You want to grow, help more people, make more impact, and certainly, make more money. In short, expand in your market. 

Executives I work with often want to start it all with a plan. The plan they create seeks to increase revenues, decrease expenses and become more efficient. Just like back in the old business school days.

STOP! 

It is the wrong place to start!

To truly understand where market expansion starts, let's backtrack up the mountain and discover where it all starts. Ready? Let's go.

To achieve these two objectives, you must find new clients, keep the ones you have for longer, and make sure they buy more, thus increasing the overall number of clients and the average revenue per client. 

What attracts and keeps clients longer? Your market reputation!

Three factors will attract and keep clients longer: 

• The level of satisfaction that your clients experience after consuming your service or product. Are they happy that they bought it?

• The trust that you create towards your brand. Do they feel that they can count on you to be there for long (longevity and stability), be there for them (customer service), and make sure the product works so that their satisfaction stays up (technical support).

• What people think about the company. Are you considered a force for good in the community? Are you the "best place to work"? in fact, are members of the community proud to use your product and proud that you are a part of their lives?

In short, the reputation that you develop over time determines how strongly you will attract clients. 

How do you create a market reputation?

Your market reputation is the result of your Customer Experience. Sometimes abbreviated "CX", the experience that your clients have of dealing with your company and your products, as well as the results that they get from using it, will determine what they say about you. And what people say about us becomes our reputation. 

Can you control how people experience your company? 

Yes, you can! and all you need to do are two things: 

1. Behave in the way that you want them to experience you.

2. Do it consistently, over and over again, until they 'get it'.

Here is the funny thing: when your behavior is consistent, responding in the same manner to similar situations, these behavioral habits become your culture.

Ah! So that is what corporate culture is?

Yes. Culture, to put it simply, is: "How we do things around here". The term "around here" could mean your country, your company, or even in your family. Corporate culture is the centerpiece of your brand. It is also a major influence on your customer experience. After all, the way you consistently behave is how they consistently experience you, right?

How to create a corporate culture

Since your culture is a set of consistent behaviors, influencing it requires deciding which individual behaviors are desired and putting means in place to encourage your employees (and you) to follow. 

That is where leadership comes in, in the form of personal example. You do it first and then ask your people to follow your lead. 

To draw their attention to your conduct and recognize that these are intentional behaviors, ones that you committed to displaying, consider having a Code of Excellence statement. 

Your Code of Excellence

You probably saw them before. You saw a piece of paper or a page on the internal website or maybe even a plaque in the corporate office. It prominently and boldly declares how everyone in the company ought to conduct their day-to-day business. 

Your Code of Excellence may state things like: "We do the best we possibly can for our clients in every interaction." or "We respect diversity in each other, our customers and suppliers, and all others with whom we interact.”

Each statement spells out how you want to show up and what you want people to think about you and your company. In short, these are...

Your values

Your Code of Excellence is a list of your values, codified as behaviors which you would use to express them.  

Therefore, without the list of these values, you cannot create a code for business conduct. Your values must precede. 

Congratulations, you found the source of your success. 

Your values are the source of your behavioral habits and decision criteria. When consulted regularly, they create a consistent manner of conducting business, which influences how the market perceives your company and, ultimately, how fast your company will grow in that market.  

Your values are also a solid foundation that will be solid and reliable for as long as you want until you decide to change it. 

If you express your values throughout the organization, the downstream effect of market growth is almost guaranteed. 

Following the stream down to market expansion

Let's look at the simple domino effect that creates market growth for you: 

• You determine your values.

• You use your values to create a Code of Excellence and secure buy-in from everyone on the team.

• The code spells out behaviors. Once these behaviors become consistent, you created a culture.

• Your prospects and clients notice your culture. To them, it is their experience of your company. It creates a positive reputation in the market.

• Your reputation and superb customer experience make the people in your market trust you and be satisfied with your products and service.

• The satisfaction, trust, and reputation create attraction and loyalty, attraction pulls in new clients, and their loyalty keeps them longer and gets them to buy more and buy again.

• Having more clients and raising the average value of your client accelerates your market expansion!

Voila!

I have seen this flow in many sectors and companies of all sizes, from Fortune companies down to the solopreneur. Yes, it does take a little timeout to create the initial parts: values, code of excellence, and so on. Yes, it may take a while to get everyone to buy in if you have a thousand employees. But it is well worth the effort. 

Where the values show, the love flows, and the market share grows!

You better believe it!