The increasing number of start-ups and small businesses that have been seen in recent years has gone a long way to challenge the traditional ways of doing business. It is becoming almost normal to expect, that working for a start-up or small business will involve flexible working hours, the opportunity to work remotely from home and a relaxed culture in the office with no one being chained to their desks.
However, it is still a challenge for businesses to make sure that the features of their company actually help them meet their objectives and targets, with a lot of new businesses becoming destined to fail.
There are many tips for creating a strong company culture, but the following tips give you a great place to start thinking about your company culture and how you can start as you mean to go on in your start up or small business.
When you’re a small business, just starting out, it is only natural that you want to focus on how you appear to others, including your employees and any investors that you may have.
This is definitely something that you should do as it is an important part of any business. You need to know what is important to you and your employees need to know it too. They need to know that the values that you have in place are going to mean that their work is going to be appreciated and that they are going to be treated well.
However, it is also important to consider how your values are going to contribute to your customer's experience as it is ultimately this that will make or break your business. You need to think about the kind of relationship that you want to build with your clients and how you are going to achieve this. If you do not give enough attention to this then it can really hamper the growth of your business.
One way that this can be achieved is to make everyone in your company aware that customer support should be the main priority for everyone. This is at the heart of everything that you do. When everyone in your company is customer focused then this will return dividends for your business and ultimately impact your company culture, your business’ bottom line and your brand perception among your audience.
The main mission of your company is going to be to sell the product or service that you are offering.
However, it can be easy to get carried away with your mission statement and start including things that sound great but aren't really relevant. When these start appearing in mission statements, company updates and press releases it can be easy to lose the main focus of what your business is actually about. Keeping the majority of your businesses communications centred on your values and ethos will go along way towards keeping a strong, positive and focused company cuture.
The culture of your business at the very beginning is probably going to be different to how it would be a few years down the line. For this reason, it makes sense that you should be constantly looking at the culture of your business and it expands and develops. However, many people are reluctant to do this for a number of reasons.
Some may think that if the culture of the company is constantly changing then it is difficult for them to have a defined identity. This can lead to cultural chaos and affect the perception of your brand in the public eye. Some businesses may also worry that their employees will find it difficult to retain their attention if they are never too sure what the culture of the business is.
The benefits can outweigh these disadvantages, and as a start up there may not be anything that is so completely set in stone that it cannot be changed. The culture of the company should be like any other aspect of the business, if things are not working then they need to be changed. At the end of the day this is only going to make your business stronger. If you’re a small business, you need to consider your core values, the elements of your business that are probably not going to change that often or can span different areas of your business for example, fantastic customer service, caring about every customer, or constantly striving to be innovative. Taking these as your base will help you create the foundations of your company culture.
Your small business’ company culture
While these tips may help you define what the culture of your start-up will be, every business is different. Starting your own business is not easy but it can be very rewarding and having the right culture can make things much easier. Taking your start up to a small business can e one of the most difficult but also one of the most rewarding things you ca do when you have a strong company culture, a working environment that you and your staff want to be a part of and you have the direction that you want to go.
