While it is difficult to attach numbers to exactly how much these intangibles impact the bottom line, the evidence that they do can be seen in the fact that all too many businesses, once sold, fail to live up to the performance expectations anticipated prior to the sale. For this reason, many purchasers insist on the owner and other key staff staying on for anywhere from one to three years after the sale.

It can also – as in the case of a colleague of mine with a very successful consulting business – be what limits you from selling your business at all. Despite annual revenues of $1 million, he discovered that his clients were resistant to working with anyone but him as he began exploring selling his business to an associate.

The bottom line is that, whether or not you ever intend to sell your company, understanding and maximizing intangible assets is critical to building a business that is not dependent upon you or any other specific individual in it – the mark of a truly successful business.

An example of this are two good friends of mine, Lawrence and Lori-Ann Keenan, who run a very successful ESL school here in Vancouver. They began the business as a couple, doing almost all of the work – from teaching the classes to marketing the school and everything in between – themselves. After just 10 years, she now works only one day a week, and his involvement with the business is negligible, save for focusing on investing their profits.

What has allowed them to have such freedom is that they have created and continue to refine written systems for everything they do. The importance of creating systems is understood by most business owners, but generally they focus on creating bare-bones systems that reflect simply the “how to” rather than the “how we do it here.” What sets my friends’ business apart and allows their success to continue to grow despite less and less involvement from them are the systems they have developed for instilling a distinct culture and personality into the school.

The school is very much centred around Lori-Ann’s personality. Like her, it is high-energy and fun with a no-nonsense professionalism and a passion for excellence in customer service. An example of one of the systems that sustains this is a weekly high-energy graduation ceremony at which all students are present. This event involves plenty of clapping, singing and general fanfare. Back in the staff room there may be some rolling eyes in the anticipation of this weekly ritual, but once staff step into the limelight to play their part in the celebration, they find it hard not to be caught up in the simplicity and energy of the familiar routine.

Companies like Google have systematized a culture of innovation by requiring employees to spend 20 percent of their time on side projects not related to their daily work. West Jet systematizes fun with their pre-landing jokes – no matter how corny they may be. Nordstrom has systematized customer service excellence through rigorous and ongoing training programs on empowerment and customer service excellence. Southwest Airlines systematizes its culture by training all of its staff in “Living the Southwest Way,” by practicing the three characteristics of having a Warrior Spirit, a Servant’s Heart and a Fun-LUVing Attitude.

All of these are examples of how to build those intangibles into the core operating systems, principles and standards of your business. Not only will these types of systems make your business more attractive to potential buyers in the long run, they will make it more attractive to those employees who are best equipped to deliver on your brand promise, thus attracting and keeping loyal customers. Ultimately these intangibles are not only what drives a strong bottom line, but sustains it over the long term. They are, at the end of the day, where the true value of a business lies and what helps any business owner to realize the full value of the business they have built – whether they sell it or not.

-Andrea Jacques aka. Kyoseigirl

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Leadership participants were given a list of statements and asked to choose which ones excited or inspired them. Interestingly, many said they were inspired until they saw the organization the statement belonged to. One example was an international company whose purpose was “to give unlimited opportunity to women.” That statement was questioned because it came from a cosmetics manufacturer and the group perceived the beauty industry to run counter to creating better lives for women.

Clearly there is a large gap in many companies between their asserted brand promise and its actual fulfillment. But where does this begin and who is to blame? Is it the ad agencies pushing hype beyond true promise? Is it the company itself, ‘over-visioning’ and under-delivering? Or is it emblematic of a society overwhelmed by constant big company marketing bombardment? Do these messages mean anything anymore?

An abundance of marketing data has given companies the ability to become very sophisticated in hitting the hot buttons that entice customers to buy, yet these techniques backfire dramatically when the product or service doesn’t live up to the claims. Just as broken promises have led customers to become increasingly cynical about “marketing hype,” the disconnect between the claims organizations make to their own employees about being an “employer of choice,” and the degree to which these claims are actually fulfilled, is leading to increasing employee cynicism and turnover.

An example of this is the recent trend to tout “work-life balance” as a key value and principle. While I can think of several organizations that make this claim, few deliver as much as they promise. In one instance working with a client, I had to applaud the courage of one new employee in the HR department who stated she felt her department was one of the worst offenders in terms of not delivering on the work-life balance promise.

Marketing is conventionally thought of as being about building a brand and selling products to customers, but this view of marketing is incomplete. Marketing is about building trust both internally and externally.

As with building trust in real life, it is more a result of what you do than what you say. It is about integrity. Building trust with customers begins and ends with internal marketing – that is, the degree to which an organization not only communicates, but delivers on its “employee promise.” When a company makes false claims about a product or service or does not deliver on the promises it makes, then customers lose faith in the product and eventually the company. When employees experience this same loss of faith as a result of broken promises, a business is doomed. Employees who see that the organization does not value promise-keeping will be less inclined to worry about keeping promises themselves – both to customers and to the company.

A final thought, as purpose, mission and values statements are meant to be aspirational and call the organization to higher ground, no organization is ever perfect on delivering these promises. Fortunately, perfection is not required – just constant and authentic intent.

Take this leadership challenge:

Do you know what your organization’s promise is to your employees? If you can’t readily list the purpose, mission, and values of your organization, chances are high that you are not delivering on them as well as you could. What’s more, if you can’t list at least three regular practices, systems, or habits that demonstrate on a daily basis how these are being lived in your organization, there is plenty of room for growth.

Andrea Jacques – kyoseigirl

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As I sat reflecting on what had caused this dramatic fall from grace in my own life, I realized that the lessons I needed to remind myself of were the same challenges I see with organizations – large and small – who get caught in survival mode by focusing on dealing with immediate crises instead of cultivating the habits and mindsets they need to thrive.

The Three Keys to Refocus Your Priorities and Create Success with Ease

1) Doing vs. Planning

One of the key causes of my self-inflicted crisis was jumping prematurely into work mode. My partner, Boyan, insists that 50 percent of the time on a project should be spent on research and planning. The “driver” part of my personality is always impatient to get started with what I consider “real work”, yet time and again I have had to recognize that Boyan’s strategy tends to result in faster and higher quality results.

The act of writing this article is a simple example of this process. I spent two frustrating days trying to crank it out before I finally surrendered to some brainstorming and planning with pencil and paper to focus my concept. In the end, the article took an hour to plan and forty-five minutes to write. How much time do you spend planning and strategizing in your business before you jump into action?

Most organizations I know of spend too little time planning and researching and even less time revisiting, following and updating their plans and research to stay on track.

2) Tangible vs. Intangibles

The next trap I had fallen into on the project I was working on was placing more importance on the tangibles than the intangibles. On impulse I decided to spend two days helping create a video on the organization’s vision that wasn’t part of the quote. Even though my inner voice said this wasn’t the best use of my time, it took me an entire day before I understood that this detour would negatively impact both the speed of developing the remainder of the program and its quality.

Small businesses tend to make similar mistakes in their time allocation by focusing too much on systems creation and revenue generation and not enough on the intangibles of building a high performance team, fostering values alignment, creating opportunities for the team to interact socially, and inspiring passion and purpose in their people. These intangibles are important activities that, if not attended to, result in a constant state of struggle.

3) Have to vs. Want to

One of the things I did right to prevent the project from becoming overwhelming was to identify the talents of both my internal and external teams. This allowed me to focus on my strengths, delegate tasks effectively to others who could contribute their expertise, and access resources quickly and efficiently.

Entrepreneurs often lead themselves to burnout trying to assume all the organizational roles. They mistakenly believe there are things you “have to do” in their business. While I agree that managing finances is a necessary role, the person who manages them doesn’t necessarily have to be you. Forcing yourself, or others on your team, to do things that are not strengths is likely draining more resources from your team than it would cost to hire an expert to do the task.

Small and large organizations alike fall prey to the above survival thinking modes on a regular basis. And as I have discovered, knowing what you should be doing is not the same as doing it. It takes constant vigilance to remember what it takes to thrive and to resist crisis-oriented thinking that can get you caught in a downward spiral of struggle.

Andrea Jacques -kyoseigirl

1) Purpose

One of the greatest challenges with retail is that employees and employers alike see its core purpose as making money – and research shows that making money is not the prime motivator for most employees to perform and stay in a job.

The retail clients Kyosei Consulting work with provide amazing products to the world, yet many staff still feel torn because, at the end of the day, they are still just selling stuff. The most engaged retail organizations cultivate a sense of purpose in their people beyond just making money for the company.

Employees who have stayed in retail long-term and are passionate about it always have a sense of purpose that is meaningful to them. They don’t sell clothes; they help people feel beautiful. They don’t sell bikes; they are helping people stay healthy or doing their part to reduce global warming.

They make people’s lives more vibrant by matching them to the perfect music, furniture, or artwork. While your business may have an official purpose statement that is noble and inspirational, the bottom line on attracting and retaining great retail staff is to help them connect with their individual sense of purpose.

2) Movement

What if, instead of trying to reduce turnover, your company were to embrace a philosophy of making sure your staff are here for a good time, not a long time? Consider an employee onboarding program that helped each person create a career plan for when they were going to leave their job, along with specific objectives for how they wanted to grow personally and professionally while they were there.

Topsy-turvy thinking for traditionalists, but how much easier might it be to attract and keep great front-line people if you started to view the purpose of your business as developing people versus selling product? What if you could create an environment where people saw working for your company as a life-changing experience, one where they learned as much of value about self, business, and the world as they did at university – and they got paid to do it?

Shifting your focus to providing employees with the best possible experience and helping them to move on would, ironically, be more likely to increase the amount of time that they stick with and, more importantly, stay engaged in their job.

3) Care

Take the time to care about your team as people. This builds a sense of belonging and creates trust – filling two of the most basic human needs. Several of our clients are training their managers in how to be better coaches for this very reason. With a few strategic coaching skills, and the right framework for understanding how to develop employees, these “caring conversations” often turn into coaching conversations that end up positively impacting performance and engagement. No, you don’t need to greet them with a hug at the beginning of every shift. Simply take the time to find out about their lives.

4) Support

Front-line staff with many of my clients feel that while expectations are high, respect for what they do is in short supply. Rather than assuming that there is something flawed in your staff when they fall short, ask yourself if, placed in the same circumstances they deal with day after day, you would be able to meet your own standards.

Do your people really have adequate tools, training, resources and ongoing support to be able to perform to your expectations? You can’t expect people to fly to the moon with a paper airplane. High expectations together with limited resources and support is the fastest way to create a “work to rule” staff culture where people bring their bodies to work but not much else.

5) Challenge

How do you challenge people when much of the work that needs to be done is basic and repetitive? Sales contests are a common technique retailers use to challenge and motivate their staff, but knowing the goals, interests and passions of your team is more likely to provide growth opportunities that are meaningful to each individual – and therefore more likely to impact performance.

If your employee is a student who loves research, get them involved in researching a new product line. If they love to socialize, then put them in charge of planning a staff party. On a simpler level, create daily mini-contests to make the repetitive work more fun.

Who can restock the shelves the fastest? How many shoe numbers can you remember and retrieve from the stock room at the same time? With a little creativity, the hard costs of implementing growth initiatives for front-line retail staff can prove minuscule compared to the benefits in terms of increased customer service.

At the end of the day, the secret to creating a high-performing retail environment is to take your focus off how you can get more from your people, and ask if you are willing to invest in giving what they need to live up to your expectations – an environment that supports them to work with joy.

Andrea Jacques (kyoseigirl)

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In lay terms, open source software gives the public free access to source code for redistribution, modification and creation of derivative works as long as any changes are made available to others to use. The speed at which this allows evolution to occur is astonishing compared to the slow pace of conventional software development in closed proprietary systems.

What is most thought provoking, however, is that open-source offerings have grown (and continue to do so) primarily through a pool of passionate volunteers who freely contribute their time to improving the source code. In the 21st century knowledge economy (where speed to market and the ability to harness the full creativity, commitment and intellectual capacity of one’s workforce has been identified as a key driver of business success and sustainability) understanding what has inspired so many to contribute so much without financial compensation bears examination.

Three Keys to the Success of Open Source

1) Leaving a Legacy of Excellence and Social Responsibility

More than anything else, the open-source community is focused on making great products. It is difficult to get people excited about mediocrity. While many businesses today are built on the strategy that releasing products that have “bugs,” or will eventually wear out ensures an ongoing market for their “consumable” products, it goes against the natural desire of the human spirit to strive for excellence and leave a legacy. As both customers and employees become increasingly aware of how the “planned obsolescence” business strategy is filling landfills and polluting the environment, people are increasingly motivated and inspired by a sense of noble purpose. They are far less motivated to contribute to a company that places its own interests ahead of the common good. On a more basic level, many simply recognize logically that it is a waste of their time, energy, and the earth’s resources.

2) The Opportunity to Express Passions and Develop Talents

Another key reason the open source initiative has been able to garner an ever-increasing pool of people to contribute their time and intellectual resources is because it aligns with their passion for programming.

Open source provides programmers an opportunity to use, challenge and develop their talents. Research on employee engagement and high-performance workplaces also supports the idea that people who are able to use their preferred talents are more productive, more loyal, and contribute more to bottom-line results.

To tap into the creativity and commitment similar to that which is freely invested in open source, leaders must learn to identify the talents and passions of their people and adapt roles to allow them to focus almost exclusively on what they love most and do best.

3) Shared Leadership

A final key element of the success of open-source initiatives is shared leadership. The very nature of open source is that it evolves based on reviews and revisions by a team of one’s peers. This shared leadership by a group of peers is made possible by the fact that there is a strong set of common precedents or operating principles for what works and what doesn’t. These values and standards are universally understood and accepted because they are created by, and evolve with, the community that uses them to guide decisions and contributions. Rather than being enforced by leaders, the simplicity, logic and universal acceptance of these standards allows them to be strictly enforced, when necessary, by a community of peers.

-Andrea Jacques (aka. kyoseigirl)

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I didn’t always see this as a good thing. When I was in my teens she was bitten by the network-marketing bug … several times. At first I was too young to really care. I just kept switching products as she did – using whatever face cleanser or vitamins she was selling at the time. After graduating with a psychology degree, I was old enough to be enrolled in her latest venture. I was so caught up in her enthusiasm that I eagerly signed on the dotted line…to sell water filters.

That ultimately didn’t work out too well for either of us. I took my knocks and vowed never to do it again. Not so my mother. Over the years I questioned her integrity many times as I watched her switch from promoting one “business opportunity” to the next with equal fervor.

I couldn’t understand how she could do this. First I thought she was lying to people just to make a sale. Then I figured she was lying to herself. Eventually I came to realize that she always believed 100 percent that her latest product or venture was, in fact, better than sliced bread. When it turned out that it wasn’t, she was devastated. But part of what makes my mom a sales diva is her ability to believe – in people, in products, in a company – but mostly – in herself.

As my own career helping organizations excel progressed, watching her allowed me to develop a greater appreciation for her ability to work her sales magic. She performs despite the fact that many of the companies for whom she has worked were woefully misguided, if not tragically toxic. From “cat fights” on the sales floor over commissions, to subtle backstabbing, and less-than-subtle power games, she has seen it all.

“In the best organizations I have worked with, management was able to keep their personal relationships with long-term employees separate from their business role and responsibilities,” she says. “When a new person came on board, especially a high performer, they welcomed it as an opportunity to shake things up and did not let a sense of ‘loyalty’ or friendship with old employees allow them to be complacent about taking action on feedback from the new person.”

Of course, she has also worked for her share of the ‘unbest’ companies.

“In smaller, privately-owned organizations, the managers often lacked management training and ability. Many had been promoted to management because they were good at sales and they had survived in the role because of their social networks, despite the fact that their performance was less than stellar,” she says.

“To keep the best people and to be a leading organization, managers need to constantly embrace new blood and encourage people to provide honest feedback and instigate change.”

I now understand that what motivated my mother’s many changes was the desire to work for something or someone that was worth believing in. While money is a motivator, salespeople, just like everyone else, have a strong desire to believe in the organization they work for and the products or services it represents. They need to believe in the integrity of their leaders and, more importantly, see it in action on a consistent basis.

So the next time you think your sales team needs another motivational seminar or how-to session to boost company profits, think of how many frustrated sales divas may be under performing because of organizational failings that undermine true teamwork and strangle individual excellence. Building the talent and integrity of your management team is far more likely to inspire lasting performance and commitment in your sales force.

-Andrea Jacques (aka. Kyoseigirl)

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