Business Excellence – Why you need it and how to get it

You’re a health pro running a business.

There’s a lot of competition in this industry. A lot! In fact, the wellness industry is larger than the pharmaceutical drug industry. It can feel like the market is saturated with people who are less qualified, less experienced, and are in it for the money first . . . health second.

But not you.

You want to stand out because of your education, expertise, and unique brand. Because you care deeply about your clients’ health—and everyone else who sees your message.

Right now is a great opportunity to rise above the noise. To stand out in a way very few in the industry are.

How?

As an entrepreneur you have a lot of choices. For example, you could stand out by marketing your practice as being the cheapest (by competing on price), the closest (by competing on location), or the fastest (by competing on speed).

But another way you can market your business and stand out is by being the highest quality. By embracing and delivering excellence.

In this article, I’m going to share with you why business excellence is important now more than ever, plus four ways to embrace it for your health practice.

Why embrace business excellence?

You have a vision and a mission to truly improve the health of thousands—no, millions—of people. You know how to help them reach their wellness goals. That’s exactly what you went to school for and continue to learn about.

(I know–I’m you!) 🙂

Plus, you want to be successful and enjoy your life. You want more time (and money) for learning, self-care, and maybe even travel. You want the feeling that you have enough (whatever “enough” means to you).

You also know that your message is not reverberating around the world as you want it to. You see so many other people in the industry who seem to be sharing generic health messages and use the same old methods to market them.

They’re . . . lackluster.

By elevating your business to excellent you can do all of these things:

• Reach more people
• Help more people
• Become the go-to for your niche (and NOT because you’re the cheapest, closest, or fastest, but because you’re one of the best)
• Be memorable
• Make a bigger difference

I think it’s easy to stand out in this way right now because so few people are truly embracing business excellence.

The quality of businesses today

Would you agree that lately you’ve seen many health practices become more short-sighted, profit-centred, and lack the attention to detail to really drive creativity, innovation, and excellence?

Here’s what I mean:

• Do you see more low-quality, mass-market online products out there than ever before?
• Do you see so many people who tend to blend into one another with the same-old-same-old?
• Do you feel like the quality is secondary to them because quantity is king?

If there is no uniqueness, no edge, nothing setting them apart, then how am I going to choose one over the other?

All this noise gives potential new clients 100 percent justification to choose a health practice based on their price, location, or speed.

For example, if I see practically all the same stuff everywhere, I’m going to shop based on price. Because if there doesn’t seem to be any difference between the products and services—if they look like they’re “a dime a dozen”—I’m going to assume they’re essentially the same and therefore want the least expensive option.

In your health practice, do you want to compete on price? Do you want to become a commodity, like copper or coffee?

Or, are you delivering unique quality and world-class value?

And charging prices that reflect that?

The quality of online marketing

In the last few years, I’ve noticed a trend in online content—not just relating to health content, but everywhere.

Because of the growing number of websites, online businesses, and blogs/vlogs/podcasts, it seems that consistent content (focusing on quantity) isn’t cutting it anymore. If I see the same content or offers everywhere, how will I remember one over the other? Generic content is not getting anyone noticed.

Don’t unconsciously follow the crowd. Mediocrity is everywhere. Rise above the noise of consistently average content.

Consistently average content worked to market online businesses for a while.

Until 2019.

(Seriously, it’s been years!)

Now, I highly recommend focusing away from generic high-quantity content, and instead investing in quality content—even if that means publishing something new just once every two, three, or four weeks. Now in 2022, it truly is the time to step up and stand out.

BUT, make sure that blog post or podcast episode or program or service is good, if not excellent! (More on that below.)

If the content you’ve been putting out online doesn’t reflect the excellence of your business, now is the time to raise your bar!

What one thing can you do to own your domain/niche?

Very few people will be remembered—be one of them!

I disagree with: “Done is better than perfect”

Have you heard the saying:

“Done is better than perfect.”

I totally disagree with it.

Here’s why.

I don’t think done or perfect should even be options when it comes to our businesses, brands, and reputations.

It’s a false dichotomy and totally unreasonable. In my opinion, neither done nor perfect should even be part of the online game when it comes to a health practice.

Why not “perfect?” – If striving for perfection is holding you back, I get it. You probably shouldn’t be spending weeks on one blog post or dedicating days to researching one question from your client. Perfection isn’t necessary.

Why not “done?” – Why would anyone settle for the bare minimum effort of just done?

To me, done means putting something out into the world without much thought or care. It’s mediocre and one surefire way to become lost in the online noise of your niche.

Plus, how is done going to help your clients reach their health goals?

Unless you have a teeny tiny market with a massive appetite and zero competition, why would you smear your brand with work that’s merely done?

Let’s use the more reasonable options: good and excellent.

Here’s what I propose instead:

Done Excellent is better than perfect good.

Why “good?” – Good, is the minimum you should reach for, in my opinion (not done . . . good). By at least caring enough to elevate something from done to good you can start to be credible, professional, and helpful. You can start to stand out from the crowd and give yourself the confidence to promote and share your work with pride. You can start to help your clients in ways that have a good chance of working.

Good is a baseline minimum standard to strive for.

Why “excellent?” – Excellent, on the other hand, is my preferred benchmark. What you put out there reflects your expertise and the level of care your clients can expect from you. It reflects your business excellence. Have you heard:

“The way we do one thing is the way we do everything.”

Excellent is a great sweet spot to be in. You don’t need to be frozen with perfection, nor slapping the bare minimum together with done.

Make everything you put into the world good, if not excellent!

How to embrace business excellence

Business excellence is doable because your business is in your hands. If you want to rise above the level of lackluster and washed-up old messages and if you want to truly help your clients, here are four simple (not necessarily “easy,” but they are simple) steps to get there:

1 – Stop comparing

We’ve all heard the famous quote:

“Comparison is the thief of joy.”

So, let this day be the last that you feel bad about where you are, how long it took you to get here, or what you think is fair.

Stop paying attention to the people who make you feel bad:

• Unsubscribe from their emails
• Unfollow them on social media
• Spend time every day forward building the excellence you want to give the world

And, from personal experience (and logic), it’s super-easy to stop comparing yourself to others if you don’t keep tabs on what they’re doing anymore! 😉

Plus, if you continue to keep up with the boringness of what’s going on, you’re going to continue to be uninspired by the lack of innovation and originality, the diluted messages, and the “noise” coming from the industry.

Stop following. Stop comparing. Build your unique level of business excellence.

2 – Create and deliver world-class value

I truly believe there is no shame in starting at the level of done if you absolutely need to, but quickly improve it until it’s at least good. Whether it’s a piece of content (i.e., blog post, etc.) or your product or program, make sure it’s at least good.

Even if you’re in the market providing super entry-level low-cost stuff, is it good stuff? Excellent stuff? Is it helpful and valuable? Is it worth many times more than you’re charging for it?

Let’s all be next-level generous to our customers and clients by providing them with our excellence.

Help them get the absolute most value out of your work with them. Don’t take them for granted or treat them as your bank machine.

Take the opportunity to go the extra mile and deliver amazing value.

Ask yourself what do your clients need to become more successful and reach their goals from your work? Then, give them that.

Then, take that good thing and refine it until it is excellent:

• Research health information from credible and reliable resources
• Customize everything you say to stay on brand and on-message (your unique brand and message)
• Update, edit, and repurpose your content so it stays up-to-date and relevant for your audience
• Make your free and paid materials more valuable than anything else in its class
• Add bonuses, free gifts, or even unexpected surprises

Uplevel your expertise, brand, and materials and become your niche’s example of business excellence.

3 – Proudly promote your world-class value

THIS is why excellence is so very important: it gives you the confidence (or mindset) to proudly promote your work to reach your ideal clients.

If you’re not happy with the content, product, or program you put out, how strongly are you going to promote it? Are you going to—subconsciously or consciously—have an unconfident inferiority complex about it? Will you share it on one social media channel once and then be done with it?

With excellence under your belt, you can promote your products and services with pride. You can feel good about your prices (and even raise them . . . again).

If you’re not confident in your work and if your heart and soul aren’t in the game, do you think your potential clients can tell?

Repetition is key when you’re trying to get a point through to people (like, how excellent your stuff is). Sharing your things with them over and over in many different ways is key to being remembered.

Don’t we live in a world that seems to be full of distraction and decreasing attention spans? How is your business excellence going to be remembered by your audience and ideal clients?

Once you have an amazingly valuable blog post, episode, product or service, promote it far and wide with pride—because it’s excellent.

4 – Connect with individual people

Over the past couple of years, I’ve seen a growing appetite for personal connection.

Partly because of the pandemic and our need to physically distance for a while. And also because of the explosion of social media and inauthentic, superficial “friends” and their carefully curated, filtered, edited view of their lives we see online.

When it comes to online business, the plethora of low-cost, mass-market DIY info products like books and courses seem to be tapping out, and instead, it’s fueling a craving for a one-on-one “white glove” concierge approach for people who want to rise above that.

This is why many successful entrepreneurs have been focusing on nurturing their communities.

When people truly want results, they are willing to pay for one-on-one service from experts who display mastery and business excellence. And those people are willing to put in the effort to make it happen.

Who are the health and wellness experts? Not just anyone who puts out work that’s inexpensive, close, or done—but people who exude excellence.

Are you one of those?

Conclusion

I’m taking this opportunity to step up my game even higher. I’m going to exude even higher levels of business excellence and world-class products and services than before.

Are you with me?

Signing off and toasting: To delivering business excellence and world-class value.

Over to you

What do you think about the saying: Done is better than perfect? Do you prefer the goals of good and excellent instead?

How are you going to step up your game to provide world-class value to your customers and clients?

I’d love to know in the comments below! 🙂

*Originally published June 2019; updated with references for the sizes of the wellness and pharma industries in September 2021; updated again in March 2022.

References

Global Wellness Institute. (2021). The global wellness economy. https://globalwellnessinstitute.org/industry-research/the-global-wellness-economy/

Statista. (2021, September 10). Global pharmaceutical industry – statistics & facts. https://www.statista.com/topics/1764/global-pharmaceutical-industry/