Values, Vision, Purpose, And Mission

First, every company needs Values and Vision, a Purpose, and a Mission. Every company and everyone within it needs something to aspire to. And there\’s nothing more motivational or inspirational in a company than for the owner to be committed to ultimately being the best in the industry. There\’s nothing that will attract better people to join your company and bring higher quality work out of your employees than for you to be wholeheartedly determined to get better and better in what you do until your customers ultimately rank you as the best in the business.

As I mentioned earlier in this program, according to Harvard University, the most valuable asset that a company has is its reputation. This is best defined as how you are known to your customers. Because the credibility of your advertising in your offerings is the critical determinant of whether or not people buy from you. Your reputation is more important than any other single factor. The most powerful form of advertising in our society is word of mouth. This takes place when you are satisfied customers tell your prospective customers how good you are and how much they enjoy doing business with you. Word of mouth advertising is free. It comes as the result of your providing excellent products and services to your customers and then taking care of your customers with excellent follow-up service.

People are generally reluctant to tell their friends and associates to patronize a particular business. They\’re afraid that if they recommend a business, those friends and associates will be disappointed if they don\’t get what they expected from the business. For this reason, the highest and best form of promotion is for you to take wonderful care of your customers every single time. It takes a long time to build a reputation for excellent customer service. But once you\’ve established it, it can help you to attract more and better business than anything else you can do. There are some companies that are extremely successful but do very little advertising. Instead, they focus all of their efforts on taking such great care of their customers that these customers not only return and buy again but also tell everyone else how good the business is. It\’s estimated that a happy customer will tell five to eight other prospective customers about a product or service. On the other hand, an unhappy customer will tell 10 to 15 people not to buy that product or service.

• Rule. In advertising, there\’s a rule never to advertise a bad product.

The reason for this rule is simple. If you promote a bad product, more people will buy it sooner. And the more people who buy it who are dissatisfied, the more people they will tell about their experience. In no time at all, the bad product will have such a bad reputation that it will quickly fail in the market. No one will buy it in commercial law.