5 Foundations of a Purposeful & Profitable Business
When you’re first starting out in business, it’s easy to fall into the trap of being busy but not purposeful when it comes to growing a business. Most people spend months even years tweaking their brand or website or focusing all their efforts on blogging or growing their social media accounts before they realize what’s most important when growing a business. Yes, branding, blogging, and social media are extremely important but those activities should only account for a small portion of your business development plan. What you really need to focus on is making sure your business has a strong foundation.
Let’s talk about the 5 foundations of a purposeful and profitable business.
1) People
Who has God given you a burden for? When God calls us to business, He calls us to reach a select group of people who need to hear our message and solution. The first step in building a purposeful and profitable business is to figure out who God has given you a burden for. From there, you want to create your ideal client profile. Who are they? What do they? Where do they live? How much do they make? How old are they? Where do they hang out online and offline? These are just some of the questions you want to keep in mind when you create your ideal client profile or target audience.
Don’t forget to include demographic and psychographic information. Demographic information consists of who your customer is and your psychographic information will consist of why they want to buy and the lifestyle they live. This will help you narrow down who God wants you to reach. The goal here is to not keep your audience too broad. Don’t worry about reaching the masses, worry about reaching the people you are called to.
2) Problem
Now that you know who God has called you to, you must identify the problem they need you to solve. What are your people’s pain points? What are they struggling with? What are the burning questions or problems they come to you with? You can’t have a purposeful and profitable business if you’re not solving a problem. Focus on the main problem you want your business to solve. Then you can start tailoring your offerings to meet their needs.
3) Solution
Your solution should define why your business exists. Your business should exist to solve your ideal client’s problems, and the solution you offer is how you will fix their problems. People don’t buy just because they like you or because you have a popping website; they buy because they’re hoping what you offer solves their problem. Are your offerings the solutions to their problems?
There are many ways you can ensure that your solutions are serving your customers problems. One way to do this is to survey your audience. You can also hold in person or online focus groups to get product feedback. Another great way to make sure your offerings are meeting needs is to list each product/service you offer and write down the problem that each one solves. All these methods allow you to see if your offerings are purposeful and give you an opportunity to tailor them to better serve your ideal customer.
4) Platform
Your platform is the hub for your business. This is where you will share and distribute your solution. All your marketing and social media efforts should point people back here and to your email list (where the real profits lie). Make sure your platform is optimized to attract your target audience. Don’t clutter your website with unnecessary content and copy. Every page and piece of content should serve a purpose and must have the ability to efficiently and effectively direct your audience to the next steps of becoming a client or customer. Your space should be clean and have a good amount of white space. The pages should be clean and organized and all your links should be active. And don’t forget about creating a signature opt-in that serves your ideal client while leading them into your sales funnel.
The biggest thing when it comes to creating your platform is to not get caught up in details of blogging. Remember that blogging is a content marketing strategy, not your business in itself. The blog’s purpose is to share your brand’s message and the platform is there to share the solution of your business.
5) Systems & Workflows
Systems and workflows are not the sexiest things to talk about but they are one of the most important foundations of running a purposeful and profitable business. Systems, processes, and workflows allow you to run a seamless business. You do that by identifying what processes, systems, and workflows need to be in place to efficiently and effectively serve your people. From there you want to analyze and document the process of how you run every part of your business. That includes finding and onboarding clients, blogging, social media marketing, processing meeting notes — everything needs a process and a system.
Just think of your systems, processes, and workflows as the business manual and operating procedures for your business. Documenting these things will allow you to perform your activities accurately and in order every single time. Not only will this save you time and money when it’s time to hire or expand a team, but it will also give you peace of mind knowing that every part of your business is accounted for and every customer and client is being served.
I know that these foundations may not be the most exciting or appealing but focusing on them now will save you time in the long run and will prevent you from having to backtrack in the future. The key is to not rush the process. Remember, businesses are built day by day, brick by brick. Not taking the time to build a strong foundation early on is like building a house on sand — it will sink instead of stand. Instead, build a business that will withstand the tests of time by focusing on the foundations that will make it purposeful and profitable.
Originally Written for Relevant Entrepreneur
