Small Business Culture and Strategy: Build A Business That Matters

Highlights on Warren Coughlin

Warren Coughlin has been coaching entrepreneurs to success, freedom, and aligning their businesses with their values since 2002. His clients have seen 8 figure exits, high-performance cultures, rapid growth, enhanced focus, less time at work, and greater impacts. Coughlin has an interesting background which includes being a recovering lawyer, a serial entrepreneur, a college professor, and an actor, theatre director.

Born with a congenital defect, Coughlin was given zero chance of survival. He beat the odds and became the second person in history to live through the congenital defect. 

"I believe entrepreneurship is one of the most powerful forces for positive social change and that people do it well." 

The Importance of a 'Business That Matters'

'A business that matters' is a term that Coughlin developed years ago. "Entrepreneurship is a positive force for social good."

I believe a business that matters is one that:

• Gives to the entrepreneur a balanced lifestyle.
• A Sufficient and steady income.

"The risks and sacrifices that business owners make must reflect in the success of their business. There has to be a positive impact that goes beyond profitability."

The Most Common Errors that Entrepreneurs Make

Business is a discipline- this is one fact that people often overlook. The biggest mistake people make is relying on a great idea to drive their business forward. Coughlin says that this is a quick road to failure if one has not cultivated the skills and disciplines that are inherent in running a business. 

Knowing your trade or just the technical aspects of a business and knowing how to run a business are very different things. Coughlin suggests entrepreneurs develop their skill sets in entrepreneurship to stay ahead of the game. 

Some questions entrepreneurs should ask themselves are:

• Do you have a good product-market fit? 
• Do you know how to identify your customer base?
• Do you know how to identify what their needs are and how to market to them?
• How do you sell your products or services?
• How do you build a successful team?
• How to build a positive business culture? 
• Do you know your numbers?

All these skills are critical to becoming a successful entrepreneur as you grow.

Strategy and Entrepreneurship

The main question to developing strategy is how do we deploy our scarce resources of time, team and money to achieve a particular objective or objectives? 

Coughlin advises small business owners to narrow in on one problem at a time, instead of trying to solve all problems at once. If you try to solve all your problems at once, you will get nothing done.

The Keys to Effective Strategy and Factors That Lead to Failure

• Choose a focus

 "A lot of people mix up strategy with goal setting."

• Develop a plan

A goal is not a plan. A plan involves how you get there. You have to develop tactics that you are going to use to reach your goal.

• Implement and apply your plan

Have accountability when implementing your plan. Be specific about who is accountable for each step of the process.

• Failures when executing your strategy.

Failures are part of business. Where businesses often fail is when defining accountability. Make sure your team understands who is responsible for which process.

"What tends to happen to most entrepreneurs is that they develop an amazing strategy but life gets in the way-something comes up. This is where discipline in business comes in."

Every entrepreneur who wishes to be successful needs to implement their strategies even when there are things that happen that you could not foresee.

Does culture eat strategy?

"There is an old saying that culture eats strategy. I have revised this. To my mind, culture and strategy are a perfect marriage. Strategy defines what needs to get done. Culture ensures that it gets done."

Coughlin encourages a high-performance culture—one that is driven to achieve particular outcomes. The players need to be highly motivated to achieve those outcomes.

What is Culture?

Culture is the systems, the incentives, and the signals that reveal the values of the organization. An example of culture in an organization is a company that says, " We are an organization that is focused on safety." 

How do Entrepreneurs Reconcile the Tension between Culture and Systems?

Problems with systems:

• Over systemizing

If you over- systemize your business, you are going to drive away your creative thinkers. 

• When something unexpected happens in the system— Your system needs to have the flexibility and agility to respond to it. 

Coughlin asks that businesses remember the human aspect of their overall values. Following a strategy without considering the values you adhere to will result in failure. 

What Happens When People Don't Buy Into the Culture?

The first question an entrepreneur should ask themselves is, why? The answer to this will allow you to develop the steps that will lead them to buy into your culture.

Alignment in Business Strategy And Culture

"Culture is not just saying aren't we a great group of people, it's saying we want to produce certain behaviours that are aligned with these values." He says that owners should follow through with their culture at all times to avoid conflict.

Closing Remarks from Warren Coughlin

Values in an organization when I talk about 'business that matters', values are important not only because they determine behaviours, but they also predetermine the outcome of ethical decisions. Be truly committed to your values, even if it means that you have to say no to things. This isn't always easy, but worth it in the end. The true test is usually when something goes wrong in the company. This is where you have some interesting conversations. 

When any of us sees us not living the culture, we all are responsible for it being preserved. Improving culture is having conversations.

Closing Statement

Interview from the Straight Talk about Small Business Success podcast with Salim Omar. 

Straight Talk CPAs is a CPA firm that provides entrepreneurial businesses with Virtual CFO services, accounting, and Tax Planning and Tax Preparation Services. Contact us today.