I like using this Column to chronic my journey as an entrepreneur & Training Consultant. The past couple of months have been extremely hectic for my little team and me. Lots of new activity in terms of alliances, interns and associates coming on board. Hence I felt the need to define ‘What we stand for?’ through a simple document that all our stakeholders could go through to understand us better. While putting this together, I realized that this is what most small companies should strive to do. For that matter a company of any size should look to do.

This is what we stand for. Put in simple words.

1. We are/have Fun
   1. We are doing this only because we love it.
   2. Sure it pays the bills. But we love the idea of Business and People development so much, that we can’t help but do this.

1. We are Real & Genuine.
   1. We will express our exact feelings about a program to a client – of course we need to communicate it well to him without us offending him. We will be tactful while communicating.
   2. We won’t do work for the sake of doing it. If we know something does not make sense, we will tell our client that and walk away if need be.
   3. We will only work in areas of our specialization. We wont fake know how.

1. We are Energetic & Passionate.
   1. In everything that we do, people can tell how energetic we are.
   2. We are energetic while doing the small things as well as the big ones. If we are on the phone, people can tell that there is an extremely energetic person on the other end.
   3. We don’t work if we are not feeling energetic or passionate on a certain day. [We call in Sick on those days].

1. We are an entrepreneurial.
   1. We want each person associated with the company to be Innovative. Needs to always come up with new and different ways of doing stuff.
   2. We are Business people to begin with. We need to love Business. We need to know what is happening in the world of business. Good Business must inspire us.
   3. We are business people, yet we’re human. We don’t need to ‘act’ like a business person to be a business person.
   4. We show a sense of urgency in the things we do. We do not wait. We do.
   5. We love making Money. For ourselves. For our company. For our clients. For anyone associated with us.

1. We Listen.
   1. We are aiming at becoming the best listeners on earth. It’s not easy. It’s very ambitious.
   2. We listen so intently, that the person falls in love with us.
   3. We fake our listening sometimes. Yet we never let the person feel like we’re faking it cause we take the effort to make him feel special.

1. We stick by our commitments.
   1. If we say we will call, we call. We get to our meetings 15 minutes earlier. We get to our workshops at least half an hour in advance.
   2. The smallest commitments count. Irrespective of whom we are dealing with. It could be the Flunky/Trainee OR the CEO; we will stick to our commitments.

1. We write everything down. We are fanatic about our diaries.
   1. We may forget to wear underwear, but we won’t forget our diaries.
   2. We carry them around like an inseparable part of our body.

1. We are extremely persistent.
   1. This company was built one call at a time. One workshop at a time.
   2. We follow up with people till they and we grow old.
   3. If we want to work with somebody badly, we end up doing it. It could take 3 months, 3 years or 13 years.

1. We have an insane devotion to customer service.
   1. We will concentrate on ‘giving knowledge gifts’. Create free resources for our participants and clients.
   2. If our client needs something, we will go out of our way to give it to him even if we don’t make any money of it. As long as we help satisfy their need.
   3. We will add value to customers in novel ways that stretch and surprise the customer and us.
   4. We aim to turn every customer interaction into a memorable experience.

1. We show tremendous respect to one and all.
   1. To our customers. To our Channel partners. To our employees. To the Lift man in our client’s obscure building. To the grumpy receptionist at our channel partner’s office.
   2. We say our Thank you’s. We say our Sorry’s. We try as much as possible to keep our ego at a distance.
   3. We are nice. But people can’t take us for a ride.
   4. If they try doing so, we never lose our cool. We just tactfully move away.
   5. We smile… mostly.

1. We will use our Common Sense a lot.  We keep stuff Simple.
   1. We use simple language. Loathe Jargon.
   2. In every piece of work that we do, we ask ourselves ‘Has this been simplified enough?’

1. We always prepare well.
   1. We never go into a meeting not prepared. We spend a lot of time preparing for just about everything.
   2. We always Google the person and company before meeting them. We use Google more than anything else.

1. We will concentrate on Excellence.
   1. We ask ourselves whether we’re striving for excellence at all times.
   2. We will sweat the small stuff a lot.
   3. Excellence means printing an invoice all over again and not scribbling over it and correcting it shabbily with a pen.

This is no advertisement for Work Better. I can’t claim that we follow all that we stand for all the time. But we’re definitely striving towards the same. So define what your company or job is about in your own simple words. Put it down on paper. And then spend the other 364 days of the year doing the more difficult part. Striving. Striving to respect what you wrote.