Do you wonder why your business is not as successful as it could be? Do your employees or the people you manage walk in the door of the office with a blank face, a loud sigh and look of hatred on their faces? If this sounds all too familiar then you most likely are lacking company culture in your business and need to learn how to motivate employees at your company. To really be a truly successful business you need to have employees that love to come to work—this all depends on the work environment YOU provide.

My coworker recently made a comment that she considers me to be her friend – not just a work friend – but a real, true friend. I feel the same way about her, and my other coworkers too. I know this is not the norm in the small business world, but I think people would like it to be and it would cause them to be better employees.

You’re the successful small business owner of a handyman company. You started out as a jack of all trades and master of none, but over the years you’ve been wise about hiring the right people for the right positions, and now you can focus on managing the business and building relationships.

You’ve grown your business from a small one-man service truck to a 50 employee small business that provides a number of services ranging from gutter cleaning to landscaping to painting. Over the years, your friendly customer service and positive relationships have made you one of the most trusted businesses in town. So trusted in fact, that business is booming. Or so it seems. Service request are rolling in faster than your employees can keep up with them.

Alright, so you run your small business day in and day out. You want to have exciting goals and motivated employees. You want to see employees achieving key milestones and enthusiastic about success. Unfortunately, sometimes it seems like the goals of your business just aren’t tangible or exciting enough, and day to day accomplishments aren’t tied to the big picture. Here’s one thing you can start doing now that will help you be more efficient, and also can help to engage employees and keep them involved.

We all love to be inspired. It is in our nature as human beings. We want to have that fire in our being that give us the motivation to do better and to be better. I am going to give you an example to show how you too can inspire your employees within your business culture. But how do we create that spark in other people? Where do we find this inspiration? The answer is simple. Inspiration can be found everywhere.

How do leaders and companies inspire others? There are so many ways to inspire and it comes in many forms. For business leaders, who are growing a business with both passion and provision, the two groups of people that need to be inspired are:

Your employees and staff

Your customers

When you, as a leader, are able to inspire your staff and inspire your customers, you have the opportunity to grow your business and be successful.

Do you know how to motivate employees? Have you heard the saying that happy employees are productive employees? Well, CEO Tony Hsieh of Zappos knows how to keep his employees motivated. Hsieh focuses on making sure that his employees are happy. Here are a few things that Zappos does to motivate its customers by keeping them happy.

Do you wonder why your business is not as successful as it could be? Do your employees or the people you manage walk in the door of the office with a blank face, a loud sigh and look of hatred on their faces? If this sounds all too familiar then you most likely are lacking company culture in your business and need to learn how to motivate employees at your business. To really be a truly successful business you need to have employees that love to come to work—this all depends on the work environment YOU provide.