The Three P’s Of Business Success: after 16+ years working with Australian businesses, it’s clear to me that the key to business success is having the right People, in the right Places, Performing the rights tasks.

The Three P’s Of Business Success

If you want your business to achieves sustainable success,  the wise business owner will also invest in ensuring that they get the three P’s of Success right…

The Right PEOPLE

Ensuring you have the right people in your team is critical, especially for smaller businesses. Adding the wrong person to a team of five has a far bigger impact on than in a business with 100 employees.

• Do your people share the same values as you?
• Do they have the learning agility to grow with your business?
• Are they pushing you forward, or holding you back?

Too many businesses employ people they know/like and not the people who have the skills and experience that the business actually needs, which leads to the second P.

In The Right PLACES

Are you effectively utilising your people’s strengths (qualifications, skills and passions) and minimising the impact of their limitations?
Do you know what each team members are?

People who utilise their strengths and passions at work are proven to perform better and remain with an employer longer. Talk to your people, find out what they really want to do and see how your business can harness their strengths. You’ll be surprised at the skills you have access to and where people see themselves heading with your business.

PERFORMING The Right Tasks

• You’ve got the right people who suit your values and culture
• They’re in the roles that you and they want to be in
• Are they doing the tasks that will lead to success?
• Are you all measuring the things that count?

Most businesses measure some sort of performance indicators. The problem is, that many measure where the business has been, not where it is heading.

Who’d use a GPS that showed them where they’d been but not the route ahead?

You need to sit down with your people and work out what the tasks are that will move them towards theirs and the businesses goals. Then, what the measures that will show they are getting there are.

A simple sales example:

• Measuring sales figures only tells you what have sold, not what you are going to (called Lag Indicators);
• Measure the activities that predict sales such as calls made, appointments set, proposals delivered. If you know the sales activities and the ratios required of each before a sale is made (e.g one sale is won for every three proposals delivered) then you’re starting to measure Lead Indicators – the things that predict future performance.

Your Lead Indicators will obviously be different to these, but I can guarantee that your business will have tasks that you should be measuring for the benefit of your business, your people and yourself.