A crappy culture leads to a crappy service business! You’ve got to put the fix in before your culture makes the business rotten to the core.
There’s a dirty little secret that a lot of service business owners have…
Many of them are not paying attention to their company culture.
And that usually means they have a bad one. They have unhappy people who have no vision to follow. There’s unrest in the camp because the culture breeds it.
I’m betting you’ve seen it in your own business.
You’ve seen your people acting up and not doing what they need to do. Not only that, you’ve seen laziness and drops in productivity. So you tell yourself that it’s hard to find good people.
The harsh reality is, your culture is the likely culprit for all of this bad behavior.
But the good news is that figuring this out means you’ve taken a big step.
And now, you can take the following actions to fix your culture and get your service business back on track.
Step #1 – Create Your Theme
We have a simple theme at CEO Warrior…
Let’s be the big dog!
When a dog goes into a yard, what’s the first thing that it does?
It marks its territory. It does what it needs to do to let every other dog know who the yard belongs to.
And that’s the theme that runs through our culture. We will never settle for being second-best to some other dog. We’re going to be the big dog that becomes the go-to name for any territory that we enter.
Your service business needs a theme, too, because it’s this that sets the stage for the rest of your culture. Your theme is you standing up and saying, “This is what we are!” on a metaphorical level.
And you’ll follow that up with…
Step #2 – Develop a Mantra
Where a theme is a metaphor for what you want to be, a mantra is something more tangible. A mantra is a sequence of words that exemplifies what your business stands for.
I’ll tell you mine.
I’m a bit of a germophobe, which means I’m generally not going to shake people’s hands. It’s not a slight in any way but I can see how people, especially those in my business, might take it.
So instead of shaking hands, I use my mantra when I see somebody…
“Warrior Strong!”
Warrior Strong soon became our mantra. It spread through the business to the point where everybody said it. That’s because by saying that, we’re telling ourselves that we’re unstoppable. That we’re the big dogs in the yard.
Again, you’ve got to develop your own mantra that means something to you and your team.
Step #3 – Have a Battle Cry
A battle cry isn’t for everybody.
At CEO Warrior, we have our people beat their chests. If you’ve ever seen the movie Tarzan, you know what this looks like. The point of that is to get them energized and ready for battle. It’s to get them excited about the prospect of going to work so they can do what they do best.
But you may not want to go in that direction.
Your battle cry could be something like a team huddle. It could be all of you putting your hands in and repeating the mantra.
It’s just something that gets you pumped and excited. And I guarantee that this energy will spread through your service business if you do your battle cry every day.
Step #4 – Fight for Your People
Your people are more valuable than anything else in your business.
That’s why I fight for mine every single day. I fight to help them create the lives that they want to lead.
I fight for them just as hard as I fight for myself.
That’s because I know that people today don’t want a job. They want to join a movement. They want to join something bigger than themselves that will help them get to the next level.
You’re the leader of your people.
When you go to bat for them, they trust you and the decisions that you make. And better yet, you teach them that you expect them all to fight for each other, as well as themselves.
Step #5 – Track Your Most Important KPIs
Let’s get a bit technical here.
KPI stands for Key Performance Indicator. These are the stats and metrics that you track to give yourself an overview of the strength (or weakness) of your business.
When people hear KPI, they immediately jump to sales, profits, and conversions. These are all important for the business, but they don’t cover your culture.
When it comes to your people, you need to track your recruiting and hiring KPIs.
Are you engaging people?
Are they motivated?
Are they educated?
What does your employee retention rate look like?
These KPIs tell you what you need to know about what your people think about the business. And they’ll give you clues about what you might need to change.
Step #6 – Create Your Painted Vision
I’m not getting all woo-woo on you here.
Painted Vision is simply the concept of having clarity around everything. And that means knowing exactly who you’re going to hire.
What qualities and skills does that ideal candidate have?
It means knowing about your people’s hobbies, how they sleep, and what they think. I want you to look so deep into them that you can almost see them in front of you.
That’s your Painted Vision of the ideal person for your service business.
And it’s that person that you want to bring on board every time to keep your culture strong.
Culture Creates Clarity
If you follow these six steps, you will create a stronger culture in your business.
You’ll understand your people better and you’ll confront the issues that exist in your culture. You’ll also create things that unite your people under your banner and make them see you as their leader.
Most importantly, you create clarity in your service business.
Your culture shows people, both in and out of the business, who you are and what you stand for.
So, here’s a question for you…
