Are You Excited?
End of January already… Yes, it’s frightening how fast it goes but is it also exciting? Did you start the year with the intention of making this year so much better than the last? Is that still your intention? Continue reading →
End of January already… Yes, it’s frightening how fast it goes but is it also exciting? Did you start the year with the intention of making this year so much better than the last? Is that still your intention? Continue reading →
One month down, 11 to go. How’s it going so far? Are you on course to meet your goals or is it too early to say?
If you’re not on course, or worse don’t know, then re-check that you have the right mechanisms in place to give you the information you need, when you need it.
Veering off course can happen quickly and if January hasn’t started as planned and considering how quickly it’s come and gone, where exactly are you and where could you end up in a few short weeks.
Imagine your goals are on the other side of a stream or small river in a specific spot on the bank. Getting to the other side isn’t a problem because the river is full of flat, secure stepping stones which are close together so you can take small, safe steps.
You need to pick your path, as the stones are everywhere, and in a straight line you could get across in about 40 steps. Remember, your goals occupy only one spot on the river bank, so you need to get to the other side at exactly the right spot.
What’s your tactic? Well, you might look up to check after each step you take or you might take a few steps then look up and correct your course if necessary. Either way, you’re unlikely to take many steps without stopping to check.
Now, imagine, you are blindfolded and can lift the blindfold and check your position only after you have stepped over say half-a-dozen stones. It is likely that you will be off course somewhat but at least you can correct that course each time you look.
Now imagine that someone else, who cannot see the other side, is telling you where to step. It is highly likely that this time, when you check, you will be even further off course. So, you inform the person of where you are so that corrections can be made and then take instructions once more.
Eventually you’ll get to the other side but will you be at the right spot and how much longer has it taken when blindfolded or taking instructions from another? If your goals are annual and each stone represents say, a week, you must get to the other side in under 52 steps…would you even have made it?
Clearly the most efficient and effective method is to not be blindfolded and to look up and check your progress every step or two. If each stone represents a week in your business then clearly you need up-to-date progress information, probably in the form of summary reports and short focused team meetings.
To stay on course, you need to check your heading regularly and receive the information you need to be able to correct your course if necessary.
If that decision is based on the information being provided by others in your company then make sure you have a robust system that collects and delivers that information up the chain, to you at the helm.
What mechanisms do you use for staying on course?
Have you changed your business in any significant way in recent years? Are your products or services different from those you compete with?
Like everything else in this world, business is cyclical. To stay ahead of their competitors the top companies evolve; they change their image, offer new and better products and services and constantly work to innovate, inspire and stand out from the crowd.
Those that don’t, begin to look stale and uninteresting. They can give the impression that they don’t care enough about their business, in which case why should the consumers of their products? Their own people will wonder where the business is going and if it will survive…they will lose motivation and eventually leave. And in time this lack of innovation and the loss of motivation and key people will hit the company’s bottom line.
For the vast majority of companies, whatever their business, there will be other equivalent businesses. The number of competitors continually increases whilst the available attention of your customers or prospects forever diminishes.
Having good products and services is no longer enough. Being good at what you do won’t necessarily grab the attention of your prospect who is bombarded with offers and pitches and who has increased his or her filtering skills just to get through the day and their work load.
To be seen and heard, you must stand out, you must be different.
Take time out; walk away from your business and ask if it is different. If what you offer doesn’t stand out then, no matter how good what you offer is, it’s unlikely to be heard above the din of all the other businesses offering the same.
Contact me if you want help to develop the right strategies, stay on course and lead from the front.
What is Plan B anyway? Was Plan A so far off the mark that we need a whole new plan?
Even if you have two possible paths to take that lead you down two very different routes and different results, does that require two plans?
If you’re the leader of a country that’s at war and things aren’t going well for your side, you may find yourself at a junction where one path is to surrender and the other to keep fighting. These paths don’t necessarily require two plans.
The vision and overriding goal of the leader is to do the best for his or her people and country…that is one plan. The best plans will have identified the risks, and hurdles and mitigated for them. In this case, the risk that the war didn’t go this leader’s way should have been recognised and a plan of action (a sub-plan) in place should that unfortunate turn of events occur. In this case, the leader would know whether to fight on or surrender because at this juncture the strategy plan and his strategic skills should show which path is best for his people and country which is still the overriding goal of this plan.
Our government doesn’t need a ‘Plan B’ it needs to have a ‘Plan A’ that is flexible, that has the possible routes mapped out and that can adapt to the situation. Going for growth isn’t ‘Plan B’; it should be in place as a desirable option and ‘Plan A’ adapted if necessary. After all, the overriding aim of the government, hasn’t changed has it?
In your business, have one strategy plan, adapt it if necessary and make it work. Don’t scrap it and start a new one. This will undermine confidence and imply wasted effort and cost. If your vision hasn’t changed then simply adapt the plan you have and make the right course corrections.
If you need help adapting your strategy plans to keep your business on course then do contact me to see if I can help.
In my last post I talked about the importance of connecting the dots of your strategy plan from your vision to your tactics, understanding the impact on your business of setting out to achieve your goals and the need to align the different areas of your business in order to do just that.
I used the example of entering a new market sector and converting new prospects and highlighted some of the areas involved in doing this such as sales, marketing, engineering and HR.
These are functional parts of a company and aligning goals, objectives and tactics to them is not straight forward simply because they are separate vertical sections.
To connect these dots, rather than try and align by functional departments or groups, align the goal, and work involved in achieving it, by horizontal processes.
Using the above example you may split the goal into the process of entering a new market and the process of converting a prospect. Break the processes down into logical steps and you will see how they involve a number of vertical functions.
The process, for a technology company, of entering a new market will involve market research (marketing), client profiling (sales), possibly new product features (engineering), new targeted marketing strategy, messages and collateral (marketing), possibly sales training (HR/marketing/engineering), PR (marketing), new account management (sales), relationship building (sales/directors), new contracts, pricing, services-level agreements, customers (administration), technical support (engineering) and of course a budget (finance).
That’s one process and around six separate functional sections of the company.
So you see, connecting the dots from a goal to the tactics and the tasks involved, is easier to do when broken down into steps within a process. The various functions or departments involved can then plan their role and align with each other to achieve an efficient execution of this process.
Define all the processes in your business and align the roles of the relevant functions to each. Assign someone to be in charge of the processes so that they can work with each function involved to ensure the processes are aligned and run as smoothly as possible to achieve the company goals.
Assuming your annual cycle began last week then ideally your ship has left the harbour it was docked at for the Christmas break and has now set off on its new 2012 course.
Your company is in the new Deliver phase of your strategic planning cycle and you and your teams are implementing the tactics that were set to achieve the objectives and milestones which were created to achieve the goals which were established at the end of last year to drive the company to where it needs to be at the end of 2012.
Not only have you made sure that everything is connected from your purpose through your vision and mission, and your goals and objectives to your tactics, but you have aligned everything to make sure they have the best chance of being achieved and producing the best return possible.
For example, one of your objectives may be to convert a specific number of new prospects in a particular market sector. Your sales tactics will include visiting these new prospects to convert.
Sales will struggle to do this if the right prospects haven’t been identified and the right messages and solutions put together by marketing. So, marketing are working on the tasks to identify these prospects, understand their needs and match the best solution to meet them.
Marketing will also need to create the compelling marketing messages which will attract these prospects. That way there will be a higher probability that their sales colleagues will be able to make the visit, address any questions and objections and eventually convert the prospect to a buyer.
Peter Drucker once said something like, “The purpose of marketing is to make sales superfluous.” Marketing should at least aim to present sales with a warm, receptive customer and ideally one that craves what you are selling.
For sales to have the best possible chance to achieve their objective they may need training if the solution or benefits are new. This should be an objective of say HR and have been scheduled in advance to minimise disruption.
And we haven’t touched on engineering or support being aligned to provide and support this new solution.
Every new idea, every new goal, new objective will disrupt the status quo and so everything that needs to be done needs to be planned and the stages connected both hierarchically, between objectives and tactics, but also across the tactics themselves. If they aren’t then actions will be less effective or be lost, milestones missed and time and money wasted getting the business back on course.
Even if you run a business of one, the principles are the same.
We haven’t looked at the systems and processes that are involved and the impact on them in achieving this objective so I’ll cover this next time.
Have you connected the dots from your vision to your tactics so that everything is aligned to hit your milestones and achieve your targets?
Regardless of when the fiscal year starts, many businesses see January as the start of a new year and hence a new cycle for the business.
Having said that many business owners struggle to step back from their business and plan the year ahead as they drive towards the year end. They make the decision to “do their plan” in the first week of January but find that they’re straight back into the business and the plan is either looked at when there is spare time or not at all.
But without stepping back and creating a new plan your business will meander through the next annual cycle and hopefully grow. At the best of times this is not a good idea…in this economic climate, this is simply crazy.
You cannot purposefully get to a particular point/destination/goal without a plan.
Here are 7 important checks to help you make sure you’ve covered the key areas.
1. Review and learn
How did the last 12 months go? What worked and what didn’t? Did you spend more than you anticipated? Did you lose some opportunities or customers? Did you support your customers well? Have you grown market share? Did you meet your goals? What happened that you weren’t expecting? What worked really well?
Do a thorough review of how the year went and make sure you have answers to all the many questions you should ask. This assessment will help you set some of the goals for the year ahead so that your company is stronger and more effective.
2. Work on your findings
From the assessment identify any weak and vulnerable areas and identify where you differentiated from your competitors as these are strengths that you need to exploit. Once you have these listed create plans to strengthen weak areas, exploit strengths and mitigating plans for all risks to your business.
3. Check your core purpose
Review your company’s purpose, vision and mission. From the year that’s gone are they still sound and valid? A year is a long time in business and it’s worth checking that you’re still on course to reach your long term aims and that these aims haven’t changed.
Things can change and events may occur which can impact the core of the company’s reason for being and what it is striving to achieve.
4. What to do
Create a balanced set of hierarchical goals; a set of goals that drive the business forward and make it stronger and more effective. Too often goals are simply an extension of what was achieved the previous year; revenue + x%, profit + y% and so on.
Be creative and set one or two visionary goals that will take the business to another level, 4 or 5 vital goals that will achieve the growth you need in the next 12 months, 6 or 7 important goals that will support the other goals and make sure they are achievable and some routine goals which will improve aspects of your business but which won’t have a detrimental effect on results if not achieved.
5. How to do it
Plan how you intend to achieve these goals. Work with those responsible for implementing the objectives and tactics and create a plan with measurable milestones and responsibilities. If you own your own business, with no people, do this anyway…you need to step out of your business and set targets.
6. Making it work
Make sure everyone in your company and other key stakeholders like your bank, investors and strategic partners understands and embraces the plan. Even share it with key customers assuming it demonstrates how your plan helps their business. Create a one-page summary of your strategy plan, print it onto large paper and put it where people can see it and see how their role contributes to it.
7. Staying on course
Establish a system and timetable for monitoring and reviewing progress. All companies stray off course if progress isn’t regularly monitored and reviewed. Set early milestones to check you’ve headed in the right direction during Q1.
…do your customers?
Do your customers fully understand the benefit of what you offer? Do they? Really?
Have you ever been in a situation where someone is explaining something to you and you’re just not seeing it…that light bulb just isn’t going on? (If this has never happened to you, check out quantum physics.) People are stimulated through different mediums. I’m not great at understanding a concept that is aurally described to me (ask my accountant) but do pretty well if it’s written down.
You may see things clearly but others need it presented in a different way in order to join the dots and for that light bulb to burn brightly.
I’ve been looking at my messages and have been refining and testing them and have now created a new process which breaks the 4 strategic planning phases into 7 steps. The positive feedback I’ve had from those I’ve shown shows that this paints a much clearer picture of why strategic planning is vital and how to get it right. This process will become central to the help I give from now on.
When was the last time you looked at your messages and considered if there may be a better way to communicate them to customers and prospects? Have you lost opportunities or possibly not captured as much customer value as you may have done because the prospect or customer didn’t fully appreciate all you could do for them?
If you’re in Q4 of your annual cycle you should be assessing where you are now (step 1) and identifying your strengths and weaknesses before forming new ideas and goals to make your next year more successful than this one. As part of this exercise, take a long hard look at your messages and make sure your customers and prospects really do understand why they should engage with you and why their business will be better for doing so.
Yesterday I did something new in my business…I created a video. Now this may not sound particularly exciting but, from a personal perspective, when you do something you’ve not done before, and it goes well, the feeling is tremendous.
It’s like when you were a kid and you rode your bike for the first time without stabilsers, or your first kiss or passing your driving test or your first trip on a plane. These things are done every day by thousands but it doesn’t take away the buzz you feel when it happens to you.
I can’t say that this gave me the same buzz as riding my bike or my first kiss, but it still left me with a smile on my face for the rest of the day and a feeling that I’ve achieved something that I was very uncomfortable with. I feel far more confident and will now do more and get better at them….watch this space. (And thank you to Dexter Moscow, who, apart from having the best name ever, gave me invaluable guidance.)
When was the last time you and your team did something different in your business? If you use the same tactics and initiatives for finding prospects, engaging with customers and marketing your products and services then why not get together or take yourself away be creative and come up with something new.
Don’t change your strategy plan without a good reason but there is more than one way to achieve an objective, so get creative. Do something a bit different, try it, test it and, who knows, it might return better results than your old method.
Have you done something different recently? Share them and inspire others.
Image:tomleininger.net
Last week over $1 trillion was wiped of the world’s stock markets and as of writing this, they continue to fall. The USA’s credit rating was reduced by one agency and the possibility looms that it may be reduced further. The politicians in the Euro zone are papering over cracks that continue to spread and grow. There are renewed talks of a double-dip recession and all the makings of a “perfect storm”. There is nothing to indicate that things are going to get better any time soon but every indication that things could easily get much worse.
With the prediction that unemployment in the public sector will rise it is the private sector that politicians are looking to for growth. With the bank’s profit results looking grim there is little chance that they will be lending anytime soon and help the private sector invest for growth.
Business-as-usual makes no sense in these unchartered waters that we find ourselves in. And make no mistake, these are unchartered waters. No-one really knows how this is going to turn out and there are no historical events quite like what we face today to learn from.
As business owners and leaders, we are “navigating” through these treacherous waters on our own. We cannot hope that we will get through this; instead we must do everything we can to make sure that we get through this.
What you need to do right now is step away, thoroughly assess your business and strengthen as many areas of it as you can. (I understand that for very small businesses this can be difficult but you must find the time to do this and seek help if you need to.)
Carry out a thorough assessment of your company, markets and risks. Think about how you can make sure your business not only survives but comes out stronger.
Here are 7 things to consider to get you going:
Do they know and embrace your vision and do you empower and involve them when deciding how to implement your plan? Make sure they know how they contribute to the success of the company and how much you value them.
This strategy plan isn’t your business plan but lies at the heart of it. It isn’t your marketing strategy but includes it. This is the plan of the goals you have set and how you aim to achieve them. You cannot stay in control and keep your business on course without one.
Focus. Know what you need to do and keep on course, don’t be deflected. Guide your people, listen to their concerns and help them. Empower them to be leaders in their own area of responsibility.
If things do turn around, if those parts of the economy which are growing continue to do so, if the Euro zone is sorted out and no more countries go bankrupt, if countries start to reduce their debts, if banks start lending, if… then carrying out these 7 things and more will still help make your company stronger which is no bad thing and no waste of time.
Start this today; arrange a time for yourself or with your people and begin this process.
Hope is the positive face of uncertainty. Do not hope that things will turn out fine for you and your business. Make sure it does.
If you need help then contact me…it costs nothing to talk.
If you don’t need help that’s great but if you do then get it and do what you can to protect your business against all this uncertainty.
What advice can you give to help others strengthen their business and eliminate uncertainty? Please share.
Image:stockmarketview.com