What Do You Have in Common with Apple, Southwest and Nordstroms?

There is one vital characteristic that delivers dramatically higher results …in anything. That characteristic is personal accountability. We must always be responsible and accountable to ourselves regardless of our background, position or occupation.

In fact, personal accountability is even more important as small business owners. Just because we do not have a boss to answer to, does not mean that we should sacrifice our efforts and accountability for excuses and complacency. It is called conscious ownership. What does conscious ownership mean?

Regardless of the external market conditions, we must always assume personal responsibility for our internal business condition. Our ability to consistently conduct our business with integrity and dignity, to adapt to current times and trends without compromising our purpose and values; and to be fiscally prudent at all times, all reflect in our ability and capacity to take conscious ownership of our business. Sure, this is not to say that “things happen” beyond our control; however, how much of our current condition can be attributed to our lack of conscious ownership? We have to assume conscious ownership for our own actions.

Our ability to be laser-focused on and understand our priorities, needs, purposes, goals, problems, and issues can occur only when we take conscious ownership of our business.

• Be clear about our purpose and why we are in business
• Establish our business values and know what we will not compromise on
• Be consistent with our message
• Be consistent with the quality of your products and services

In addition, we need to hold everyone that is involved in our business accountable (staff, vendors, partners, etc.). Accept nothing less than what we expect from ourselves from anyone. We cannot afford to affiliate our name and/or our business with substandard products or service. If we elevate our expectations across the board, we will elevate our results. We ultimately enhance our business bottomline with conscious ownership.

Take a close look at corporations like Apple, Southwest and Nordstroms. Their purpose, values, message and products/services have stood the test of time. Trends have come and gone and come and gone again. And yet, corporations like these continue to maintain a loyal client base. It’s no secret. They have accomplished all of this with conscious ownership. These businesses were founded on conscious ownership. They have grown and sustained themselves with conscious ownership. Their success is rooted in conscious ownership.

They always say hindsight is 20/20. If so, let’s flash back over last year’s progress. What could we have done better or differently? If we don’t change today, where will our businesses be tomorrow?

There is no time like the present to review our purpose, values, message and priorities. We need to take an honest assessment of what we have compromised these things for in the pursuit of success. Has it worked?

We need to get back to the basics and fundamentals of operating our business. Strategic planning, no doubt, makes an immediate impact. It consistently delivers dramatically higher results by establishing personal accountability; and as small business owners…establishing conscious ownership.