Vision-to-Profit Business Report 2021
Vision-to-Profit Business Report:
The NFactor Coaching team has surveyed 1,300 entrepreneurs and CEOs about their leadership experience: How they define their unique vision for all stakeholders, and how it is translated into specific approaches they use to make their companies more engaging, resilient and profitable.
We started the process by interviewing founders and CEOs from Business Insider’s 100 Up-and-coming of 2021 and the INC 5000 and have targeted entrepreneurs that are making significant contributions in their field. We have identified current trends in business from Google analytics for 2020 and demonstrate synthesized information on how a strong company vision helps you position your company for greater success.
It is no secret that the most vision-centered companies tend to enjoy greater customer loyalty and higher market share than their competitors. Author Michael Hyatt (Book: The Vision Driven Leader) relates that a common reason for greater profitability and longevity in companies whose leaders focus primarily on Vision center the organization on the experience of the consumer while their less successful and resilient competitors focus primarily on technical aspects of delivering goods and services. In the tech industry, Apple exemplifies this construct, with 90% of the total profit from smartphone sales, and Amazon’s market cap alone is bigger than the nine biggest U.S. retailers put together, highlighting the palpable presence of the once-modest online bookstore that grew as the world’s most customer-obsessed company.
It is easy to look at corporate giants and justify a belief that they developed a strong vision and commitment to consumers after attaining exceptional success but the reality is they formulated success with a strong vision of the consumer experience as the foundation of continual growth.
Most entrepreneurs create companies and then try to create human engagement later, while the visionaries behind America’s best-loved and most profitable brands create human engagement and then form companies around it. Choosing the impact you will make is key to this success path.
This section highlights various ways to narrow down what you wish your impact to be and implement a compelling vision in order to capitalize on consumer desire to out-serve your competitors.
What Consumers Want:
Transparency: 63% want to spend with companies that support their stated values with action.
If your website and social media posts say you support “X” then they want to see the actions that support it.
Action: State your core values along with examples of how you uphold them. As a leader: Be more visible and approachable to consumers. Create a dialogue about how you make decisions that affect them and ask what you can do to better serve them. Be proactive in forming their positive opinion of you and the company and any mistakes can be addressed quickly because you will be viewed more favorably as a visible, open, honest presence.
Trust: According to several consumer guides overall trust in buying is at an all-time low, which means you need to take the long view to earn customer loyalty.
Action: Determine the specific ways your company will build and uphold trust among its stakeholders and ensconce your culture in high-trust traditions and reward systems.
Alignment of Values: The primary task in marketing is shifting more and more toward converting prospects based on philosophical agreement.
Action: State the philosophies your company espouses that match those of your target market. It can be as specific as using all-natural ingredients that support local farmers, or a broader issue like fairness, honesty, and friendliness.
Building trust and value alignment can drive a higher sales conversion rate because it addresses common objections in the “messy middle” where most sales are lost by providing social proof that you are a good, responsible and caring company.
What messages they respond to strongest:
Google analytics showed the top 10 most effective ad campaigns of 2020 were Youtube videos that pin-pointed the emotion of their target consumer, which brought in the most sales with the least cost per view.
How a strong company vision can drive growth through consumer loyalty:
· It communicates your philosophy and values.
· It demonstrates that you know your customer by showing them their transformed selves.
· It shows your sense of responsibility to all stakeholders inside and outside your company.
What is your company's vision? What do you want to be known for?
Do you have a vision statement that depicts the outcome of reaching your goals for growth in 3 or 5 years? Does it describe the experience you want for your customers as you solve their problems? How do you support accomplishing your vision through communication and action?
Read more on the flow of Vision to Profit on my Brainz Magazine executive Contributor Page
