5 Essentials to Creating a Business that Thrives

Creating a business that is successful is difficult. It takes a lot of thought, commitment, hard work, and foresight to build the momentum to get your business off the ground and to then run a successful business. A successful business does more than maximize profits to satisfy corporate shareholders, venture capitalists, and other financiers. A business that truly thrives creates an environment that employees love and feel safe in, provides goods or services that their customers rave about, and is able to comfortably and effectively scale. Here are 5 essential things you absolutely must do well to create a thriving business.

1. Be creative about business decisions.

Businesses make many decisions, big and small, each year. However, businesses that make creative decisions, i.e. decisions that are made from a fresh perspective after considering all possible solutions, often are more successful in the long-term. Creative decision-making in business can be achieved in two steps: by, first, breaking up a problem into diverse parts that can be analyzed individually and identify all possible solutions to the individual movable parts of the problem (for example, if your company is losing customers to your competitor, it might make sense to take stock of all divergent parts of your product-to-customer process to see if improvements can be made along that process); and second, checking possible solutions identified in step 1 against conventional practices and industry norms to see how possible solutions will work out (an example would be to see if a proposed solution will create a completely different market for you (which is good) or put you in an noncompetitive position in an existing industry (which isn't good)). 

2. Be consistent in small acts that define your business.

Consistency in the small acts that define your values and who you are as a business is more important than grand gestures to show people who you are. The reward from grand attention-capturing gestures may be instant but will likely be temporary. The day-to-day effort to build your business, boost employee happiness and satisfaction, and meet customers expectation that comes from self-assurance will bring you much further than one-time extreme gestures to prove who you are. 

3. Create communities around your brand.

Today, the internet allows businesses to make powerful human connections with their consumers. Building communities around your brand gives your customers the space to interact with your brand in a deeply meaningful way. Communities allow your customers to be seen and heard by your company as constituents who can provide invaluable and honest feedback about what they truly want from your brand. As your business builds communities around its products and services, it will attract more customers that share its values. This is particularly so if the community is centered on a larger social purpose, such as environmental protection or reducing plastics and animal agriculture in these companies.

4. Care deeply about your clients and customers.

Companies that care deeply about their customer and who provide great customer service tend to be more successful. Offering personalized experiences, amazing perks, and quality products to your customers, listening to your customers, taking advantage of data and technology to build communities and engage your customers, and creating a seamless experience that provides great service and support on as many levels on which your customers interact with your brand will build your company. However, companies that offer customer transformation by solving a problem that their clients have or helping their customers get the life they want will thrive in the long term. A retail company such as Best Buy might offer customer transformation by enriching their lives through technology and, as result, capture new customers and grow.

5. Care even more deeply about the world.

Brands that care deeply about the world tend to attract employees, customers, and partners who share the same values. Companies that are committed to making the world a better place inspire trust, commitment, accountability, integrity, and leadership - values and qualities that will attract like-minded people and companies that will sustain the company in the long run. Warby Parker, for example, commits to providing someone in the world in need of glasses with a pair of glasses for every pair of glasses purchased ("Buy a Pair Give a Pair") as a their commitment to alleviating the problem of impaired vision around the world. The most recent valuation of the company puts it at $1.7 billion.

Ultimately, to thrive as a business, we all need to thrive as people. The more we thrive as human beings, the more our businesses thrive.