As I sat down to write this article, I figured it was a fantastic opportunity to take some time out of my hectic schedule and really reflect on what success in business means to me and what to focus on to achieve that.

Often it can be tempting to measure your success purely by your bank account, but this is not always an accurate reflection, nor will it provide much insight into how and why a business achieved success.

So I’m going to drill down into 3 key ingredients that have been the most outstanding drivers of success for Hunter Valley Homes and provide some perspective on why they work so well.

Unfortunately, I cannot provide a one-size-fits-all strategy that can be applied to any industry or any market. These 3 ingredients have worked well for me, and I hope you can apply them to your own situation by combining your unique perspective and knowledge to suit your situation.

The 3 ingredients I have found to be the most useful for building a successful business are: strong values, people management and dealing with change.

Developing strong values (and upholding them)

Values set a framework for your team to consistently adhere to. It’s important to be able to clearly articulate the values you stand for and be prepared to demonstrate how you live and breathe them day in, day out.

From both an internal and external perspective, there is nothing more deflating than an organisation not practising what they preach.

The most important things to remember when developing strong values are:

• Keep them visible and refer to them regularly.
• Don’t be superficial, be explicit.
• Ask your team for input.
• If they don’t help guide the tough decisions, they might be worth rethinking.

People management

People are the lifeblood of any organisation. As humans, we are unique, complex. We react to our environment based on perception. From a management perspective, this means effective people management is essential.

This isn’t as simple as delegating tasks and reviewing a week later. People management is about developing relationships with your team, understanding the ambitions and goals of individuals, as well as the vision under the collective banner of your team.

You can identify an effective manager by looking out for some of these traits:

• Motivating people from within.
• Allowing people to make mistakes and acknowledging that it’s ok.
• Understanding that an individual and their work are two separate entities.
• Encourage goal setting and genuinely recognising achievements.

Dealing with change

For businesses of all sizes, how change is managed is crucial to overall success.

One of the biggest challenges I’ve dealt with in business is identifying when it’s time for a change. Financial, operational and administrative considerations will all affect the decision making process, meaning changing path is a big commitment.

The key to dealing with change is to gather as much information as possible.  When the time comes to make the decision, you can be confident you are making an educated one.

This can come in various forms including:

• Quantitative data from sales and marketing.
• Input from team members about what they observe during a typical day.
• External sources such as industry publications.

I hope that you can use these 3 ingredients to have a positive impact on your business and serves as a guide for your future efforts.