Move
If you think the power move has costs, consider the alternative. We are talking -- four friends -- bringing one another up to date on our personal and professional lives.
Recruitment - Do You Know What Youre Looking For?
The time will come when you'll need to interview someone tojoin your business or your existing team. If you work in alarge organisation then this could be someone from insidethe company.
Challenge of ERP Implementation: Q and A with Rick Maurer
Question: ERPs seem like a good idea, so why is return on investment so low?Answer: Resistance often kills many of these new systems. Even though the promise of what an ERP can do is high, the planners often fail to look at how the users are likely to view this "improvement.
The Do's and Don'ts of Giving Feedback
Being able to give effective feedback is not just a good skill to possess in business, it is a great life skill to have. Because when you are masterful at giving feedback, not only can you help your employees to sustain continuously improving performance, you can also improve the performance of the baseball team you coach, the cleaning lady at home, or the performance of your own children on completing their chores.
How to Meet Quality Standards with ISO 9001
In today's hectic business environment, it is vital that we are all on the same page, right? But how do we know if we meet those standards? Business owners and executives can avoid the uncertainty, and that's where ISO 9001 certification comes in.Standardizing Quality SystemsThe ISO, or International Organization for Standardization, was established in 1947 to develop international standards for everything from electronics to management systems.