No matter which way you cut it, your business is made up of people – customers, employees, and other strategic partners. If you want it to succeed, you need to have a good working relationship with these people.

Last time, we looked at the people you serve, and today we will discuss the team you build – the people who work with you.

2. The people who work with you

We can also refer the people who work with you as the team you build. They are those who are responsible for delivering your enterprise values to the market (your customers).

The team is the driver of the chain of values between leadership and the people translating strategy into products and services for your customers.

The quality of talent that you assemble as a team in 2024 will determine whether you grow big or remain small as an enterprise, or even die. That is to say, the team you build today will determine the results you get tomorrow.

Remember, the greatest ability in business is to get along with others and influence their actions, and you have your team to count on to make that happen. Where there is no people that can influence the actions of the market towards your offering, there is no business.

In the words of Strive Masiyiwa, the founder and executive chairman of Econet Global, ‘Many people think that succeeding in business, is about having a good idea, and then raising capital. If you do not know how to forge meaningful, long-term partnerships, based on mutual trust, you will not make it.’

The hardest thing to build in a team is trust. Where trust exists, great accomplishments usually follow. So, build a ‘circle of trust’ around your business by making yourself a trustworthy partner with those that work with you.

Success comes from creating a ‘circle of trust’, between you, your team, and every other strategic business partner. The more people enter this circle of trust, the more you prosper, and so does everyone within that circle.

It’s difficult to knit a team that can’t be honest with each other. Until you get to the point of vulnerability, you haven’t knitted enough. Great teams give room for the parties to be open, accountable to each other, and interdependent.

‘If inner drive’, Donnt Deutsch, an author said, ‘is the first rule, the second rule is outer support.’ Every entrepreneur or enterprise needs that outer support, and that outer support can come from nowhere else than from your team.

Your ability to assemble the right team will change the game for your good. Two of the reasons businesses fail are when they have the wrong team as partners.

Therefore, the business successes you experience are largely because you have the right people who help you to achieve outstanding results.

About the writer:

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First, the people you serve – your market. Then people who work with you – the team you build, and the people that you work with – your strategic business partners you collaborate with. People are everything, and they are your critical business partners.

Let’s take a brief look at how these partners are central to your business success in 2024.

1. The people you serve

Business is a means of touching lives in a way that tells your market (customers) that you understand their needs, expectations, and wants and that you are willing and able to meet those needs like no other. This will become very significant in 2024.

Customers are always attracted to businesses that demonstrate that they understand their problems, and have created remarkable ways to address them.

When a customer goes out looking for a product, he doesn’t care how much you know about the product, he only cares about himself – his time, his feelings, and his money. The customer does not care how good you are but what is in it for him or her.

After all, there are so many choices available to the customers. To use your product, they have to fire someone else. The customers wouldn’t want to settle for anything less than what they want. Instead of less, they always want more of what would address their immediate and future needs and expectations in 2024.

Your ability to know what your customers need, meeting those needs, and your relationship with your customers could be your utmost competitive advantage. Customers are meant to be taken care of, and those who look after them the most win and keep them for life.

Being superior in product knowledge but inferior in the market’s knowledge will produce minimal results. Always take the time to listen to both your customers and prospective customers to find out what they actually care about.

Without your market (customer), your business is dead. You are in a partnership business with your customers, no matter what you do and where you do it. So, quit the business you think you’re in right now (whatever it is), and get into a working partnership with your customers. That’s where the real game is in the new economy.

Your customers do business with you not because you are the best, but the preferred. They like you and enjoy the rapport they have with you. Without a scalable path to customers, even the best products die a silent death.

Your customers are your best and biggest investors. In case you may have forgotten, an average customer has a huge lifetime value. Your business success can only grow when you recognise your customers as the investors that they are, and the value they bring to the table.

You are in partnership with everyone who touches the business. If there are critical stakeholders you have in business, your customers are the number one. They work with you to make your business successful.

About the writer:

Tony Ajah is a Business Growth Strategist, and the author of BUSINESS SENSE, and ON BECOMING AN ENTREPRENEUR. He maintains a personal blog, where he shares proven business ideas and principles for SMEs.

This marketing tool allows companies to tap into the creativity and authenticity of their customers, creating a strong sense of community and trust. The strategies that companies can employ to effectively harness the potential of user-generated content are the focus of this piece:

1. Encourage and Incentivize Participation:

One of the key ways to foster user-generated content is by actively encouraging and incentivizing participation from your audience. This can be achieved through contests, challenges, or campaigns that motivate users to share their experiences, stories, or creations related to your brand. Offering rewards, recognition, or exclusive perks, can inspire users to become active contributors.

2. Provide Easy-to-Use Platforms and Tools:

To facilitate the creation and sharing of user-generated content, it’s essential to provide user-friendly platforms and tools. This can include dedicated hashtags, social media tagging, or even custom-built microsites or apps that make it simple for users to submit and showcase their content. Streamlining the process encourages higher engagement and increases the likelihood of user participation.

3. Engage and Amplify User Content:

Once user-generated content starts pouring in, it’s crucial to actively engage with your users and amplify their contributions. Respond to comments, share and repost their content, and give credit where it’s due. By acknowledging and showcasing user-generated content, you not only foster a sense of community but also motivate others to join in the conversation.

4. Leverage Influencer Partnerships:

Collaborating with influencers who align with your brand values can be a powerful way to generate user content. Influencers have a dedicated following and can inspire their audience to engage and create content related to your brand. The provision of influencers with exclusive access, products, or experiences, you can encourage them to generate and share authentic content that resonates with their followers.

5. Curate and Showcase User Content:

Curating and showcasing the best user-generated content on your website, social media platforms, or even in physical spaces can be a powerful way to highlight the value of user contributions. This not only provides recognition to users but also serves as social proof, building trust and credibility around your brand.

6. Create a Sense of Community:

Building a community around your brand is essential for fostering user-generated content. Facilitate discussions, host online events or webinars, and provide opportunities for users to connect and share their experiences with like-minded individuals. By nurturing a vibrant community, you encourage users to become brand advocates and generate content organically.

User-generated content has revolutionized the way companies engage with their audience, fostering authenticity, trust, and brand loyalty. The implementation of the strategies mentioned above will help businesses successfully tap into the power of user-generated content, harnessing the creativity and passion of their customers to drive brand awareness, engagement, and growth.

It’s important to note that nurturing a community-driven approach will make room for businesses to unlock the full potential of user-generated content and establish a meaningful connection with their audience.

Planning does not need to provide you with all the answers but it can help you to identify key enterprise metrics you must pay attention to from time to time, and how to profitably and sustainably meet the market needs.

The real value you’ll receive from planning is sharpening your thinking and organizing your action steps.

It will make you prioritise what is needed to run your business. And with it, you can create a clear action plan with defined steps, timelines, and deliverables. This is where precise execution comes in.

Plans are useless until they are married to execution. Your plan is only as good as your ability to confront the market and sell your products or services to them, and keep selling!

Once you start operating, market conditions are such that you have to adjust. This does not mean you throw away your plan, i.e. your Business Plan, but you move quickly to adjust it to the prevailing realities.

Sometimes, the market will steer your business in unimaginable places that will violate everything you have planned.

Typically, new businesses fail because the people responsible for them take assumptions to be fact. They don’t work hard enough or systematically enough to identify and validate critical assumptions before either committing large resources to the business proposition or walking away.

Just as an American entrepreneur, MJ DeMarco said, ‘The world has the incorrigible power to corrupt business plans the moment the idea is transformed to reality. The best business plan in the world will always be a track record of execution. If you want investors, get out and execute!’

Business success is never about the idea but about the execution of the ideas. Come to think of it, people invest in tangible ideas or in people with track records of execution, and not on Business Plan. The value of an idea is hidden in its execution. Execution is always king!

You should have goals that are broken down quarterly or even monthly. Plan out where you expect to be every step of the way in terms of financing, staffing, marketing, and any other relevant department of your business.

In the true sense of the word, the owner of an idea is not he who imagines or plans it, but he who executes it.

He who thinks the idea owns nothing. He who executes the idea owns everything. So, after dreaming and planning it, the real deal is in executing it. If you have-not, it’s because you act-not. So, plan and work it!

End.

About the Author:

He maintains a personal blog where he shares proven business ideas and principles for SMEs.