Building the Right Business Culture for your SME
You need the right business culture for your brand to thrive. Building a business is more than just the numbers. It is about building a brand. Most SMEs don’t put this into consideration at the early stage of developing their business. However, every SME needs the right business culture for increased productivity eventually.
Your business culture speaks for you and your business even when you’re not there. It defines how work is being done in your enterprise and how you relate with your employees. It also highlights how your business relates to customers.
The culture of a business remains with the customer even long after they’ve purchased the business’s products. Also, your business culture will determine the kind of partnerships you’ll undergo. It will also determine the kind of partners you will consider.
Contrary to what most entrepreneurs think, having a business culture is not for the big companies alone. It isn’t even for the Silicon Valley dwellers. It is what every business, big or small, needs to increase. See a business culture as the character of your business.
When building the right business culture for your SME, there are a few things you should consider. You have to determine what the character of your business will be; the identity of your business for outside your products.
Building The Right Business Culture For Your SME
Here are a few tips to get started in building the right culture for your SME:
Define your business’s purpose and values
The purpose of your business is a very broad subject that needs to be analyzed. You and everyone working with you need to understand these concepts before you can have a business culture. Start with Why. Why are we existing as a business? What is the major reason we are existing? Then go to What.
What are we doing? What gap are we filling up? How will our absence be felt if we didn’t exist? What will that absence look like? Now that we are here, what is our existence doing differently in the business world? What solutions are we providing? Then move on to Who.
Who are we? Who are we reaching out to? Who are our top priority customers? Who are the people we exist to serve? Then consider Where.
Where are we now and where are we going? What does the future look like for us? What message do we want to leave for posterity? Is there expansion in our plans? Are we resolving to be local, national, or global? Where are we heading to?
Consider the core values you want to work by
This is something you’ll have to determine yourself, especially as a leader or lead entrepreneur in the business. Common business core values are integrity, boldness, honesty, accountability, and customer experience.
You can browse through the major core values and choose the ones you want your business to live by. This will largely determine your business culture. Also, it will show in your customer and employee relationship.
Physical and practical steps are also involved in developing a business culture
The purpose and core values of your business will be evident in real-time. It will be evident when you begin to relate with your customers and your employees. Events, seminars, fairs, should be organized and tailored specifically to push the company’s culture.
This will show in the way you plan such events. It will also show how the events took place, and the message emphasized. Furthermore, your business purpose and core values will be evident in the souvenirs shared, and so on.
These things, however small they may seem, are there to drive the message of your business culture, to let people know what you are about. These are the practical steps born out of your business’s purpose and core values.
Re-strategize your hiring process
Hiring the right kind of people for your company is not only about the heaviness of their resume. You need people who see where you are going and how you want to get there and are ready to work with you. Your core values should influence your hiring process greatly. Employees should have your core values or be willing to adopt them as they work with you.
Remember that your business culture is your SME’s character. Hence, your employees’ character also matters a lot and should be considered in your hiring process. The wrong set of people can modify your business culture negatively and push a different message to the customers.
Constant reminders of what you are doing
Lastly, when building a good business culture for your SME, you need constant reminders of what you’re doing. Hence the need to go physical. Let there be stickers and posters around your company’s workspace that speak about your culture, your core values.
Let employees have souvenirs they use every day that remind them of the character of our business. This is very important as it helps everyone to keep the message of your business to their heart at all times.
Conclusion
Businesses come and go but the ones that last are always known for their culture, how they did business, and the character of their entrepreneurs. Make your business culture a priority today.
