The 13 Ingredients to Business Success

The 13 Ingredients to Business Success

No matter what industry your business is in, no matter what products or services you sell, no matter how small or large your business is, there are 13 ingredients to a successful business. Any of these ingredients can make or break a business. If all 13 are in place, you will create a powerhouse business that achieves its goals.

Nearly ALL businesses - small or large, privately-owned or publicly-traded - have one of more of these ingredients weak or missing entirely. Large corporations spend hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars a year on consultants to strengthen any weak or missing areas of the business.

KLH Growth Strategies works with privately-owned businesses. We prefer to work side-by-side with business owners and their teams, and give these small-to-mid-size businesses the tools and strategies that will propel their businesses to higher levels of success.

Ingredients to Success

Visit our Videos and Articles page to see more detailed descriptions about these ingredients and how to implement them into your business.
  1. Leadership and Management. Leadership is the power, the driving force behind any business. Leadership includes such vital elements as purpose, vision, mission statement, and planning - all of which set the course for the organization. Leadership also includes the management philosophy, policies, procedures, planning, analysis and systems adopted to run an organization. Leadership is important no matter the size of the organization. Small organizations need excellent leadership and management just as much as larger companies. (Analytics falls partly within this category, and partly in the Information Technology category.)
  2. The product or service the organization sells and delivers. Does it do or provide what people want? How does it compare with competitors’ products or services? What is the quality level of the product or service? Are clients/customers happy with the product or service?
  3. Personnel and Personnel Development. This includes all aspects of managing people, to include hiring and retaining good people; having excellent training programs that develop and enhance your people; managing your people to get maximum job performance and hard work from each person; handling problem people; and knowing who to let go. What we call Personnel Development goes far beyond the typical and usual HR stuff that most companies follow.
  4. Organization and Structure. How is the company structured? Are all the people - management, professional staff, and workers - organized into a united, efficient, well-oiled team with everyone working toward the same company goals and purposes? How are jobs defined and job descriptions developed? There is an exact science to this, an exact formula to produce the optimum organization, structure and job definitions.
  5. Operations. Operations means the actual actions, policies, procedures and “how to” the business uses to create the product or service that is sold and delivered to clients or customers. Operations is how the ingredients of Leadership and Management, Structure and Organization, the Product or Service, and the Personnel are put together and used to create, sell and deliver the product or service. Operations dictate the flows of the business - flows of the product or service, flows of information, flows of people, etc. Operations define “Who does what to whom - and how, where and when.”
  6. Marketing. You can offer the best product or service in your industry. But if no one knows about it, you will go bankrupt.
  7. Quality Control. Quality Control divides into two parts. The first ensures that the product or service being sold is of high quality. The second part ensures that the quality of the organization's operations, personnel, systems, technologies and equipment are operating at high standards. Successful businesses have systems and procedures in place to correct any deficiencies as well as continually develop personnel and improve the quality of the entire organization.
  8. Customer/Client Service. After your customer or client has purchased your product or service, there is a need for continuous communication with the client, or resolving a problem with the product or service. Customer Service, along with product quality, determines if customers give the company repeat business and refer other new customers - or not.
  9. Communication. Good communication actually is a key part of all the other ingredients, and is perhaps the most important individual ability needed for success. We split out communication as a separate ingredient to success because of its importance. Communication divides into (i) internal communications, within the organization, between the team members; and (ii) between employees and customers/clients of the organization. It also means effective interactions between management and the people being managed.Telephone Skills are a major part of the communications ingredient in such businesses as medical or dental practices, law firms, architectural firms, accounting firms, financial planners, chiropractors, consulting firms, design companies and other professional businesses. For these types of businesses, phone skill is actually one of the very most important elements of all in terms of revenues and profits - in particular, handling incoming calls or leads from prospective clients/patients. We have found that the the skills, or lack of skills, of the people handling incoming calls can earn or cost a business hundreds of thousands of dollars per year. KLH Growth Strategies offers an effective phone training program that is guaranteed to generate remarkable increases in revenues.
  10. Sales. You could have an excellent product or service. You can be doing effective marketing which brings in a lot of potential customers or leads. But at some point, this potential customer must make a decision, and that decision is whether to buy your product or service or go elsewhere. Are your sales people trained well enough to close a high percentage of sales? Or are they wasting leads and prospects? If your company has more than one sales person, is there a sales manager? Is the sales manager fully trained, competent and skilled as a sales manager not just as a sales person? If your company doesn’t have sales people, what is the sales process?
  11. Accounting and Finance. Money provides the energy to keep an organization going. And the most fundamental principle of accounting and business is to earn more money than is spent. Good accounting procedures are also necessary because of all the numerous and complex state and federal laws and regulations. Finance includes all the options for obtaining funding, as well as managing revenues.
  12. Compliance and Legal. A business operates in a society full of laws and regulations, which must be followed or penalties can result. And some industries require far more compliance than others, such as securities trading, healthcare and banking. Also, any business can get into situations where they need good, competent legal advice or counsel.
  13. IT (Information Technology). This includes computers, networks, software, platforms, data management, security procedures - even written paper or any manual information flow. Analytics falls partly into this category and partly into the Leadership and Management component. (IT could also be the product or service a business developer and sells.)
The team at KLH Growth Systems are experts in these areas, and work with you to get in any missing Ingredients to Success so as to produce a super-successful business. We do this one step at a time, starting with the ingredient or steps or action your business needs most.

Contact us to learn more about how we can help you and your business.

Check out our article 13 Ingredients to Success on our Videos and Articles page for more information about these ingredients, and for more videos on other topics.
Leadership and Management are the driving force, the power, behind any successful business.

Leadership and Management are just as important to success as the quality of the product or service the business sells to its customers and clients.
Each of the 13 Ingredients to Success contribute to the success (or failure) of a business.

Each ingredient has its own set of skills, systems, principles, laws, tools, know how,
strategies and procedures.

KLH consultants work with you to apply each ingredient specifically to your business.
Check out our Video library to learn more about the 13 Ingredients to Business Success.

Our library contains many useful videos and articles that are full of valuable information and tools you can use right away in your business.
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