Larry Weidel (video author/speaker) summarizes findings from a Harvard Business Review study (April 2013) that analyzed ~25,000 companies over multiple years and identified ~400 elite firms. He presents three traits that distinguish the top 1%: (1) a clear overarching purpose/vision that guides decisions; (2) competing on value and customer experience rather than lowest price; and (3) prioritizing top-line revenue growth over obsessive cost-cutting. He uses Apple/Steve Jobs and training-program/margin analogies to illustrate the points and encourages leaders to adopt these guidelines.
I've always believed in keeping a close eye on people at the top. And companies are people. Just got to think of them as people too. And what do people at the top do? What can you learn from them? Everybody's got theories, lots of things that you can copy from a lot of people. But what are the top top people seem to do more than other things? Well, there are three tendenc that revealed themselves in a study done by the Harvard Business review, April of 2013. And they studied, get this, 25,000 companies. And of those, they evaluated them. I think this went on for about three years every different way. And 400 of them emerged as clearly the elite of the elite. These were the superstars. First they had to identify them and then they analyzed them. Three things, they only found three things that came out. You want to know where those three are? I think it could be very helpful because you have, as you build your life and if you're fortunate enough, you're a business, you have the opportunity to make decisions. So it's great to have framework for making those decisions and know that these are the kind of guidelines, a framework that have worked for others. So here's number one in everything out there. You do a service, you make a product, but it's something you do okay. It's something that you're going to be doing every day, what you're known for. But they focus. And then there's the other thing is you hear the why, what is your purpose? Why are you doing it? Is it just short term to make money for this week or whatever? The people at the top of the top companies, the elite, they have more focus on this one, on their purpose, their vision, why they're doing it. You know, it's their, their mission, their thing that drives them. If you're going to be the best, reach the top, you have to have something more special driving you than drives the other people. So let's just take a look at Steve Jobs. Steve Jobs wanted to ding the world. I mean, he wanted to improve, impact the world for good. He wanted to make a lasting impression, do something so great that it resonated around the world. Well, then Apple, maybe not as an accident, while he was still alive, went to the number one company by far in the world. So if you're just focusing on what you do, you need to focus on what you do. You need to have a good quality product and, and value and all of these things. But what is the priority? See for these companies, that is their priority in this arena. They're more focused on the big picture than just. Exactly. It is what they do. The second thing is when you have you get down to your product, what you getting to what you do, what do you focus on about that? Do you focus on cheapest price or do you focus on value the biggest? Now of course you have to have a price that's in the ballpark and everything. But it's a matter of how are you going to be known, how are you going to say this is the main thing. We're going to compete off the elite. Elite, elite companies compete off value. And you can see that again in Apple. Apple has never really worried about the fact that they have the most expensive computers and pads and phones and things like that because they're more concerned that when people buy it, they're satisfied and excited that they have a great experience. So what you see is that's the similar thing that all of the top companies, these guys over here have the superstars of business, they're focused on price and all of that, but they're more focused on value. They want to make their reputation on something that people are super excited to use once they pay the price and once they get their hands on it, they have a phenomenal experience and are very excited and the value makes it worth the price. So that's the other thing. Now what is the third? The third is now if you see in our, in our arena, if you're in, you're running training programs and it takes, you know, there's always a certain cost in terms of money, a certain cost in time and things like that. Are you more concerned in getting these down to the minimum or focused on the education people are going to get? See, if you're running a training program, seems like once they paid the money and put in the time in, they're going to be more concerned. They have the education. So that's a little example of there. The other one is in the arena of this is what you do, you get paid to do it and then do you focus on margins, profit margins, reducing costs, cutting back minimum, minimum. Or are you more focused on driving revenue, your top line, your gross products, I mean your gross profits, revenues. The greater companies are more focused on growing their top line, this is the top line, how much money is coming in rather than excessive. Now they'll watch expenses using Apple again, of course, they moved the bulk of their production and everything over to China like everybody else. But they're not penny pinching. They don't, they don't spend a priority of their time Penny pinching, cutting salaries, looking for every way they can be cheap, which is great. I mean, that's part of being in business. But they don't. That's not their main thing. Their main thing is growing revenues, growing the top line. Because the idea is if you're growing the amount of money that comes in every year, you're going to be able to cover your costs and expenses. And sure, keep an eye on that cut back, keep lean and mean, but don't get your eye off the ball of revenue. So this is what it comes in is the top companies keep their eye on mainly. Their eye is mainly on. They never stray from their purpose. They never forget what they're doing. They never stray from thinking about competing on value and customer experience in the marketplace. They don't want anybody to get better value than them. And they don't want anybody to say, I'd rather have, you know, I have that product, but I enjoy somebody else's product better. They want the most customer satisfaction to come from them. And then the other thing is when from a business, all the business statistics you can look at, their IA is mainly on growing the revenue coming into that company. So folks, look at those things, see if those guidelines used by the top 1% of all companies can somehow be guidelines you can use to get the most out of your business. The decisions you're making about your life, your company, the people looking to you for leadership. Three tenancies, the top 100 companies.
