People are important to the success of a business, whether it is a small business, where it operates almost like a family environment, or a larger business where cultural fit becomes more important. A quality team doesn’t happen by accident and while improvements can be made over the years, there remains a strong emphasis on getting it right at the start.

Consider for a moment why people choose to buy your particular product or service from your specific business. What do you think the reasons are?

Business today is made transparent thanks and no thanks to online sentiment. Customers are relying on online reviews to make purchasing decisions. The current top 5 review sites are Google, followed by Facebook, Amazon, Yelp and TripAdvisor.

Everyone likes to feel important. People love interactions that leave them happy, valued and understood. What’s more, people remember the interactions which reward them in this way – and they share these experiences with people they know. Delivering exceptional customer service is your key to winning and keeping your clientele.

Among the most valuable assets of any business is a well-developed (and up-to-date) database. While many companies focus on growth through new customer acquisition, in reality it costs roughly ten times more to win business from new customers than it costs to convince previous customers to buy again.

What if we said your expenditure per customer could be reduced by a factor of ten? What if we said this could be done with no negative impact on quality, service or customer experience? The key, as you may have guessed, is in generating repeat business.

We all know the awkward feeling when conversation is disrupted by a brief silence. During your next meeting, wait for a pause in conversation and try to measure how long it lasts. There’s a high probability – especially amongst English speakers – it will be one or two seconds max.

Instead of waiting hours for a transfer or several days for a cheque to clear, Australians will be paid in a matter of seconds, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year.

nem Partners often ask clients “What keeps you awake at night? It is a nifty way to identify the crucial and most pressing risks and issues that a business is dealing with.

We have all been there. The tradesman who doesn’t show up when he said he would, the call to the service centre that goes unanswered, or the waitress who is checking her mobile and not taking your order.

Churchill once famously said “However beautiful the strategy, you should occasionally look at the results”. And there is no better way of doing this than by mastering the art of business execution.

5 Practical steps to drive business success.