MBA1258 Must Read: The Five Most Important Questions You Will Ever Ask About Your Organization by Peter Drucker

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Today's must read is the five most important questions you'll ever ask about your organization. By Peter Drucker Peter Drucker was a pioneer of management theory. He worked as a writer, a teacher, a consultant and he's seen as the godfather of management and marketing. And this book explores five questions you need to ask yourself about your own business. The answers to these questions are going to be critical to to how you move forward in your business. I truly believe asking yourself the right questions leads you to think about solutions that you need and not solutions that you think you need. Sometimes we worry and think about things that really don't move the needle don't really matter in our business. These questions actually get to the heart of what's important. So I'll be sharing today what these five questions are and why are they so important? As well as many golden nuggets that Peter Drucker shares in this book. So let's get into it. Let's get down to business. I'm a big fan of Peter Drucker. I find that his work and his writing is really, really to the point, effective, well thought out. This man had a wealth of experience. He lived to 96, was born in 1909, and passed away in 2005. And during his time, he really shifted the way people thought about business management and marketing. The five most important questions you'll ever ask about your organization presents the reader with five simple yet highly effective questions. So as a business owner, these questions really matter. There's so much to cover from this book, so I want to jump right into it. The first question that he explores is, what is your mission? I know this sounds very cliche. I know a lot of people kind of think about mission and vision and value statements for their business, but he really gets to the bottom of this. Really. This question, what is your mission? Is what are you trying to do? What are you trying to do every day when you wake up in the morning and you work on your business? What is this all for? You got to get really clear on this. And not only you need to be really clear, but you need to cascade that and communicate that and make it part of the culture in your business. Everybody that's working on your business. So with our software company, Webinar Ninja, we make it super clear that our mission is to empower small business owners to grow their business with webinars. This is what we do. We help people get new leads, make more sales. And that's what the software and everyone behind it is committed to doing. That's what we're trying to do here. And your mission doesn't have to be complicated or wordy, but it has to be clear. What are you trying to accomplish? Why did you start this business? Why are you doing this? Now, the reason why this has to be super clear, and you need to know this like the back of your hand, is because it drives everything in your business. It's going to drive your marketing, your sales pages, your emails, everything. And it's what's going to resonate with the customer. The customer is going to say, hey, I like that mission. I like what they're trying to do, because I want to get that done. So question number one is huge. Nail this down. I encourage you to hit Pause. On this podcast, you can hit pause. We'll be right back. Right. We'll be right here when you're ready. And to write down your answer either in a notes app or on a piece of paper or a post it note or anything, even if it's not the perfect answer right now, but write down what you think your mission is. Okay, second question. Who is our customer? Who are we serving? And I'm going to take this an extra step. And he talks about this in the book, but it's important for you to know who are you serving and also who are you not serving? For example, every company has a user base, has a customer base, a target market, but they also have a market that they're not going to go after, that they're not for. If you're super health conscious and, and really value what you put in your body, you're not the customer that McDonald's looking for. Right? You're not McDonald's customer because their food is not hyper healthy. Right? And you want to get as specific as possible. Who is your customer? Who are these people? What do they do? Even big markets like car manufacturers, they don't just say, hey, we sell cars to anybody with a license. No, Mercedes has a very specific market. People that are luxury focused, they also don't sell a $15,000 car. So if you're not in that price range, then you're not shopping for a Mercedes. The flip side is, is that Kia does cater for that customer that's looking for a car for 15,000 that isn't luxury focused. So question number two is, who is your customer? And you can kind of make part two of that question. Who is not your customer? Why is this important? Because when you're building and refining your product or service, you want to build it with that customer in mind. A lot of us, we want to build a product for everybody in the world. No, you're not going to resonate with anybody that way. And it's going to be too hard for you to build a product like that. A lot of people just respond to any feedback from any customer that they have, even if they're not their ideal customer. Your first question should be, when you get this piece of feedback, is that, is this person my ideal customer? The people that we want to go after or they just happen to use their service or tried it out because they might give you a piece of feedback and you're like, okay, I'm going to implement this feedback and change my product. Well, now you're catering to this customer. And not the customers you're looking to go after. An example is if I, you know, went to McDonald's and said, hey, McDonald's, I want everything that you serve to be organic, free range, high quality, and I want my chicken to be slow roasted. And I'm giving all this feedback. Imagine McDonald's goes ahead and implements this. Now let's say McDonald's implements this feedback. Well, they're creating a product now in their business that doesn't target, that doesn't serve their target market. They're serving food that takes a long time, food that's expensive to cater to, needs that they don't really care about, whether it's, you know, high grade organic meat. So it would Be Foolish for McDonald's Implement any feedback they hear. So by knowing who your customer is and who they're not, you can really hone in on how to improve your product based on that information. Question number three. Love this one. What does your customer value? What do they actually care about? Not what they want, but what do they value? Do they value convenience? Do they value ease of use? Do they value price? And it's not all the above. They're going to have priorities. Some people, price will be on the bottom of the list, but ease of use, great service, reliability, top of the list. So what are the values your customers have? That ideal customer, the customer that you already defined, that this is our customer, what are their values? Does your product, service or your brand, does your business align with those values? This even is important when you're creating a marketing campaign or you're promoting yourself in some way with your brand, the clothing line Benetton out of Italy. They know that their customers values are equality for all, multiculturalism. So they will make sure that these values are displayed in their commercials, in their branding, in their ads, because they want to say to the customer, hey, your values are the same as our values. So those who haven't heard of Benetton before or haven't tried them yet are going to say, hey, I value those things. I'm going to check out Benetton because there's some sort of synergy here. So by understanding your customer's values, what they value, what they like, what's important to them, what's a priority for them, you can really push that button. You can really, you know, emphasize those points. And I say push as well. I want to talk about manipulation here. We're not manipulating anybody here. We're being honest and saying, hey, this is important to us too, because it's important to you, you're our customer. I really love that question. To really understand the customer and what they value. Question number four. What are our results? The role of a good leader is to know what needs to be fixed, what needs to be achieved, what needs to be improved, and then to measure and say, hey, how are we doing? How did we do? You need to have a focus on what you actually produce, what the results are in your business. You can't just say, we believe in this, this, and this, and we're attracting these customers. You also have to say, hey, what are our results? Are we making sales? Are we attracting the right customers? Are we, you know, expanding our market share by asking that question of yourself and of your business. What are results? What are we actually doing? What are we actually, you know, producing? What are we actually accomplishing? It makes you really stand up and say, hey, am I doing enough? Am I actually achieving the goals I'm setting out? Or am I just setting goals and just forgetting about them? What are our results? Hold yourself accountable. How have we done this year versus last year? How have we done this month versus last month? In all areas that are important to us in our culture, if you say, hey, our team culture is important. We want to make sure everybody in our company is happy and feels welcomed. Well, is that true? Do people feel happier this month than last month or this year versus last year? Whatever your metric, whatever you're trying to evaluate, really ask yourself, what are the results? Where's the data to show me what we've done? Now, sometimes when you ask that question, you're going to get answers that are not great. They're going to get answers that are just, you know, a bit of bad news. You're not doing so well. You're not achieving the things that you wanted to achieve. You're not on track. And maybe you find out, maybe you're a little bit of hot air. Maybe you say things and things don't really happen, and that's okay. It's okay to find out that you're. You have a few shortcomings. Things are not exactly what they seem. It's good to recognize that because that's when question number five comes into play. What is our plan? That's question number five. What is our plan as an organization, as a leader of my business? What's my plan moving forward? How are we going to improve now that I know the results? You know, how am I going to improve on these results? And if the answer is, honestly, I don't have a plan, that's a Good. Start recognizing that you don't have a plan. I need to start planning forward. I have to have a plan so I can be able to improve. I can't just say, hey, we need to improve and just, you know, move on. How can I improve? What can I do to improve? What are the areas that we need to improve and what am I going to do moving forward? So when I look back next month or next year, I get different results. I have to do different things to get different results, right? So what's our plan forward? What different things are we going to do moving forward? I love these five questions because they're so clear, they're so, they're so easy to understand, and it holds you accountable. What is our mission? Who is our customer? What does the customer value? What are our results and what is our plan?

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Eduardo Today's must read the five most important questions you'll ever ask about your organization by Peter Drucker is game changing. It's simple, it's easy, it's a quick read. And it presents these five questions that I share with you today in detail on how to ask yourself these questions, how to hold yourself accountable. Highly recommend it and any of Peter Drucker's work. You'll absolutely love it. Thank you so much for listening. If you love this show, hit subscribe right now on whatever you use to listen to podcasts, whether it's Apple Podcasts, Stitcher Radio, Overcast, Google Play. We're on all the podcast apps, but by hitting subscribe you get access to our archive episodes. That's over 1200 episodes, 1200 lessons to help your business. And the only way to get access to them is to hit subscribe. And if you want to continue to get episodes automatically so they're ready on your device when you're ready to listen, hitting subscribe does that for you. So do that right now. Okay, before I go, I want to leave you with this. I look at Peter Drucker's life. He was born in 1909 and passed away in 2005. 96 years. He had a full life even though he was born in the early 1900s. Right. He took care of his health and he was able to build a body of work that has helped entrepreneurs, business professionals around the world for years to come. It makes me think, you know, what am I leaving behind? What's my legacy? Am I producing something that can help people? Whether it's this podcast, my blog, or even my product? I encourage you to ask yourself that question too. It just makes you think a moment like, hey, you know, this is great, making money and building a business that you know fulfills the lifestyle you want. But it's also good to know that you're leaving something behind for the world. So you leave the world better than you entered it, right? Or at least you share some information that can help other people. Even when you're long gone. It's hard to get all deep on you. But I really, really think Peter Drucker's done a fantastic job with leaving his own legacy. A legacy that helps so many entrepreneurs. Thank you so much for listening to the 100 LMBA show. I'll check you in tomorrow's episode. I'll see you then. Take.

At Capella University, learning the right skills could make a difference. That's why our business programs teach you relevant skills you can take from the course room to the workplace. A different future is closer than you think with Capella University. Learn more at Capella Eduardo.