DO YOU C.A.R.E. ABOUT PROFIT?

How does CARE make me more money? After all that’s what we are in business for right? Recently I’ve heard a few people say, “Once I make some money, I’ll get into all that CARE stuff” or “That CARE philosophy is great, but first I need to make some money”. The reality is that the two are inseparable. The reason any for-profit company exists is to make money. Most of us get into business to improve in one or all of the following areas often referred to as ILWED: ILWED stands for: Income, Lifestyle, Wealth creation, Equity and Debt elimination.

So how does C.A.R.E. Leadership improve ILWED? Here are 8 examples:

1. Create A Remarkable Experience – Wow’d customers show much more loyalty and buy more services from you than just satisfied customers. If they’ve enjoyed a remarkable experience they will tell others about it, essentially working as part of your sales team! Cha-ching!

2. Have fun and love what you do – Happy, engaged team members are more productive, have less down time, create less waste (damages, idle labor etc) resulting in better profits.

3. Don’t just do it OWN IT! – Team members that are accountable for their responsibilities require less monitoring. This frees up the business owners time to focus on sales, systematization, financial management, customer relations and efficiency, all of which help you make more money.

4. Be Humble – Arrogance and excuses will loose customers every time. A humble apology and a quick and thorough response to any issue is the best way to build your customer list. The only way to sustainable profitability is to retain your customers year after year.

5. Learn something new everyday, and share it with the team. – Learning keeps you and your team competitive, efficient and continuously improving. Every time you learn something new about your business and use it to tweak your operations, you increase your profitability.

6. Be Ethical and Trustworthy in your dealings – People do business with people they know, like and trust. Sometimes doing the right thing will cost you in the short term, but ethics and trustworthiness ALWAYS pay the biggest and most lasting dividends! Developing a team you can trust saves you money, being a company that can be trusted makes you money.

7. Listen well and communicate with RESPECT – Timely and continuous communication is key to building relationships. We all have service failures from time to time, and our ability to keep our customers from going elsewhere will be based on the strength of our relationships. The same goes for our team members. Our ability to retain both is directly related to profit.

8. Contribute to the triple bottom line – The right kind of team members (the kind you need to build a profitable business) are inspired by the idea of “doing well, by doing good”. This results in a reduction in costly employee turnover. The “what’s in it for me” employees who are just looking for a paycheck and a pay raise, could care less about giving back. That same attitude will show up in their work, costing you time and money.

There are many more examples of how the culture of CARE is directly related to the success and profitability of your business. Can you afford to ignore it? What are some ways in which leading with C.A.R.E. has helped your business be more profitable?