Top Ten Principles of
full spectrum business development

You don't want "approximately" or "good enough"

 

Only the best businesses of any size are Full Spectrum Businesses. Their norm is excellence — not chaos, not stress, not confusion. The owners and managers live full lives, and their businesses are in balance with the rest of their lives.

A business is a complex organism. Even the smallest one-person business has a wide range - a spectrum - of functions and activities. Every business has to have some degree of success at marketing, finance, production, delivery, customer service, management, and much more in order to survive as a business. It's a rare business that does them all well, and rarest of all is a business which excels at all of them.

That rare business is a full spectrum business. Everything it does, it does to perfection, cost-effectively, and to the delight of its customers. So, full spectrum business development is the process of creating a full spectrum business.

And that's what we're here to help you do.

We use a simple definition to describe a business. We do it to establish several principles to keep us focused on what's most important and will result in a full spectrum business.

A business is a system for providing value to customers.

 

This definition of a business leads us to a number of principles that are fundamental to business development.  These are:

1. Put the customer first
2. Systemize the business
3. Deliver full spectrum value
4. The 80/20 rule - leverage yourself and your resources
5. Apply principles not formulas
6. Think with your whole mind
7. Define success
8. Focus on results
9. Use your "double vision"
10. Keep a healthy perspective

 

Top Ten principles of “full spectrum” business development

Principle #1: The customer must be paramount

Of all the people interested in your business, by far the most important are customers. You might be tempted to think of yourself or your investors or your employees as the most important. They and you are all secondary. In truth they might actually be primary, yet unless you serve your customers and fully satisfy their needs, no one else's needs get served. So, even if you don't really believe your customers are more important than yourself or your investors, treat them like they're the only important people in the world. If you don't satisfy your customers, it's all a waste of time. Your business won't survive, and nobody gets satisfied.

 

The customer is everything for a business. Don't ever forget it - not for a moment.

Principle #2: Svstemize the business

A business is a system of systems within systems. That may sound like gobbledygook, but it's not. Systems are the foundation of business excellence and the best way to make simplicity out of complexity.

Systemizing your business is the surest way to getting the reliable, consistent, high quality, and cost-effective results that are necessary for success. You'll hear a lot about systems in the Full Spectrum Program because systems are the primary tool for building a business that delivers value for everyone.

Speaking of value...

Principle #3: Deliver full spectrum value

Value is one of those words that means what you think it means, depending on your point of view. In business, value is anything you provide that someone wants. If you provide it and they don't want it, it's valueless. If they want it and don't get it, it's valueless. If they want it and get all of it, that's full spectrum value.

To the owner, value is wealth, profits, satisfaction, making a contribution, status ... and much more.

To customers, value is a good price for the products and services they buy, a good experience of the product and the provider they get it from, status, emotional satisfaction ... and much more.

To an employee, value is a paycheck, job satisfaction, a good working environment, respectful treatment... and much more.

To the community, value is a business that pays its taxes, provides jobs for its citizens, contributes to the positive energy and the economics of the community ... and much more.

The bottom line is this: 

Value is whatever satisfies the needs of anyone having anything to do with the business.

Principle #4: The 80/20 rule

Leverage yourself and your resources. Effective people know to focus their attention and their resources on the small number of tasks that get the greatest results. It's called the eighty-twenty rule - eighty percent of the results produced by a person or a business are produced by twenty percent of the work. 

There's nothing magic about the "eighty percent" number. Just remember that smart people know to leverage themselves and their impact by putting their attention and their resources where they'll get the greatest results. 

The trick is in knowing which work and resources will get the results they want. What are the driving forces in the business? That's where you put your attention.

What elements of value drive the customer's purchase decision? That's where you put your attention.

What systems in the business are the ones that get the most important results? That's where you put your attention.

What are the highest priorities for work to be done? That's where... well, you know.

Full Spectrum Principle #4 asks you to figure out what "drives" your business, your customers, your employees, and to focus your attention on those drivers.

Principle #5: Apply principles not formulas

When we say "formula" we include rules, templates, best practices, and other "cookie cutter" methods, which are simply attempts to transplant methods that worked in one business into other businesses. 

Formulas make sense, don't they? Only if your business is exactly the same as the one where the formula was developed. The problem with formulas is not that they don't work. The problem arises because your business isn't the same as any other business, not even other businesses offering the same products and services to the same markets. 

You're not like other leaders. You have your own strengths and weaknesses, and they're not like anyone else's strengths and weaknesses. And your specific situation isn't exactly like the situation for any other business. 

A business principle is an underlying business reality. Principles are fundamental laws.  You cannot change them.  However by knowing and understanding them you can build these principles into the design of your business.  You get to have them powerfully working for you rather than against you. 

A business principle is deeper, more fundamental than a formula. A formula is a generalized attempt to solve a general business problem. But your problems - and opportunities - aren't general. They're specific. What you need are specific solutions to your specific problems and opportunities. 

You don't want "approximately" or "good enough." You want "exactly right" for your business, and "outstanding" for your customers, investors, employees, and others. 

Principle #6: Think with your whole mind

Human beings come fully equipped with both logical and intuitive thinking abilities, and somehow, over the years, most of us learn to rely on one more than the other. Neither is better than the other and neither is more reliable.

People who intuitively "trust my gut" are just as likely to be right or wrong as people who "figure it out" logically. The people who learn to use logical and intuitive thinking get the best results. It's as if they had two brains, and everyone knows "two heads are better than one." 

If you tend to be a logical thinker, wouldn't it be better if you could double-check your logic with your intuition? If you tend to be intuitive, wouldn't it be better if you could build a logical case for what your intuition tells you? Of course, the answer to both questions is yes.

This principle of using your whole-mind will make your decision making and business management far more effective than relying primarily on one thinking mode or the other.

An understanding of the importance of conscious and unconscious thinking and logical and intuitive decision making will dramatically increase your effectiveness as a business person and leader. It's a theme that runs throughout the Full Spectrum Business Development Program.

Principle #7: Define Success

It's only after the fact, after you've accomplished something, that you can call it a success. Before the fact it's a hope, or if you do it right, a goal. Setting goals is actually defining success before it happens. Goals give you something to aim for, something to direct your efforts, something to motivate you, and something to keep you on course.

The first point about defining success is the simple act of doing it. The mere fact that you define success before leaping into an activity goes a long way toward insuring that you will, in fact, be successful. So look ahead and consciously decide what success means to you and to your business.

Stripped to the essentials, success is nothing more than setting a goal and achieving it.

There's a deeper experience of success. Each of us has an inner drive that motivates us. It's something that was shaped in our earliest days, that's so basic to us it seems inborn, part of our characters that operates mostly at an unconscious level. It needs to become a part of our conscious awareness so we can factor it into our decision making, and use it to tap into our passion and motivation.

We call it "Core Purpose" because it is core to your personality and it shapes your sense of purpose in your life.

Core Purpose 

 The main point about Core Purpose is that the goals you set for yourself and your business can't conflict with your Core Purpose or you're setting yourself up for failure or an unfulfilling life and career.

Core Purpose is dealt with in depth in the Full Spectrum Business Development Program.

What is success for your business? Again, success is what you say it is. And again, it's not quite that simple. Defining success for your business should be done in a way that actually launches you toward that success.

Goal-setting is an important part of that, so are setting a vision and mission for the future of the business and deciding on how it will operate and how the people in the business should behave. In the Full Spectrum program, we ask you to define something called "Strategic Intent."

Strategic Intent 

Strategic Intent is a clear statement of what the business will become in the future when it is successful. Strategic Intent sets the stage for success and puts your business on the right path to succeed.

Principle #8: Focus on Results

Everything done by you or your business has an outcome, a result. The very purpose of a business is to produce results in the form of value for anyone with an interest in the business, especially customers.

The mistake business people make is to focus on the work, not the results. The purpose of work is to produce a result. If you focus on the work, you get what you get. If you focus on the result, it will direct the work toward the outcome you want, and you'll get what you want to get. It's actually a chain of purpose:

Goal leads to Work leads to Results leads to Success

It's a simple principle: set goals to achieve the results you want and keep your eye on those results as you work toward them.

Principle #9: Use your "double vision"

A common challenge for business people is to keep the long term interests of the business in mind while immersed in the minute-to-minute pressures of the business. It takes a kind of "double vision" to keep both in mind at the same time. 

The best business managers and entrepreneurs are able to keep their double vision focused sharply in both directions. Every little operational decision is made with an eye to its impact on the long term, and every long term decision is informed by knowledge of the day-to-day operation of the business. 

It's not just a useful skill - it's essential for the development of the business if it's going to achieve its Strategic Intent. 

Double vision keeps your focus where it needs to be, even when it needs to be in two different places.

Long-term and short-term aren't the only kinds of double vision you need to develop. 

Long-term Entrepreneurial - People as assets - Business Point of View 

Short-term Operational - People as individuals - Customer Point of View 

There's also the double vision of the strategic, big picture direction of the business and the operational details of the business - you have to keep the strategy in mind even as you make the hundreds of little decisions demanded of you. 

When you're dealing with employees, the double vision is that employees are both human beings who need understanding and compassion, and at the same time they're productive assets that need to be deployed in the business where they can be most effective. 

When you're marketing your products and services, you have to keep the customer's point of view in mind while at the same time balance the needs of your business. 

And when you're working in your business, you also need to keep the rest of your life in mind to maintain a healthy balance.

Your life - Your business

 Which leads us to the last of our Top Ten Principles:

Principle #10: Keep a healthy perspective

 

This is as much a life principle as it is a business principle. The relationship between your business and the rest of your life - your family, friends, service activities, leisure time, and even sleep time - needs to be kept in balance. 

For many (most?) business people, the business commands the lion's share of their time, attention, and even passion. No one but you can say what the right balance is, but the chances are almost 100 to 1 that you're not in balance right now. You might be the rare exception, but you probably aren't.

Your business should contribute your life, not dominate it. It should bring you quality and fulfillment, not drag you down and wear you out.

Part of building a Full Spectrum business is also building a Full Spectrum life.

 

Let's look at the next level of business development - the three kinds of work of the business owner

Other links you can follow:

Who we work with     How we work    Coaching is Key

Experience the Full Spectrum Coaching yourself with a FREE one hour coaching session.

In this coaching session you will get a sense of how we work with you on your business. We promise that you will get insights and tools from this session that you will be able to immediately apply to your business.

Click here to register your interest.