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Guest post by: Lisa Murray Become an Author

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Your impact on potential clients, customers and team members starts with their first impressions. Those first few moments of communication are driven by your culture and your brand... how does your business meet expectations?

I like to think of culture as the internal representation of your brand. It's the intangible stuff that people actually feel when they deal with your business. Many business owners spend little time thinking about culture... they think they are too busy making money!

Here's a little food for thought... Zappos is a US based retailer that has built a business from zero to $1billion! And they think culture is really really really important. They even have a culture book - it's a huge 450 insightful, fascinating pages long! If you are wondering whether you need to think more deeply about culture in your business here's a few questions you might want to ask...

1. Did I start my business because I hated who/where I worked for before? (If so, then culture is important to you... what sort of culture are you building? What sort of leader are you choosing to be?)
2. Do I wake up in the morning and get really excited about going to work? (If not then your business culture isn't working for you!)
3. Do I have a long line of people wanting to work for me, even though I haven't got any job vacancies right now? (If not then no-one knows how amazing your culture or your company is... you might need to build your brand!)
4. Do I look at other companies and wish I could work for them instead? (If so you need to develop your culture and your brand to be more appealing to yourself right now!)
5. Do I keep wondering how to have my team take more ownership in their roles? (If so, you may want to consider the role the right culture could play in developing productivity!)

Culture permeates every area of your business. How your customers are treated. How your team treat each other. How productive your business is. How much happiness there is in your daily working environment. How much money you make.... You can't afford to forget about culture!

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