Do You Have the Elements of a High-Performing Business?

Wednesday, March 13th, 2013

by Norm Trainor, The Covenant Group

March 7, 2013

When sur­vey­ing your busi­ness, do you assess the indi­vid­ual com­po­nents of oper­a­tions, mar­ket­ing, sales and client rela­tion­ship man­age­ment? Or do you sim­ply look at it as a whole?To get a clear sense of which aspects of your com­pany are per­form­ing well and which ones need to be closely mon­i­tored and improved, it is bet­ter to inspect the five ele­ments that cre­ate a high-performing busi­ness. As I explain in The Entre­pre­neur­ial Jour­ney, these are your vision, strat­egy, struc­ture, sys­tems and skills (the peo­ple who make the busi­ness run). It is vital that you under­stand the inter­de­pen­dent rela­tion­ship of these five ele­ments and that you give them all the atten­tion they deserve.With­out vision, there can be no direction

Lay­ing out your vision for the busi­ness will give the com­pany a focus but will also give you a greater pur­pose to work every day than merely mak­ing money. Greed is not a healthy or sus­tain­able moti­va­tor. When you have estab­lished the pic­ture of what you want to achieve through the orga­ni­za­tion, you will be able to make all future deci­sions in con­text of that vision. Each time you face a major choice, you will weigh it in terms of how it advances or detracts from your men­tal pic­ture of the business.The vision will serve as a foun­da­tion on which you build strat­egy. What will you have to do to achieve what you want the busi­ness to become? What resources and skills do you have on hand in order to exe­cute the plan? The answers to these ques­tions will help you cre­ate a busi­ness plan​.As you grad­u­ally exe­cute each point in your strat­egy, you will see your com­pany begin to grow. Expand­ing from a busi­ness of one to an orga­ni­za­tion of many dif­fer­ent employ­ees and mov­ing parts will require you to cre­ate a struc­ture and a hier­ar­chy. Define every role within the com­pany and map out how each person’s respon­si­bil­i­ties relates to those of other team members.With the increased num­ber of peo­ple and processes, it will be nec­es­sary to adopt sys­tems that sup­port the var­i­ous func­tions in the com­pany. Even­tu­ally, you will have a set of poli­cies and tasks related to hir­ing, train­ing, client ser­vice, infor­ma­tion man­age­ment, billing and much more.The final ele­ment, skills, will develop and become stronger as you hire more peo­ple and begin to nar­row your practice’s areas of spe­cial­iza­tion. Rec­og­niz­ing the intri­cate rela­tion­ship between all five of these com­po­nents will help your busi­ness grow and enjoy long-term suc​cess​.As founder, pres­i­dent and CEO of The Covenant Group, Norm Trainor is often seen as the face of the com­pany and its lead­ing finan­cial advi­sor train­ing pro­grams. He has penned sev­eral best-selling books, arti­cles and other works with entre­pre­neurs and finan­cial advi­sors to show them how they can become more valu­able to their clients, boost pro­duc­tiv­ity and, ulti­mately, achieve the suc­cess they desire.

Fol­low The Covenant Group

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Tags: Business Plan, Client Relationship Management, Covenant Group, Decisions, Entrepreneurial Journey, Five Elements, Greater Purpose, Greed, Hierarchy, Interdependent Relationship, Major Choice, Map, Marketing Sales, Mental Picture, Motivator, Moving Parts, Norm Trainor, People, Structure Systems, Team Members
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Recognize and Seize Your Business Opportunities

Thursday, December 20th, 2012

by Norm Trainor, The Covenant Group

Entre­pre­neurswho have been work­ing in a spe­cific mar­ket for many years may some­times feel as if they have hit a glass ceil­ing. If you think you have tar­geted as many clients as pos­si­ble in your niche, it may be time to reflect on other mar­kets or ideal client pro­files whose needs you have not yet addressed. Con­sider your cur­rent areas of exper­tise and how these could cat­a­pult you into other related areas.With a new year on the hori­zon, there are new oppor­tu­ni­ties to iden­tify. Assess what you need to do in order to meet them. For exam­ple, are there cer­ti­fi­ca­tions you need to acquire to boost your cred­i­bil­ity and prove your exper­tise to new prospects? Just as we need to invest in our busi­nesses (by adding employ­ees and tech­nolo­gies) to drive our com­pa­nies to the next level, we also need to invest in our­selves to push our­selves into higher pro­fes­sional categories.

Rein­vent your busi­ness with new mar­kets

Be an indus­try trail­blazer and find fresh new mar­kets, rather than some­one who fol­lows the pack and thus gets a smaller por­tion of the rev­enue. To do so, it’s vital that you are con­stantly research­ing your cur­rent sec­tor and also learn­ing about emerg­ing trends and ana­lyz­ing them for poten­tial busi­ness opportunities.

Let me give you an exam­ple. I recently came across a new report from research con­sult­ing com­pany North­star Research Part­ners and brand engage­ment firm Sul­li­van, the 2012 Rebuild­ing Investor Trust study. The researchers found that even amid the stag­nant econ­omy and con­tin­ued decline in home incomes, investors are still engaged in their invest­ments and are even tak­ing a big­ger role in over­see­ing their inter­ests. Jim Neuwirth, the pres­i­dent and CEO of North­star Research Part­ners, com­mented that despite investors choos­ing to del­e­gate more regard­ing their port­fo­lios, that does not mean advi­sors have to abdi­cate their positions.

What does this mean for pro­fes­sion­als in the finan­cial ser­vices indus­try? “To be suc­cess­ful mov­ing for­ward, advi­sors must rec­og­nize this shift and increase their client engage­ment accord­ingly,” Neuwirth says. An advi­sor who wanted to cap­i­tal­ize on this trend could choose to rebrand his or her busi­ness as one that val­ues col­lab­o­ra­tion with its clients. By focus­ing on cus­tomer ser­vice and mak­ing its com­mu­ni­ca­tion sys­tems more effi­cient and sim­ple, a firm could build a rep­u­ta­tion as one that is there to help its clients make smart decisions.

What sys­tems have you estab­lished to make sure you are catch­ing new busi­ness oppor­tu­ni­ties? How often do you review your cur­rent mar­kets for insight into how you can expand your company’s areas of oper­a­tion? Build a brand that is respon­sive to your clients’ demands and capa­ble of adapt­ing to shifts in its mar­kets, and you are much more likely to cre­ate sus­tain­able success.

As founder, pres­i­dent and CEO of The Covenant Group, Norm Trainor is often seen as the face of the com­pany and its lead­ing finan­cial advi­sor train­ing pro­grams. He has penned sev­eral best-selling books, arti­cles and other works with entre­pre­neurs and finan­cial advi­sors to show them how they can become more valu­able to their clients, boost pro­duc­tiv­ity and, ulti­mately, achieve the suc­cess they desire.

Fol­low The Covenant Group

    Lat­est Advi­so­r­An­a­lyst Prac­tice Growth Sto­ries

Tags: Business Opportunities, Client Profiles, Consulting Company, Covenant Group, Credibility, Glass Ceiling, Horizon, Incomes, New Opportunities, Next Level, Niche, Norm Trainor, Northstar Research, Portfolios, Professional Categories, Prospects, Research Consulting, Research Partners, Stagnant Economy, Trailblazer
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Are You Using Periodic Reviews to Secure Client Capital?

Wednesday, December 12th, 2012

by Norm Trainor, The Covenant Group

Some of the most valu­able busi­ness prospects are already your clients. Because you have already suc­ceeded in con­vert­ing exist­ing clients, a major por­tion of the mar­ket­ing process has been com­pleted. It allows you to build upon your past suc­cesses and the fact that the exist­ing clients are already famil­iar with your work.

Get infor­ma­tion on past actions for future suc­cess
To get insight into how you can do that, how­ever, you must undergo peri­odic reviews. As I explained in a recent pre­sen­ta­tion at the National Asso­ci­a­tion of Insur­ance and Finan­cial Advi­sors’ Annual Con­fer­ence (NAIFA), this is a six-step process and should be part of a reg­u­lar follow-up sched­ule that you main­tain for each of your clients.

Explain to your clients that you like to con­duct peri­odic reviews, and send an invi­ta­tion between two and four weeks ahead of when you would like to meet. Call them to estab­lish a con­crete date and time, and then send a meet­ing agenda a week before this date. Shar­ing an out­line for the meet­ing will make it a more con­struc­tive dis­cus­sion for you and the client and will allow both of you to orga­nize your thoughts ahead of time. Tele­phone once again to con­firm that your client received the agenda and ask if there are any ques­tions he or she would like to ask ahead of time or that should be cov­ered in more detail dur­ing the meet­ing. Anthony Lam delves deeper into the sim­ple steps you can take before a meet­ing here.

When you meet with the client, you can ask for feed­back on your per­for­mance and for sug­ges­tions of how you can pro­vide added value. This is a great oppor­tu­nity to have your clients reaf­firm their sat­is­fac­tion with your ser­vice and con­fi­dence in your abil­i­ties. The meet­ing will be a primer not only for secur­ing future sales — it can also be a great tran­si­tion as you ask for refer­rals and intro­duc­tions. At that point, describe who your ideal prospect is, and guide the client through a few ques­tions to help him or her iden­tify poten­tial leads. Now the client will be primed for you to ask for a per­sonal intro­duc­tion (a much more effec­tive tac­tic than cold-calling referrals).

In both the introduction-request and review processes, fol­low­ing up with your client is essen­tial. Let him or her know how it goes with the prospects they iden­ti­fied. Sim­i­larly, con­tact clients with whom you con­duct reviews to A) thank them for their time and feed­back, and B) let them know what course of action you plan to take as a result of their cri­tiques and/or suggestions.

As founder, pres­i­dent and CEO of The Covenant Group, Norm Trainor is often seen as the face of the com­pany and its lead­ing finan­cial advi­sor train­ing pro­grams. He has penned sev­eral best-selling books, arti­cles and other works with entre­pre­neurs and finan­cial advi­sors to show them how they can become more valu­able to their clients, boost pro­duc­tiv­ity and, ulti­mately, achieve the suc­cess they desire.

Fol­low The Covenant Group

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Tags: Anthony Lam, Business Prospects, Confidence, Covenant Group, Future Sales, Insight, Insurance, Introductions, Invitation, Marketing Process, Meeting Agenda, National Association Of Insurance And Financial Advisors, Norm Trainor, Referrals, Satisfaction, Simple Steps, Six Step, Successes, Time Telephone, Transition
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Breaking Down the Business Builder Model

Wednesday, November 28th, 2012

by Norm Trainor, The Covenant Group

As our team pre­pares for our upcom­ing Pin­na­cle Con­fer­ence, I look for­ward to shar­ing with our audi­ence how entre­pre­neurscan cre­ate a busi­ness model that enables growth. In my expe­ri­ence, a num­ber of busi­ness own­ers go into work on a daily basis with­out con­sid­er­ing how what they do that day will impact their orga­ni­za­tions one, three, or 10 years in the future.

This can lead busi­ness own­ers to the orga­ni­za­tional equiv­a­lent of spin­ning tires: They are expend­ing an exor­bi­tant amount of energy with­out mak­ing any progress, grad­u­ally entrench­ing them­selves in a rut.

The Busi­ness Builder Model stip­u­lates that there are five com­po­nents in expand­ing oper­a­tions: mind­set, tar­get, engage, com­mit and expand. In defin­ing your mind­set as the entre­pre­neur, you will be able to advance your com­pany and help it achieve its full poten­tial. There are five ques­tions that you must ask as you work to imple­ment your stated mind­set. You must define your busi­ness model and think about what new prod­ucts and ser­vices you will intro­duce. Ask how you iden­tify and imple­ment your sys­tems and processes, and con­sider what you do to guar­an­tee qual­ity and con­tin­u­ous improve­ment. What does ser­vice excel­lence mean to you?

To move on to the next stage, tar­get­ing and cre­at­ing a mar­ket­ing strat­egy, you will have to fig­ure out who your ideal or right client is, what the right value propo­si­tion is and what the cor­rect price is (the equi­lib­rium of value for you and for your client).

As you move on to engag­ing prospects, you will have to design and spark a con­ver­sa­tion that grabs poten­tial clients’ inter­est and estab­lishes a mean­ing­ful dia­logue. In secur­ing the progress you have made and using that as a foun­da­tion for future suc­cess, you must com­mit to your busi­ness rela­tion­ships, thus build­ing client cap­i­tal and prov­ing your value to clients. Tran­si­tion­ing into the expan­sion phase requires devel­op­ing a client expe­ri­ence that demon­strates your added value and excel­lent ser­vice, as this will help you strengthen your rela­tion­ship equity.

Have you cre­ated a strat­egy for how you will expo­nen­tially grow your busi­ness? Have you thought past the client acqui­si­tion step to con­sider tac­tics for retain­ing those clients and cap­i­tal­iz­ing on the ini­tial suc­cess to lay out a sus­tain­able growth model?

As founder, pres­i­dent and CEO of The Covenant Group, Norm Trainor is often seen as the face of the com­pany and its lead­ing finan­cial advi­sor train­ing pro­grams. He has penned sev­eral best-selling books, arti­cles and other works with entre­pre­neurs and finan­cial advi­sors to show them how they can become more valu­able to their clients, boost pro­duc­tiv­ity and, ulti­mately, achieve the suc­cess they desire.

Fol­low The Covenant Group

    Lat­est Advi­so­r­An­a­lyst Prac­tice Growth Sto­ries

Tags: Added Value, Business Builder, Business Model, Business Owners, Business Relationships, Client Experience, Continuous Improvement, Covenant Group, Daily Basis, Equilibrium, Expansion Phase, Grabs, Marketing Strategy, Meaningful Dialogue, Mindset, Norm Trainor, Pinnacle, Service Excellence, Target, Value Proposition
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Create an Ongoing Recruiting Program

Wednesday, November 21st, 2012

by Norm Trainor, The Covenant Group

A firm is only as strong as its peo­ple. Although that adage may seem trite, it is true — your busi­ness will only be suc­cess­ful if you have cre­ated a resource man­age­ment strat­egy that places tal­ented peo­ple in well-defined roles within your orga­ni­za­tional hier­ar­chy. In many com­pa­nies, hir­ing and employee man­age­ment are jobs requir­ing at least one full-time employee, if not an entire depart­ment. How can you build an effec­tive sys­tem if you do not have those resources? By treat­ing recruit­ment as an ongo­ing, reflex­ive task.

I have dis­cussed the impor­tance of the recruit­ing life cycle, com­par­ing it to how com­pa­nies should treat prospec­tive clients in the mar­ket­ing pipeline. In both instances, you focus on mov­ing peo­ple through the var­i­ous stages of readi­ness, even­tu­ally bring­ing them to the con­clu­sion: a sale or a hire.

Cre­ate a sys­tem for your employ­ees and man­agers to sub­mit sug­ges­tions for inter­nal and exter­nal recruits. Keep team mem­bers informed about avail­able job open­ings (and the traits and skills needed to fill the posi­tions) and encour­age them to keep these attrib­utes in mind as they inter­act with peo­ple dur­ing mar­ket­ing and net­work­ing events, business-related meet­ings and even in their per­sonal lives.

Build a vir­tual Rolodex

As you meet peo­ple who you think could be strong can­di­dates for your firm in roles that are cur­rently open or will be in the future, cre­ate an inter­nal sched­ule for keep­ing in con­tact with them. Per­haps cre­ate a cal­en­dar reminder to send them an email or make a call every month or quar­ter in order to main­tain con­tact and estab­lish a rap­port. Depend­ing on how aggres­sively you wish to recruit, you may even choose to send them details about a job open­ing and indi­cate that you think they should con­sider applying.

For less-essential roles, you may adver­tise on your own web­site, in job list­ings boards or via word-of-mouth that your com­pany is accept­ing appli­ca­tions on a rolling basis.

By cre­at­ing a vir­tual Rolodex of peo­ple with whom you have a good pro­fes­sional rela­tion­ship and who you have primed as job can­di­dates, you may be able to remove some of the panic asso­ci­ated with fill­ing vacant posi­tions quickly. This prepa­ra­tion can also increase the like­li­hood of new hires’ suc­cess in the orga­ni­za­tion, since you have a greater selec­tion of more qual­i­fied appli­cants and will not feel forced to select some­one who is not a good match for the role.

As founder, pres­i­dent and CEO of The Covenant Group, Norm Trainor is often seen as the face of the com­pany and its lead­ing finan­cial advi­sor train­ing pro­grams. He has penned sev­eral best-selling books, arti­cles and other works with entre­pre­neurs and finan­cial advi­sors to show them how they can become more valu­able to their clients, boost pro­duc­tiv­ity and, ulti­mately, achieve the suc­cess they desire.

Fol­low The Covenant Group

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Tags: Adage, Calendar Reminder, Covenant Group, Effective System, Employee Management, Entire Department, Job Listings, Job Opening, Job Openings, Life Cycle, Networking Events, Norm Trainor, Organizational Hierarchy, Own Website, Personal Lives, Prospective Clients, Resource Management Strategy, Time Employee, Virtual Rolodex, Word Of Mouth
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Setting Objectives is Essential To Driving Growth

Wednesday, November 14th, 2012

by Norm Trainor, The Covenant Group

Some­times run­ning a busi­ness can feel like you have been thrown over­board from a ship. If you just tread water to stay afloat and main­tain daily oper­a­tions, you will not make any progress toward the shore. After a while you will get exhausted and sink. How­ever, if you set a des­ti­na­tion and start swim­ming to it, you will even­tu­ally get there and survive.

We have a say­ing here at The Covenant Group that we try to impress upon every one of our clients: “The future dri­ves the present.” That means how you plan for the future of busi­ness and the goals you set will dic­tate the actions you take today.

Do you know where your com­pany is headed? Are you aware of how the tasks you com­plete today will move your orga­ni­za­tion for­ward tomor­row? If not, then it is def­i­nitely time for you to estab­lish goals for your one– and three-year rev­enues, expenses and prof­its. Set objec­tives that are mea­sur­able, lim­ited to a spe­cific time frame and con­tain hard num­bers. They should address three fac­tors: How much, of what, by when.

The future holds solu­tions for the present

It may seem coun­ter­in­tu­itive to talk about your three-year goals before address­ing your one-year objec­tives. How­ever, by estab­lish­ing what you want to accom­plish within the longer time frame, you will be able to deci­pher what needs to hap­pen over the course of the next year. Deter­mine how much you are mak­ing cur­rently and what you want that fig­ure to be in three years.

From there, you can cal­cu­late the annual growth rate nec­es­sary to bring in that rev­enue, some­thing that is also cov­ered in The Entre­pre­neur­ial Jour­ney. Set up bench­marks for cash flow, retained earn­ings, rev­enue growth, prof­itabil­ity and how much you want your per­sonal income to increase annu­ally for the next three years.

Deter­min­ing your cur­rent stand­ing will allow you to make a more informed deci­sions analy­sis of your sit­u­a­tion, high­light any strengths and/or weak­nesses and will give you insight on exactly what must be done to hit your one– and three-year tar­gets. List your cur­rent sources of rev­enue and your rev­enue totals. Also cast a crit­i­cal eye upon your exist­ing mar­ket­ing strate­gies. Will they be robust enough to carry your busi­ness through the next three years? This activ­ity is known as a SWOT analy­sis (strengths, weak­nesses, oppor­tu­ni­ties and threats).

With your SWOT analy­sis in hand, you can devise a strat­egy for dri­ving your busi­ness to the one– and three-year objec­tives. Write out a sum­mary of your sit­u­a­tion today. What aspects of your exist­ing oper­a­tions will you con­tinue for the next 36 months? Con­sider what will be required to sus­tain those efforts. Now think about what needs to change and what you have to do to over­haul operations.

As founder, pres­i­dent and CEO of The Covenant Group, Norm Trainor is often seen as the face of the com­pany and its lead­ing finan­cial advi­sor train­ing pro­grams. He has penned sev­eral best-selling books, arti­cles and other works with entre­pre­neurs and finan­cial advi­sors to show them how they can become more valu­able to their clients, boost pro­duc­tiv­ity and, ulti­mately, achieve the suc­cess they desire.

Fol­low The Covenant Group

    Lat­est Advi­so­r­An­a­lyst Prac­tice Growth Sto­ries

Tags: Annual Growth Rate, Benchmarks, Cash Flow, Covenant Group, Entrepreneurial Journey, Goals, Informed Decisions, Insight, Limited, Norm Trainor, Personal Income, Profitability, Profits, Retained Earnings, Running A Business, Swimming, Time Frame
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Run a Business Operation Guided by Values

Wednesday, November 7th, 2012

by Norm Trainor, The Covenant Group

Your busi­ness plan is prob­a­bly one of the most impor­tant doc­u­ments you will cre­ate for your com­pany. It is valu­able because it is not just a few pages that you keep in a for­got­ten binder on a shelf. Rather, it is a dynamic, ever-evolving strat­egy that will serve as a resource while you build your busi­ness. I would advise work­ing with your busi­ness plan on a reg­u­lar basis as you update your one-, five– and 10-year goals and projections.

When­ever you pause to lay out strat­egy for the upcom­ing fis­cal year, refer to the mis­sion and vision state­ments you have cre­ated and mea­sure your progress. Ask your­self what changes you need to make to achieve your desired rev­enue or break into a new client market.

In past posts, I have dis­cussed the busi­ness plan and its com­po­nents on a broader level. I want to delve deeper into one of the facets of this doc­u­ment — oper­a­tional strate­gies. This por­tion of the plan will hinge on the strength of your stated val­ues. For every value, write a sen­tence explain­ing how you will imple­ment it.

These sen­tences will com­prise your oper­at­ing prin­ci­ples, which will then serve as guid­ance not only for you, but also your employ­ees and strate­gic busi­ness part­ners. They will help your team mem­bers devise their own solu­tions in a vari­ety of sit­u­a­tions, instead of wait­ing for your direc­tions (sim­i­lar to the the­ory of commander’s intent, which you can read more about here).

I dis­cussed in-depth oper­at­ing prin­ci­ples in The Entre­pre­neur­ial Jour­ney, not­ing then that they serve as a struc­ture for you to refer to when you face deci­sions that con­tain con­flict­ing moti­va­tions and pri­or­i­ties. Is client ser­vice one of your val­ues? Then you can act upon that by mak­ing it a pol­icy to check in with every client on a biweekly basis. If team­work is a focal point for your orga­ni­za­tion, requir­ing weekly meet­ings with every­one on the team can help keep them abreast of the issues fac­ing the com­pany while also fos­ter­ing closer work­ing relationships.

Pay atten­tion to how your busi­ness expands and changes over the years. Are you fac­ing new chal­lenges that were not an issue when you first opened your doors? Have your oper­at­ing prin­ci­ples failed to address recent unique sit­u­a­tions? While your val­ues should not be seen as mal­leable — after all, they are meant to be hard and fast rules — it is cer­tainly accept­able to update oper­at­ing prin­ci­ples to bet­ter equip your team members.

As founder, pres­i­dent and CEO of The Covenant Group, Norm Trainor is often seen as the face of the com­pany and its lead­ing finan­cial advi­sor train­ing pro­grams. He has penned sev­eral best-selling books, arti­cles and other works with entre­pre­neurs and finan­cial advi­sors to show them how they can become more valu­able to their clients, boost pro­duc­tiv­ity and, ulti­mately, achieve the suc­cess they desire.

Fol­low The Covenant Group

    Lat­est Advi­so­r­An­a­lyst Prac­tice Growth Sto­ries

Tags: Binder, Biweekly Basis, Business Operation, Business Plan, Covenant Group, Entrepreneurial Journey, Facets, Fiscal Year, Focal Point, Guidance, Mission And Vision Statements, Motivations, Norm Trainor, Operational Strategies, Own Solutions, Priorities, Sentences, Strategic Business Partners, Team Members, Teamwork
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Do Not Allow New Technologies to Impede Communications

Wednesday, October 24th, 2012

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Tags: Anthony Lam, Ceos, Client Emails, Client Relationships, Company Culture, Corporate Culture, Economy Trade, Employment Policies, Financial Structure, Japanese Firms, Management Structure, Meaningful Connections, New Communication Technologies, Norm Trainor, Performance Management, Professional Communications, Text Messages, Text Messaging, Video Chat, Zest
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Align Business Decisions With Your Values Every Day

Wednesday, October 17th, 2012

by Norm Trainor, The Covenant Group

Although the News of the World phone-hacking scan­dal came to a head more than one year ago, the story con­tin­ues to serve as a prime exam­ple of what can go wrong when a busi­ness’ oper­a­tions become too far removed from its core val­ues. The inci­dent also sparked debates about inter­nal and exter­nal gov­er­nance, media ethics and cor­po­rate respon­si­bil­ity. A lack of over­sight and a fail­ure to drill the impor­tance of eth­i­cal behav­ior into every exec­u­tive, man­ager and employee con­tributed to the prob­lems for News Corp. (the owner of News of the World). While the action taken by the news­pa­per is not jus­ti­fi­able, it is easy to see how a rapidly grow­ing orga­ni­za­tion can lose sight of busi­ness prin­ci­ples if those at the top do not put guide­lines at the cen­ter of every person’s func­tion.
The issue of media integrity (and more broadly, cor­po­rate ethics and respon­si­bil­ity) was brought up recently. Elis­a­beth Mur­doch, the daugh­ter of News Corp. owner Rupert Mur­doch, addressed the sub­ject in her lec­ture at the Edin­burgh Inter­na­tional Tele­vi­sion Fes­ti­val. She said the com­pany was “cur­rently ask­ing itself some very sig­nif­i­cant and dif­fi­cult ques­tions about how some behav­iours fell so short of its values.”

Con­sider your own values

Do not think you can be lax on enforc­ing your own busi­ness val­ues by assum­ing that indus­try reg­u­la­tions will pick up the slack. To cre­ate a cor­po­rate cul­ture that is ded­i­cated to pre­serv­ing its val­ues and oper­at­ing with integrity, the exam­ple has to come from the top. In every­thing that you and your employ­ees do, and in every deci­sion you make as a team, make sure that you remain true to the company’s dri­ving mis­sion and vision.

Have you cre­ated a list of your busi­ness’ val­ues? Do you take steps to ensure every mem­ber of the com­pany is famil­iar with and adheres to those rules?

As I explain in The Entre­pre­neur­ial Jour­ney, the val­ues you choose to high­light in your busi­ness send a mes­sage to employ­ees, clients and prospects about what you con­sider impor­tant. It also declares that “This is how we want to spend our time; this is where we want to spend our money.” Think of four to six val­ues that you treat as the high­est pri­or­i­ties, such as team­work, high-quality ser­vice and ethics. These should be con­di­tions that you are ded­i­cated to act­ing upon and labor­ing to main­tain. Whether you are just start­ing to build your orga­ni­za­tion or have been run­ning your busi­ness for years, iden­ti­fy­ing your val­ues is worth­while for eth­i­cal and oper­a­tional purposes.

As founder, pres­i­dent and CEO of The Covenant Group, Norm Trainor is often seen as the face of the com­pany and its lead­ing finan­cial advi­sor train­ing pro­grams. He has penned sev­eral best-selling books, arti­cles and other works with entre­pre­neurs and finan­cial advi­sors to show them how they can become more valu­able to their clients, boost pro­duc­tiv­ity and, ulti­mately, achieve the suc­cess they desire.

 
Fol­low The Covenant Group

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Tags: Business Decisions, Business Principles, Business Values, Corporate Culture, Corporate Ethics, Covenant Group, Difficult Questions, Edinburgh International, Elisabeth Murdoch, Entrepreneurial Journey, Ethics And Corporate Responsibility, Executive Manager, International Television Festival, Media Ethics, Media Integrity, News Corp, News Of The World, Norm Trainor, Phone Hacking, Rupert Murdoch
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