In our fourth year of operating Relevention, we started to see signs of an unhealthy business and my personal passion as an entrepreneur was dissipating at an incredible rate. I remember sitting on my back deck, reminiscing, and I said to my wife in dramatic fashion, “I don’t want to do this anymore. Let’s just shut it down.”
We had great growth—over 45% a year, we had happy clients and great employees. So what was wrong?
We were just going through the motions—extremely busy, stressed, and without a solid foundation to centre our focus around. Sure, we had a vague mission statement, and I personally had a vision for the company, but I didn’t feel that my staff and I were truly aligned. I wrestled this to the ground and over the course of about a year we got things straightened out… it was an epic process and it all had to do with the WHY. I asked myself these three (3) questions:
- Why did I start Relevention in the first place?
- Why am I passionate about marketing?
- Why do our employees show up to work everyday (besides a pay cheque)?
Now what about you? What kinds of questions should you be asking yourself? Well, if we were sitting down over a cup of coffee talking about the organization you lead, my questions to you would be:
- Do you understand why you’re doing what you’re doing?
- How are you accomplishing your vision?
- What is it that you actually do as an organization?