Vison and innovation bring happy client base

• Reprints

Leanne Hoagland-Smith. | Provided photo~Sun-Times Media

Many small business owners complain about the various problems or “business diseases” in their organizations. These range from misbehaving employees to demanding customers to excessive government compliance. All these “business diseases” lead to limited or no business success.

In researching the word “disease,” I looked up the meaning of the prefix “dis” and relearned it meant “apart.” Later in contemporary English “dis” was defined as “to do the opposite of or deprive of.” Now the original Latin meaning of the word “ease” was neighborhood and this later translated to mean comfort from the Old French language. Business comes from the word busy meaning engaged in action.

So what would happen if we redefined “business dis-ease” as those actions that keep us apart (off purpose) from our neighborhood or community and at the same time may make our community (customers) uncomfortable or less joyful in that process?

Peter Drucker the noted business management guru said the purpose of business was “to create and keep a customer.” He also said “A business had two basic functions marketing and innovation.”

With the recent death of Steve Jobs, I realized he was a forward-thinking leader who had inoculated himself and Apple from “business dis-ease.” Jobs understood the purpose of business even better than Drucker. Jobs saw Apple’s purpose was to serve or be part of the community that being technology-educated customers who wanted comfort or ease and joy from their technology tools.

Jobs united his vision of how he saw technology with innovation and then how this created joy for Apple’s customers. This was and continues to be a winning formula for business success.

Vision + Innovation = Joyful Customers

From a functional level, Apple embraced both marketing and innovation probably better than any other modern day organization. Apple created very loyal communities of customers who would joyfully pay more for their products (technology) because Apple understood both the purpose and function of business. In fact, when Apple failed (due to outside speculation) to move even closer to its community, the value of its stock dropped as evidenced by the failure to launch an iPhone 5.

Small business owners to even crazy busy salespeople can take a lesson from Apple and Steve Jobs. When you serve the community, you will increase sales, have joyful, loyal customers and avoid the “business dis-ease” that many others may be experiencing.

P.S. Shout Out – To all forward-thinking small business owners who continually strive to serve their communities with innovative solutions that create joyful customers or clients.