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Other Added - An Annual Strategic Planning Process for Small Businesses
1. Hire people who have a service attitude. Some people simply enjoy serving others, their organizations, and even their communities. The spirit of service dominates their personality. This attitude of service has nothing to do with money or background, and people who have this attitude are not necessarily the most outgoing or bubbly. This type of person will move your business forward. These people make the best salespeople as well.2. Make the customer's time with you an experience. You have but a few short moments with customers. You don't have time to complain about your day or anything else. Ask yourself, "How can I make their experience better?" Can I refer to them by name and how can I ask without being too aggressive? How can I control the environment in this co
I talk a lot about buying businesses, but in this article I want to talk about how you should run a business if your intent is to sell it down the road. Here's a question I recently received on this subject: I’m in the early stages of building my business, the third year, and I’m building it with the idea of selling it to someone down the road. What should I be concerned with as I build my business to make it attractive to a buyer down the road?” The first two things that make it attractive to a buyer is increase in sales and profit every year but very few peaks and valleys. Think about it: When you're buying a business, do you want a bunch of inconsistencies in the sales and growth? Or do you want to see a steady, and easily predictabl
In the last issue we discuss the need for a strategic plan, even in small companies, and the key questions that all managers, and even other employees must be able to answer for optimum results in your company.
The Strategic Planning Process I Recommend:
Team Meeting #1 - Brainstorming the “WHAT” – Most likely here the CEO puts the first stake in the ground, proposing “WHAT” the objectives are for the coming year. This is just a starting point for discussion really though. It might be as simple as a percentage growth goal, or as complex as a bunch of new market niches and/or product combinations to explore. There is much discussion about what is achievable, how and why or why not. This needs to be a safe environment to brainstorm, say anything and challenge everything. Your culture must not only allow, but must encourage dissent and heated discussion. Without this you will be growing a team of “yes men” (and women) that are there to simply validate what the CEO wants. At this point we are getting the team’s input on “What” we want to achieve this year. This can be a bottomless pit of time and discussions and at some point the CEO needs to decide on limits. Details should not be discussed unless they make the objectives impractical. This is more of a brainstorming meeting and can easily take several hours. I like to call these “Summits” and do them offsite to get people away from distractions and enhance creativity. If you can afford it make it a paid weekend foliage or ski trip with this meeting being the focal point of the weekend and lots of time for people to bond personally too. The quicker this gets done the better your team is really – the more alignment in thinking anyway. However are you pushing the envelope of creativity and
Are you -- like 70 percent of small business owners -- working without a plan?Here are three myths that need to be dispelled about strategic planning for small business.1. It has to be formal -- Not so.The value of a strategic plan for your small business is in putting the ideas on paper, creating action steps that will get you where you want to go and implementing those action steps.2. I'm too small -- Not so.Even a one-person business can benefit from a strategic plan. A strategic plan can help you make decisions about time management and budget. You can use your strategic plan to help you determine whether to attend an event or advertise in a publication. It's a check and balance tool.3. A strategic plan is like a ball and chain -- Not so.It's your p
Team Meeting #1 - Brainstorming the “WHAT” – Most likely here the CEO puts the first stake in the ground, proposing “WHAT” the objectives are for the coming year. This is just a starting point for discussion really though. It might be as simple as a percentage growth goal, or as complex as a bunch of new market niches and/or product combinations to explore. There is much discussion about what is achievable, how and why or why not. This needs to be a safe environment to brainstorm, say anything and challenge everything. Your culture must not only allow, but must encourage dissent and heated discussion. Without this you will be growing a team of “yes men” (and women) that are there to simply validate what the CEO wants. At this point we are getting the team’s input on “What” we want to achieve this year. This can be a bottomless pit of time and discussions and at some point the CEO needs to decide on limits. Details should not be discussed unless they make the objectives impractical. This is more of a brainstorming meeting and can easily take several hours. I like to call these “Summits” and do them offsite to get people away from distractions and enhance creativity. If you can afford it make it a paid weekend foliage or ski trip with this meeting being the focal point of the weekend and lots of time for people to bond personally too. The quicker this gets done the better your team is really – the more alignment in thinking anyway. However are you pushing the envelope of creativity and
Q: I started my small business about a year ago and it's grown steadily. I like having my own business, but I'm having a tough time managing people. I have 5 employees now and it seems like I spend half my time making sure they are doing what they're supposed to be doing and the other half of my time doing things they didn't get done. Things were much easier when I was a one man shop. Any suggestions? -- Paul C.A: Ah, Paul, welcome to the wonderful world of employee management, the bane of many a business owner's existence. I hope you have a full head of hair now, because depending on how quickly you get a grip on this situation, you could end up bald in a very short time. And if you're starting out bald all you can do is put on a cap and read on.Some business experts will tell you that
Designing logo is not an easy and simple thing to do. It's related to the goal that has to be achieved on the future. Logo designing is a long process with a lot of consideration, because logo is not only a symbol to put on your business card or the sign board in front of your office. Much more than that, logo is the essential part of branding image for the company.Logo is very subjective. Some people would say that McDonald’s logo looks good, but some other people would say the opposite, or even hate it.Sometimes that what makes even harder for logo designers to fulfill clients’ requirements, because there are more than one person who have the authority to make decision on final design and they all have different way of thinking. Here are some tips that have to be considered either by t
In the popular press these days, a dominant theme is about living your purpose. The articles usually ask "Are you passionate about what you're doing earning an income?" One thing about living your purpose or your passion for that matter is that living your purpose can really get ugly at times.When you live a life on purpose you might appear selfish to the people around you. That's because purpose is about unleashing the quiet giant inside of you. That giant wants to give to the world something that tends to be larger than life. The famous comic book writer Stan Lee said "With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility"You have to have an immense amount of love inside yourself to let your purpose come to life. When you peek at your purpose, you know that it must happen. It's a glimmer that sp
Individual Department First Draft Developed - The team now goes away and individually prepares what they think is achievable for their department written down in terms of quarterly goals and priorities. This is 1-3 pages per department, not anything big, as it is still dynamic and just a proposal. Sometimes a list of potential projects and priorities, things to try and larger items for discussion is even sufficient at this stage. Avoid schedules at this stage, as you will most likely rearrange order and priorities. These senior people will seek out and meet with others to discuss dependencies, timelines and how they will accomplish some goals fairly informally. This off-line work should build enough confidence and framework to go to the next step and surface any conflict to be brought to the group for discussion.
CEO Challenge and Review - CEO and most department heads should probably meet one-on-one to flush out these first drafts before meeting #2.
Team Meeting # 2 – Validating “It” Can Be Done - Each team member now presents their goals to the team and explains the risks, resources needed and rough timeline (quarters) for objectives (if there is good communications the managers have already compared timelines offline to coordinate this some). They should also make it clear WHY these are the right objectives for t
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