Don’t Rest in Success

Few things in business feel better than realizing the performance goals we’ve established for our organization.

Actually, I take that back. Exceeding our goals feels even better.

Whether challenging ourselves to expand a customer base, increase net revenue, reduce turnover or rise in our industry’s rankings, professional prowess is primarily evaluated using metrics—and hitting those targets we’ve laid out for our business is a gratifying, tangible measure of success.

Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on your mindset), success is not a resting place.

It’s a jumping-off point for future growth.

Like it or not, growth is a fundamental expectation of doing business. Organizations are usually expected to grow by as much as 10-20% in a fiscal year, year after year—and regardless of your industry, it’s pretty much a given that you won’t grow by doing things the way you’ve always done them.

This can, of course, be a frustrating reality.

Organizational change takes time, energy, resources and buy-in.

Given the investment most changes require, it’s unsurprising that “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” is a business model adopted by many, especially when things appear to be going well. ?

Change aversion can be a powerful motivator for resting in success—but when you run a company, sticking to the status quo simply does not work.

The status quo is not a recipe for growth.

And, because other businesses in your industry likely aren’t pumping the brakes on their own forward momentum, the simple act of “standing still” can often result in falling backward in the rankings.

Left unchecked, a plateau can become a slide in surprisingly little time.

Mia Hamm recognized that growth doesn’t happen without advancing our goals.?

A two-time Olympic gold medalist and two-time FIFA Women’s World Cup champion, Hamm is a widely celebrated football icon (better known as soccer here in the States).

Hamm achieved an astonishing 17-year career as a forward for the U.S. women’s national soccer team, and she clearly understood the vital importance of raising the bar to keep pace with the competition.

The secret to professional evolution is consistently holding ourselves to a higher standard.

So, how do we apply this concept within the business context?

Specifically—how do we spark meaningful growth while avoiding change for change’s sake?

For us at Focus Brands, a big part of raising the bar is continually reinvesting in our infrastructure.

Over the past three years, for instance, we’ve made a $60 million investment in our company’s digital capabilities, including a new operating platform, websites and apps for all seven Focus Brands.

We also devoted $16 million to significantly upgrade our supply chain operations, developed greater competencies in suggestive selling, honed our focus on Customer Lifetime Value (CLTV), and invested in external pricing revenue expertise to ensure our brands remain cost-competitive within their respective categories.

Also, as part of a larger expansion goal established for our international team, we built a Customer Experience Center of Excellence (COE) in Costa Rica. Their goal? To deliver an affordable, cost-effective model to provide world-class operational support to our global franchisees.

Were our digital upgrades and Customer Experience COE massive investments? You bet.

But these ventures are already paying major dividends.

And while the operational buildouts above were the first that came to mind, I can think of so many other programs and spaces where we’ve continually raised the bar by reinvesting in our people, our programs and our physical and digital presence.

Each of these internal evolutions has positioned Focus Brands for significant future growth, both in terms of our revenue stream and equally critical goals around customer experience and franchisee engagement.

Our international division, for example, has been tasked to double its financial impact and grow from 1,800 locations to 3,600 locations … within five years. And they’re doing it—thanks in large part to support from the COE. Not to be outdone, our licensing team, whom we challenged to double its revenue over a five-year period, looks like they’ll accomplish that goal in only four.??

Ultimately, our organization has established continuous improvement as the overarching goal.

This is not unique to Focus Brands, mind you. A “do more, think beyond” mentality is fairly commonplace in today’s competitive business landscape.

What surprises me is how often organizations allow themselves to become stymied by their own success, rather than adopting the dynamic, growth-oriented mindset that’s a hallmark of the best companies in any industry.

So, if change is a stumbling block for your organization, begin by asking yourself (and your leadership team) this question:

“What more can we do to not just sustain our company, but prompt it toward future growth?”

Then, to the best of your ability, cultivate a similar growth-oriented mindset across the entire organization, because consistency is truly king. After all, as the great American industrialist Henry Ford once said, “If you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you’ve always got.”

That’s why at Focus Brands, there isn’t a single department or team that hasn’t been challenged toward greater improvement.

In my early days at the helm here, I used to get asked, “When is the change going to stop?”

My response?

“Never. Accept it and enjoy the ride.”

And each time we succeed, we raise the bar a little higher.

#raisingthebar #changemanagement #FocusBrands #OneFocusWay #strategicgrowth #improvement

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