Step #2 On How To Win In Business

This week on Marketing Monday, Angus Pryor the Practice Growth Specialist will share with you the second step on how to win in business. A series of actionable principles that you can apply to your business.

Now today we’re continuing our series looking at this book. Jack Welch was the CEO of General Electric from around ’81 to 2001 and he took the market value of the company from 12 billion to 410 billion. An unbelievable feat in 20 years, so I figured there’s probably a thing or two that he knows about winning.

Now I realise one thing I forgot to mention right at the get go about this book, some of us when we hear the word “winning”, we’re going, “Oh but I don’t want to be that competitive”.

But the reality, as he says in the book, if you win in business it means that it’s better outcomes for your client; it’s better outcomes for your team members. So it’s not some sort of selfish thing. Doing well and being successful actually everyone wins.

The first point that this section is around your company today. Now I know this is not strictly marketing but if you can manage that part well, then everything else flows. So in relation to marketing, the first point, the ‘L’ is about leadership.

I have to say as a person who’s led a lot of staff for many years and I get some insights into the dental industry, I think leadership is something that a lot of dentists struggle with. I guess you’re good at being on the tools but it’s something that maybe doesn’t come naturally. It’s something that you just gotta keep pressing on.

But the benefits of doing it are huge.

One of the things that Jack Welch talked about was about upgrading your team. He was saying use every opportunity you have to be boosting their skills, giving feedback. Because the more strongly you can lead them and create the kind of group you want, the more successful your business is going to be.

The next part he talked about, he talked a lot about people. One of the bits that I wanted to focus on here is meaningful evaluation. If you’ve ever worked in the corporate world like I certainly have, there are times where you feel like you’re just ticking the boxes in relation to evaluation.

Make it meaningful. Really have open, honest discussion with your team because people are really critical to being there to help you to win.

Final point relates to change because let’s face it, if you are in business and especially in the dental industry where there’s so much change. The number of dentists in Australia have grown two and a half times faster than the population in the last five years. Then managing change and being active about change is absolutely critical.

And with that in mind, communicating goals. One of the things that could happen with change is we get sort of change fatigued, don’t we? And particularly for the staff. It’s your business so you kind of want to lead that but for the staff they can get a bit fatigued.

So communicating the goals. Why are we having this change? The better you can communicate that, the better you’re going to get the change to come through.