Increasing shareholder value is the most important driver for organisations in the modern business world. Shareholder value is built through growing profit and building confidence in the organisation, which moves share prices upwards. Shareholders like this!

And the employees of an organisation have a crucial part to play in both elements of this.

They contribute to sales by selling more, both to new and old customers. They build the customer base by word of mouth from existing customers. New customers are pre-filtered because your existing customers tell them exactly what you do, so more customer interactions are converted, with less wasted time. This means that your costs are kept down.

Your people buy better because they build great relationships with suppliers - so they get the best deals. Both sides win, so the relationship blossoms.

Great people in your organisation work hard to keep costs low, because they are enabled to do so. They have freedom to be creative. They get very focused on the 'Does it create value?' question and work together, with the best results as their only goal.

With all this positive activity, the organisation looks and feels strong to it's customers, suppliers and shareholders. With this and a great profit performance, confidence grows.

Shareholders enjoy great improvements in the value of the growth in the price of the shares they hold and the dividends they receive.

Martin Haworth is a Business and Management Coach. He works worldwide, mainly by phone, with small business owners, managers and corporate leaders. He has hundreds of hints, tips and ideas at his website, http://www.coaching-businesses-to-success.com (Note to editors. This article may be edited for use in your publication or newsletter as long as a live link to the website is included)

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