• It matters to your clients and potential clients: What do your customers need and want?
• It matters to your employees: What talents do your employees need? How can you help them succeed?
• It matters to your investors and stakeholders: Where's the competition going and how profitable is this company?

When your company's direction matches your clients' needs and wants, you have a higher probability of providing their ideal product or service. That makes you a niche strategic partner with your customers. You are specifically addressing their needs. Your product must differentiate you from the competition or you will simply be competing on price.

Knowing where you're going tells you what talent you'll need in order to deliver the best possible product or service. Your customers love to deal with high-quality people who are knowledgeable, enthusiastic and supportive of their needs.

So, how do you attract and retain top-quality people? By providing challenging and rewarding positions that allow the employee to make a difference. When a company's vision and internal communication are clear, its corporate values become more transparent. It is easier for prospective employees to align their personal values with those of the company before joining the organization.

Once you attract the right employees, your next step is to motivate and inspire them.

Compensation, security and success are all motivating factors for your employees. Your ability to retain employees based on compensation is a function of the company's profitability. The more well defined your company's direction, the more likely you'll effectively implement well-defined processes - leading to greater profitability. Only the most profitable companies can use compensation to keep their people.

To inspire your people you need to support them so they feel secure and successful. When your employees know where the company is going and what you clearly expect of them, it gives them a greater sense of confidence and well-being.

By articulating your organization's vision and your personal passion for achieving this vision, you will inspire your employees. Employees who are inspired by a vision will pull together with enthusiasm to achieve a common target, providing them with a huge sense of personal success and it gives them something to celebrate.

People who are engaged draw on their creativity and collaboratively design and execute highly effective processes. They make customers feel valued and important. Customers who are treated well will buy over and over again, thus contributing to the success and profitability of your company.

As I noted in my last newsletter, "If you can't see it, you can't hit it." That is true not only in golf and for personal visions, but also for corporate visions. To create a highly profitable organization, your well- articulated personal vision must be followed by a well- articulated corporate vision.

This series of articles will show you how to implement a well-defined vision. The first step will be establishing meaningful goals for your organization and processes that will support your people in achieving those goals. Next, you'll learn how teams and individuals can be effective in taking action. Stay tuned to find out how to translate vision into action.

Supporting you to See Success,