Marketing for Results

The research is clear: business profitability and employee productivity are strongly linked to the vision, mission, and values of an organization. If your organization does have not written statements – that have been embraced by all members of your business – you are short-changing your profits.

Five Truths about Business Success

1. The staff, the productivity, and the organizational profitability of a company are negatively affected when the organization does not have – and follow – an organizational vision or mission statement.

Approximately 95 percent of employees felt that an organization’s vision, mission, and values were very important to them. Over 60 percent of automotive employees believed that the lack of direction of the organization and/or the manufacturer reduced their productivity. It must be noted that organizations professing to believe in their vision and mission statements, but who are not practising them, are worse off than companies with no direction at all.

2. Lack of shared and documented directions frustrates employees.

Over 65 percent of automotive employees were significantly frustrated by their organization’s lack of direction. On the opposite side of this statement, 75 percent of staff said they could improve their productivity if work objectives and expectations were more clearly defined.

3. Vision and mission statements are not effective without a plan of action.

Close to 70 percent of employees felt there was no clear plan to get the organization to where it wanted to go. The flip position of this statement was that in organizations with a vision and plan of where they were going, two-thirds of the staff stated that the quality of their work improved because of this plan of action.

4. The foundational factor that influences staff morale and job satisfaction is the leadership competence – or incompetence – of their direct supervisor or manager.

An organization’s great vision and plan can be effectively scuttled by a poor manager. The #1 factor linked to job satisfaction and performance was the work environment, which supervisors and managers create and support. Without doubt, when staff performance and morale are consistently low within a company, it is caused by poor leadership within that team or organization. If you are the owner or senior manager of the business, the buck stops with you.

5. Business profits are linked to the implementation of an organization’s vision, mission, and values statements.

Undeniably, business profits are eroded without a clear direction – and a plan to implement it. The key word here is implementation. Talking about it won’t get you there. In Ken’s research, 98 percent of survey respondents believed the shop/dealership and/or manufacturer could be run more efficiently. The challenge comes in the next statement: less than 25 percent of the staff believed the company supported the implementation of the vision and plan with the required resources or assistance. This is where lack of credibility becomes a destructive factor in the organization.

Ken Keis conducted primary research for his MBA thesis on the effect an organization’s stated (or unstated) vision, mission, and values have on employee morale, job satisfaction, productivity, quality of work done, and profitability. His research included the auto industry at the manufacturer and retail level. The highlights in this article are taken from that thesis.

About Results Consulting Group Inc.

Results is an international full-service business consulting company with special expertise and experience in the automotive industry.In the past five years alone, Results’ team of automotive professionals has trained more than 20,000 automotive personnel-and logged thousands of in-store consulting-project days, from independent operations to national and international chains. Senior Partners Ken Keis and Gordon Cameron have over 45 years of combined business-ownership experience and 15,000 hours of automotive consulting experience. The Results Performance Institute provides a full range of information products and services designed to increase your business and individual performance, including personal one-on-one coaching, in-store consulting, on- and off-site educational sessions, tele-conferences, videos, and audio solutions. Results also provides appointment-scheduling and dispatch software solutions-ServiceMate-specifically designed for the independent maintenance and repair sector. Shops wishing to start growing their service business immediately can now order ServiceMate software.

Created for shops from 2 to 32 technicians, it almost pays for itself the first week you use it. Learn more about this easy-to-implement solution: Call 1-866-852-4347.

Results’ copyrighted service marketing and operational system, “0% Customer Defection & 100% Customer Retention,” has a proven track record of increasing service gross by 10-20% and beyond-in less than six months.

For further information about Results and its automotive and business solutions, call us Toll Free at 1-866-852-4347, email results@shaw.ca, or visit our Website at www.resultsconsultinggroup.com.