How can “The Philosophy of Google” double your business? (part 1 of 11)

From the desk of Roy Furr, Saturday, June 28th, 2008

Most businesses could learn a lot from Google (mine too).

Starting with the entire vision they have for business — what it means to be in business, how they define success in business (hint, it doesn’t start with profits), and how to make their business better every day.

Google’s put a lot of thought into it all — which may be obvious from their success. But what might not be as obvious is, these are things you can apply in your business.

When you do, it’s very likely you’ll double your business. You’ll be happier with what you do every day. Your customers will love you. Your team will have a renewed spirit. Work will be exciting. And both your bottom line and top line will grow steadily.

So where does it start?

“Never settle for the best”

You’ve heard of optimization, right? It’s part of search engine optimization and conversion rate optimization (among other things…).

A simple definition of optimization is working to make something better.

W. Edwards Deming was one of the first in business to really push for the philosophy of continuous optimization. Google takes it to the n^th degree. Whatever you’re doing well today, you can do it better tomorrow. All you have to do is be continuously coming up with new ideas of what might make your business better — and test them.

Google does it all the time. In fact, they make it easy for you to do it all the time in your online business, too. Tools like Google Website Optimizer, the Ad Testing tool in AdWords, and even Analytics to track performance make this all possible.

Learn to use these to track how customers interact with your website and your business communications. Then experiment with ways to make each communication — each customer touch — a better experience.

Beyond that — into manufacturing, product development, and down the entire list — keep trying every day to make what you do better.

Everything else in Google’s philosophy is founded on “never settle for the best.” You should also implant that deep in your business mind. Always be looking for ways to make what you do better. And with what you’ll learn over the next 10 parts of this 11 part series, you’ll have ten powerful starting points for optimizing your business.

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