Many business owners tell their employees to “do their best,” which creates a hustle and grinding culture inside, but it is through differentiating themselves with the message of “You don’t have to stretch yourself to your limit” or “Go with your own pace” that they can bring value.
While it is important to encourage employees to do their best, doing so does not necessarily lead to business growth.
In order to promote the message of “Please balance your work and your personal life” and “don’t push yourself too hard,” it is necessary to strengthen the foundation of the product and create a solid system that does not rely on the abilities of employees.
During the business planning phase, picture what kind of words you want to use to live and work together with your staff. Develop a business blueprint while keeping those words in mind.
Rather than telling hardworking staff members to even “work harder,” the product is designed so strong that they can enjoy working as massage therapists at their own pace.
I know from my experience that this type of management, which does not depend on the abilities of employees, is “not tiring, unpleasant, feeling aligned.”
When the product is strong, it is difficult for cracks and holes to appear even when expanding, and resources for management are not required too much.
By creating a polished product with strong marketing power, businesses can quickly expand while maintaining their speed.
They can spread their market share at an astonishing rate.
The next key element is the ability of management.
Management is the overall control and leadership of the business. By understanding the balance of the entire business, management can use both the product and marketing power to achieve the objectives and the vision we want to manifest.
Despite understanding the importance of both the product and marketing power, there are still many business owners who only invest in “technology.” This is often because they are “not good at” marketing and management and turn a blind eye to it even though they knew they need to confront it.
The reality is that many CEOs, as leaders, make an excuse by saying “That category (marketing) is not important.”
Please remember that every business’s product × marketing power × management ability determines your success in achieving the founder’s vision. In about just two years after announcing its initiation of Kesae Total Balance, It has increased its number of stores by 9 despite the lockdown period when we needed to stop operation.
This is the result of a business owner who understands the intimacy and delicate nature of polished products and marketing, and I have decided at what speed I want to proceed as a leader while concentrating our time and money.
Now we understand what action moves the needle, so we can adjust how many actions we want to do based on how fast we want to grow as well as how many potential therapists we can reach out to for training.
As a market analyst, I think this is an example of one of the beauty industry’s cases where the three key elements of a product, marketing power, and management ability have been successfully implemented by identifying what is necessary and working on it.
It is the relationship you want to create with the business you are building, the people you are working together with, the time you want to spend, and the space you want to be in, that guide you to know what is required to make execution successful.
From my experience, it is very difficult to start with if you don’t have experience designing a business based on the relationship you want to create as a foundation because you haven’t developed that muscle to flex required to move the needle, so you need to practice it not by gathering data and information from outside, but rather by looking at your inner space to identify what you want to build and address what is required to do what you want to achieve and start executing based on the plan you lay out.
I had a lot of wins and I had a lot of losses. Those experiences help me to develop the ability to build a business that is sustainable. Of course, it requires some adjustment and fine-tuning as the rules of the market will evolve, but the foundational structure remains steady no matter what happens outside of the business.
The massage business I am in now is still growing and has the capacity to grow and the market has a space for us to cut in, so I still have my focus on this business, but I can cut the tie with this business anytime without breaking and collapsing it because the foundation is so strong that the business itself will survive even if I am replaced by someone else.
