In previous blogs, I have shared my admiration for Robin Sharma, best-selling author and business coach, and when I viewed some of the mostly highly watched videos from him, I wanted to share one that most resonated with me. The video “How Remarkable Entrepreneurs Build Winning Teams” had a great message and had accumulated almost 18,000 views.

I have been working for years to build a great team, and I am excited about the one that is in place today! We have gone through different team members, and it seemed to be an evolution on the talent that we were attracting. Today, the team is full of highly skilled and dedicated people that want to give their all to make the company improve and grow.

Here are the 5 things entrepreneurs do to build a winning team:

1) Appreciation – show appreciation and give praise. A gallop study said that the #1 reason companies lose talent is that employees don’t feel appreciated. I am thankful for my team and could do more to share that with them.

2) Belonging – create a sense of belonging. People like to feel like they belong to a special community. Our team just seems to like each other by the way they joke and laugh so often.

3) Develop Your People – grow their talents, challenge them to be better, and take them where they want to go. Mentor and help them be better. We ask them weekly what they have learned, and we pay for educational programs for our team.

4) Celebrate Your Team – celebrate the big things but also the little things that happen along the way. We have had little celebrations such as going to lunch together and even a coupon book that can save over a $1,000 to local retailers. We could do more to celebrate our team and will work on this.

5) Communicate a Compelling Purpose – share a common goal and passion. People like to feel like they are making a difference. Here at Efficience, we believe that there is a better way to leverage technology in your business. We are passionate about creating life-improving solutions, such as more affordable mobile apps for small businesses, so they can connect with their customers and grow their business.

I know I could do more and I will work harder in these areas. What are you doing to help your team to be the winners you know they can be?

What are you doing to create value? I’m sure you’ve heard, as I have, that business is all about creating value for those around you. I recently saw a post by Robin Sharma on five points to protect your company. The fifth point he made was: Become Obsessed with Value Creation. The point says “This is not some pie in the sky idea. It’s a hard hitting business growth tactic. Obsess over how you can add more value to more people and the revenues will take care of themselves.”

My success coach, Steve D’Annunzio, talks about value from 2 points of view: subjective and contextual. He says that “we are moving out of the age of information and moving into an age of context” and “that no truth exists without context”. For example, let’s look at the context of a simple drug like pain medication. It can make you feel better from that kidney stone, but it can also become an addiction or it could alter your mind to the degree of committing suicide.

In the age of information, Steve defines value as a product, service or idea that eliminates threats, fulfills obligations or capitalizes on opportunities. In the age of context, it is defined as any product, service or idea that energizes and empowers you MORE than the energy, time or money that you spend to get it.

So what does value mean to you? How do you know when you’re providing value to your customers? I would say that increasing business is a good indicator. When your customers are waiting in line for your product or service, you are adding extreme value (think Apple). If you’re seeing a declining customer base and decreasing profits, it’s probably a good time to start asking your clients how you can provide them more value.

From my experience, you have to have thought and desire to find value. Sometimes it slaps you in the face with a client ranting “why the heck doesn’t your service allow this?” If it’s not slapping you in the face, simply ask your clients what they need from you that would eliminate a threat, fulfill an obligation or capitalize on an opportunity. Sometimes clients just don’t know what they will find valuable until they have it.

The book Blue Ocean Strategy has an exercise that can come in handy to help find the value that you or your clients don’t currently see. This is a great book, filled with lots of insight on how to swim out in the vast blue ocean of competitors instead of floating around in the red ocean of shark infested competition. Next week I will go further into value creation from the Blue Ocean perspective.

One of my favorite authors, Robin Sharma, also coaches clients like GE, IBM, FedEx, and Coke.  He recently released a video called “The 5 Fastest Ways to Recession-Proof your Business.”  Click here to watch the video.  It is over 10 minutes long, so I will summarize for my blog.

1)  You can’t win a race to the bottom.  Many businesses are cutting prices in an attempt to gain more business and market share.  When doing this, you train your customers to see less value in your offering.  Thus, you will continue to charge lower prices.  This often leads to lost profits and not being able to stay in business.  Sharma suggests you should compete on value by offering superior products and services. 

2)  Shift from busy work to work that matters.  Many entrepreneurs spend significant time on the phone, reading and responding to email, and surfing the internet rather than doing the work that really matters.  Fake work wastes time.  Sharma says that not only should you have a To-Do list but also, and more importantly, a STOP doing list.  Also, focus your most productive time on the highest value work.  Studies show that this is usually from morning to lunch.

3)  Disrupt instead of being disrupted.  Sharma uses the example I used recently of Netflix and Blockbuster.  Don’t rest on your laurels and remain still as the world around you changes.  If you are not innovating, evolving, or even adding incremental value regularly to what you are doing, then you risk the chance of being disrupted.

4)  Grow leaders faster than your competition.  In tough times, you can get distracted and scared dealing with various other issues and fail to take the time to train your team.  Double the amount of time and money you use to prepare your team if you want to triple your profits.  Do this, so everyone, in their role, feels like the CEO.

5)  Take the time to develop your 2.O.  What is going on outside of you reflects your mindset.  Bulletproof your mind to deal with the world by bringing to work the right attitude, the right mindset, the right confidence, and the right gratitude to handle the tough times.  Also, have the right physical stamina by eating right, drinking lots of water, and working out.  When you get all of those things right, you will be amazed by the improvements in your business and your life.  

How recession proof are you?