Jessie Robertson
My Goal this year is to have Happiness as a Business Model – That’s it , not much to ask, but talk to those around you, how many of your friends, co-workers or even family are really happy
When I met with my business coach last week, we focused on personal and professional purpose.
This lead to us focusing on happiness as a business model, and how we can introduce this in the business.
By placing happiness first, you create an incredibly strong culture where not only are employees more alert, open to new ideas and able to reach their full potential, they will-fully go above and beyond to achieve customer happiness.
Happy customers will remain loyal and become brand evangelists, helping your business become scalable and grow in an environment that everyone genuinely enjoys and thrives in. As a business owner, everyone work happy together helps you achieve common and meaningful goals.
Happy customers will remain loyal and become brand evangelists, helping your business become scalable and grow in an environment that everyone genuinely enjoys and thrives in. As a business owner, everyone work happy together helps you achieve common and meaningful goals.
Now the hard part, where do we start?
My coach asked me two questions about Your Virtual Assistant as a business. They weren’t easy to answer, but they helped me draft our purpose:
Our Purpose:
Is to spread happiness with those we work with; internally within our team and externally with our clients and partners
EXTERNALLY we’ll achieve this by responding to our client problems with solutions while filling in the gaps in their business using our resource of smart experienced thinkers and problem solvers with multi-faceted strengths.
INTERNALLY we’ll continue to improve our company culture and align what we do with our personal purpose. Each member of our team has the right to feel fulfilled, appreciated, and supported by both a management level and by our co-workers.
What Makes Me Happy?
I started to take a look at what makes me happy, a happy business owner is an essential component of the happiness business model. I’ve been practising mindfulness in stop racing through life (and work). I need make the time to go for that walk in the morning, every morning and also ensure I do not work all weekend, every weekend!
Don’t Be Afraid to Ask Questions?
Does every email, message, Skype or face to face convey happiness. If we can find a way to find a way to put a positive spin on a no, so we can keep the frustrations out of the communication.
And if we have frustrations are we looking at the source and finding ways to eliminate them?
Instead of completely focusing on the business and professional process. We are looking at to ensure our purposes aline with our team and clients and what they are doing on a day tot day basis.
Looking at our onboarding process for both clients and contractors, is our culture and purpose reflected in each step? Not yet (it will be though)
What Next?
The next step in my pursuit of happiness was to identify what we are already doing to spread smiles. Only then could I keep this purpose front of mind (day in, day out) and identify weaknesses in both our culture and processes.
- A happiness audit for both our clients and our team. Does what we do align with the personal goals and purpose of those we work with? Questions need to be asked!
- Does every email, message, skype, or face-to-face interaction convey happiness? Even a “no” can be phrased positively. So do we keep frustrations out of our communications? If we do have frustrations, are we looking at the source and finding ways to eliminate them?
- Send more thank you gifts, there is nothing like rewarding loyal customers to spread a smile.
- We need to shift out focus from business and professional process to a purpose that alines with our team and clients, and make sure it fits in on what they are doing on a day to day basis.
- Look at our onboarding process for both clients and contractors, is our culture and purpose reflected in each step? (Not yet, it will be though).
This article, “How happiness can help you in business” is well worth the read if you have a minute. The spotlight is on Moo.com and Zappos and how both companies core values are promoting happiness within their (lucky) staff and going above and beyond to delight their customers.
For me, the biggest challenge is incorporating happiness into our day to day life. We get busy, we are met with challenges, and we have bad days. So creating a culture that incorporates happiness into everything we do isn’t easy – but it’s worth it. I want everyone who engages with our people to be infected with our happiness and I’m 100% determined to achieve this.
So, dear reader, what drives you?
