As things pile onto your plate each work day, it becomes an
overwhelming challenge knowing what and how to prioritize. Four pillars
stand as the foundation of a business that ensure your team is
consistently effective and lead to overall success. Without having each
of these pillars solidly standing at the base of your business, the
organization becomes destined for failure.
THE FOUR PILLARS OF A BUSINESS
1. Human Capital
2. Revenue Lines (Products/Services)
3. Customers
4. Financial Transactions
Human Capital: The people on your team are your most
valued resource and the engine behind it all. Without the right people
in place, from the top down, and the right culture to bring them
together as a team, the business will inevitably struggle. From a
business of one to an enterprise of thousands, human capital development
is critical. Skill-set refinement including communication, writing,
listening, documenting, following up, managing, prioritizing and
self-awareness are imperative to consistent success.
Revenue Lines: The products and/or services of a
business are the foundation of sales and growth. What problems do you
solve? What value do you add? How do you differentiate your offering?
Revenue lines must concentrate on product development, research and
development, vendors, sub contractors and strategic partners to ensure
new lines are developed, while sustaining existing lines.
Customers: Your customers are your source of energy
for your organization. Maintaining and strengthening customer
relationships is pivotal to growing any business. If your customers
don’t rely on you and your product or service, you need to change your
strategy.
Financial Transactions: Organized management of a
company’s financial transactions and related information provides the
groundwork for data analytics, dashboards and forecasting. A critical
component of running a successful business is knowing your
numbers. Advancements in technology over the past few years allow
real-time transaction data and enterprise organizational awareness. This
insight is critical for growth. Many companies are breaking away from
their current process and relying on new mobile app reporting of
financial strength and KPIs to ensure the alignment of interests and
needs.
Businesses need leaders who are focused on balancing these four
pillars. All activity within a business must directly support every
member of each team to consistently connect their strategic tactical
activities to one or more of the four pillars. To avoid the dangerous
waters of distraction, all marketing initiatives should be directly
measured and correlated to sales. Do social media posts really work and
drive a call to action? Are the activities correlated to customer
acquisition and sales? Do sales calls strengthen customer
relationships? Are the conversations valuable to the customer? Do the
team meetings improve employee morale? Are your KPIs tracked and managed
(in real time)? If you can’t answer these questions, the four pillars
of your business are not likely even.
Time remains the mutual enemy of organizations and individuals. As
productivity gains move to the next level, you must ensure your
organization has the necessary time management tools and culture to
adapt and evolve. The foundation of business proficiency is a balance of
the time spent on the four pillars by an organization to ensure the
plane supported above is level. If any one area is neglected, the
business will become unbalanced and stability will be at risk. Quite
simply, if the four pillars aren’t stable, the table will fall. Is your
daily business activity tied to one or more of the pillars?
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