This Week@Work when marketing your offering, it’s tempting to go big, and create a catch-all campaign, to see what works and then do more of that. It’s expensive, and usually ineffective. The alternative is to do the tough work upfront to define who you are speaking to and how to resonate with them specifically.
This Week@work take full control of your future. Hope alone doesn’t work for 94,6% of companies started, that fail to sell…rather engineer it and become part of the 5.4%
The Power of Purpose: Why Every Business Needs It
In today’s ever-changing business landscape, purpose has become a buzzword—so much so that it has lost much of its meaning. But if you strip away the trendy jargon, what remains is a simple yet profound question every business must answer: Why does your business exist? And more importantly, what right does it have to exist?
For many entrepreneurs, the initial reasons behind starting a business vary. Some may say they began their venture to create financial security for themselves, while others might boast about having exceptional products or deep loyalty to their employees, particularly in family-run businesses. Yet, when faced with the hard question of why their business truly exists, these answers often fall short.
Why Purpose Matters
At its core, purpose is more than a personal goal or a well-designed product. Purpose is about solving a problem for your customers and creating a meaningful experience for them in the process. This is the key reason any business exists—because customers are seeking solutions to their problems. Whether they’re buying a high-performance sports car or employing a cleaning service, they are ultimately paying for a solution, not just a product.
Take, for instance, a business that sells luxury cars like Maserati’s and Ferraris. On the surface, it may seem like their customers are simply indulging in a “fancy.” However, upon closer inspection, these cars are often seen as alternative assets that appreciate over time—thus solving the problem of finding valuable investments. The purchase is less about luxury and more about smart financial planning.
The Experience Factor
Besides solving a problem, the other key factor driving a business’s existence is the experience it offers. A great customer experience can turn a one-time buyer into a loyal client. This applies across industries, from the sale of sports cars to more mundane services like cleaning companies or real estate agencies.
Consider a disaster recovery cleaning business. Initially, their purpose was clear: they helped companies recover from floods, fires, and chemical spills. But after reaching a certain level of growth, they found themselves stuck, struggling to differentiate from other cleaning companies offering similar services. What they discovered was that their true purpose lay in providing an exceptional experience for their clients—particularly those in the food industry, where contamination prevention is critical. By narrowing their focus and creating an impactful experience, they reinvigorated their growth.
How to Use Purpose
Once you’ve identified your business’s purpose, the next step is knowing how to use it. Purpose should be at the heart of every communication you send out. It informs your marketing, your team’s motivation, and how you engage with customers. When people understand that you are solving a specific problem and creating an experience around that solution, they will see your business as purposeful, not just another company trying to make a sale.
Purpose also resonates at a human level. When your employees understand the broader impact of their work, they feel more motivated and aligned with the company’s goals. For example, the disaster recovery company that shifted its focus to preventing contaminated food in laboratories saw a remarkable change in employee engagement. Workers understood that their efforts went beyond cleaning—they were actively protecting public health. This sense of purpose helped the company grow and unify its team.
In this article, originally featured in Elite Business: Think of the economy like a sandwich, with the mid-tier businesses making up the meaty centre.
The highest nutritional value of a meat sandwich is the meat. Its high protein and minerals outweigh the high-carb content of its neighbours.
Most economies are like meat sandwiches. The UK’s economy is a sizable one, with 5.59 million businesses employing 27 million people and generating a hefty £ 4.5 trillion annual revenue.
The bottom slice of bread makes up the largest segment of business: the 5.3m sole proprietors and micro-enterprises who employ, on average, 1.6 people each. In effect, these businesses are self-created “jobs” for their owners. They also make up a significant voting population. Let’s make a tentative assumption that most of these entrepreneurs have a partner with everything to gain and lose from their economy. That means the voting power of this segment approaches a meaningful 10.6m ballot wins. Keeping them happy is a vital priority of any adept politician with eyes on Downing Street.
The top side of the sandwich sees dramatically smaller 8,000-odd companies that carry significant punch in their employment and tax contributions. With their extensive boards, NEDs, advisors, investors, c-suite executives, and deep establishment, sometimes centuries old, they carry weight in the corridors of Whitehall and feed a thriving public relations and media industry. A ‘lobbying’ budget to access the biggest customer in the land is not uncommon, nor is the understanding that your government representative today will likely be your board member tomorrow as the revolving door of politics and business swivel on the axis of shared interest.
The middle of this sandwich makes up the remaining 246,000 companies that carry the unfortunate moniker SME. Mostly privately held by growth-minded, self-funded entrepreneurs, they employ an average of 58.5 people. They don’t have the numbers to impact voting significantly, nor the budgets to invest in lobbying the government for access to opportunities or to influence policy. They also are considered by many to be “doing just fine”, implying that they are better off than the many who are not and, therefore, no resources or support should be directed their way. Yet society should pay closer attention to them.
Building a business that matures from micro to established and growing requires a growth mindset. That mindset sees the business owner continuously investing their money and time, committing to the 50 to 80-hour week commonly needed to fill the multiple roles their business demands, making them some of the most committed investors in our country. Their limited access to funding also increases their investment horizon. Building a business into a wealth-generating asset typically requires a 20 to 30-year investment horizon. It takes time and money to anchor the business within its locations, communities, suppliers, customers and employees. SMEs also face high levels of competition, given the maturity of our economy and the vested interests in this segment. Competition drives innovation, which attracts talent and funding. Focusing on SMEs across the UK is vital to levelling up and creating a fairer, more inclusive economy, which is the cornerstone of sustaining a democracy.
As an aside, my objection to SME as a descriptor of this segment is manifold. I’ve yet to meet a business owner who is joyously risking everything they have, griding out 80-hour weeks, contending with the relentless challenges posed by suppliers, customers, employees and increasingly government red tape with the intent of building a ‘small’ business. Reducing the dreams and ambitions of front-footed entrepreneurs is offensive and condescending. Governments and corporations that refer to this segment ought to think about changing their language to change their behaviour and find resonance and relevance to this segment, whether they be clients or a voting segment of society.
Building, amplifying and accelerating the nutritional value of the meat in the sandwich to deliver these outcomes is critical to unlocking a thriving economy that puts Britain back in a leading position in the global economy. Let’s back these businesses with fervour and enlightened self-interest.
This Week@Work the reason behind your business often has very little to do with the products and services you supply, it has more to do with what makes your business work.
In a recent discussion with Nick Johnson from Berenzweig Leonard LLP, we go through this and other critical factors to consider when setting up a business. For the full discussion, click here.
This Week@Work cold, dry financial targets often do little to instil purpose in your team but by translating these numbers into units of product and delivery, targets become more interesting, and more likely to inspire results.
This Week@Work as a business owner, who do you turn to when you need support or advice? The options are endless, best to understand who serves what role.
This Week@Work any economy can be compared to a sandwich, and the nutrition dense filling is the layer made up by established privately owned businesses.
In this article, originally featured in Elite Business: Like a health-check for humans, a business health check aligns you and your team to drive towards a common destination.
Achieving industry leadership is not trivial in the business world. Yet, when asked about their future ambitions, many state they want to be ‘a leading business in the industry’ or ‘the industry leader in XYZ’. Given this propensity and to not trivialise this achievement, let’s dig into what it truly means to be a leader in your industry and outline practical steps to move from a vague vision statement to a measurable and achievable business objective.
What does it mean to be a leading business?
When pressed to explain what “leading” means, business owners often struggle to provide a clear definition. Without a precise and measurable definition of leadership, this goal can become an empty claim, communicating that your commitment to growth is thoughtless and relies on hope and prayer rather than a clearly defined intent and action plan.
The importance of clarity
A business must define leadership in its specific context to become a true industry leader. Is it about market share? If so, who constitutes the market? For example, if you manufacture luxury furniture, you need to break down what “luxury furniture” includes. Is it dining room tables, sofas, chairs, or lounges? Understanding your market and product specifics is crucial.
Setting realistic and measurable goals
Let’s say your focus is on luxury dining room tables. The first step is determining how many such tables are bought annually in your target market. If you identify that 500,000 dining room tables are sold each year in your defined geographic region, you then need to ascertain how many of these qualify as high-quality luxury items. Suppose 5,000 of these meet the high-quality standard. This gives you a tangible target to aim for.
Understanding market share
You must know your competitors and their market shares to claim industry leadership. If you have ten competitors and the market is evenly split, each would sell about 500 tables annually. If your goal is to be the leading supplier, you must sell more than 500 tables annually. By consistently increasing your sales figures—say from 500 to 600 to 1,000 to 1,500—you can objectively measure your progress towards market leadership.
Enhancing business operations
Achieving and maintaining a leading position requires continuous improvement in various aspects of your business. This includes enhancing your products’ quality, price, service, delivery, durability, and brand reputation. By systematically improving these areas, you can increase your market share and solidify your status as an industry leader.
Claiming to be the leading business in your industry is more than just a statement—it requires a clear, measurable, and achievable plan. By defining what leadership means in your specific context, understanding your market, setting realistic goals, and continually improving your business operations, you can become a true leader in your industry.
I give a quick overview of this idea in a 2m 23s video.
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