Reviewing your existing business strategy, or creating a business strategy for a new business venture, should not be seen as a complex and difficult task by any business owner or business manager. In fact, the process itself can be invigorating and exciting, and if done well, will certainly make your business and personal life somewhat easier, over the next twelve months.
Unfortunately, most readily accessible literature on this subject is focused on the development of business strategies by large corporate entities or similar sized public enterprises, and what little guidance is around for the SME business owner is still overly theoretical, and in my view far more complex than it needs to be, or the simplicity of suggested methodologies is far from adequate in being able to make a real difference to business outcomes.
In reality, the process of reviewing an existing business strategy, or creating one for a new business, can be distilled into an easy three part process. Firstly, asking and answering the right questions in respect of your business, secondly, collating all of the answers and grouping them into a small number of specific strategies, and thirdly, identifying all of the tasks which need to be performed to successfully implement each strategy.
So what are the right questions that you firstly need to answer? I suggest that the following nine questions should always be asked, and answered in a comprehensive manner, as the first part of the process of developing a new business strategy.
1) What business arena are we really operating in, and is this the business arena we want to operate in?
2) What market(s) do we want to serve with this business and which particular customers/clients?
3) What outcomes do we want to achieve in the next 3, 6, 9, &12 months, and by year 2, year 3 etc?
4) What resources will we need to progressively apply in the business to achieve these specific outcomes?
5) What actions need to be taken and by whom to gather these resources so they are available as needed?
6) What management and support structures will we need to initially have, and progressively upgrade?
7) What tools will we need to put in place to measure and report progress?
8) What external reporting requirements will we need to comply with, and how important are each of these?
9) What don’t we know, that we need to know, to manage known and unknown future risks?
Robust analysis of the answers that flow forth from the above process, and the grouping of these into relevant subject headings, will allow the second phase of the development of your business strategy to be finalised.
Ideally, the information so gathered, will allow you to quickly prepare a range of specific tasks for each of the following strategic areas;
1) Customer/Client Acquisition and Retention Strategies
2) People Acquisition and People Management Strategies
3) Resource Acquisition and Resource Management Strategies
4) Organisation Capability and Organisation Structure Strategies
5) Financial and Capital Management Strategies
6) Legal and Regulatory Compliance Strategies
7) Public Relations and Stakeholder Communication Strategies.
Once the full range of tasks has been identified for each of the strategic areas it is an easy matter to complete the third of the processes involved. That is the placing of timelines, costs or budgets, and responsibility for completion of each task to an individual or a team, against each specific task.
When this is completed your new business strategy is ready to be pulled together, documented, disseminated and put into action.
Do you have a strategic plan for your business?
If so, is it time you reviewed it and looked at it from a new angle?
If not, will this article provide you with the impetus to create one and run your business within its structured boundaries?
About Me
- Daniel Watson
- Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
- Born in the mid 1950's and raised in a very small country town situated in Northern Victoria. Resident of Melbourne since 1980 and happy to stay living in one of the world's most liveable cities. You can view my professional profile at http://www.linkedin/in/danielwatson
Tuesday, September 29, 2009
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
Business Planning Benefits Explained
The discipline involved in preparing a formal written business plan will stand any business owner in good stead as their business grows, whereas anyone proceeding with a business venture of any kind without one, is generally at short odds not to fully capitalise on the opportunity, that they seek to exploit for profit.
Preparing a formal business plan can be an eye opener for someone without a business degree or previous exposure to formal business planning processes. Business owners, who engage consultants to help them in this process, quickly become aware that there can be a lot more strategic and operational matters to be considered than they expected, and they often acknowledge that their limited understanding of the importance that these matters assume as a business grows, would most likely have cost them dearly if they had proceeded without a plan.
A business owner contemplating creating a formal business plan should consult others (which should at a minimum include legal, accounting and business advisors) who will question their assumptions, their projections, the substance of their offering to the market, and even their competence to successfully translate their ideas into a viable and sustainable business. The investment made in engaging these advisors is generally money well spent, providing of course, that the advisors are chosen carefully.
I would suggest that a business plan will never be passé, and I am confident in saying that anyone who prepares a comprehensive plan before embarking on the launch of any business venture, will give themselves a far greater chance of succeeding, than if they proceeded without one.
The most obvious benefits that a business owner will gain from the process of preparing a comprehensive business plan include the following;
a) It will force a move down from the big picture solution to the level where the detail becomes critical to the overall success of the business, and the planning required to co-ordinate all activities effectively and efficiently, becomes self-evident.
b) It will allow an early determination as to the feasibility of the proposed business activities relative to the human and financial resources definitely available to commence operations.
c) It will assist in setting the business owner’s vision in concrete, and from there allow the formulation of realistic goals, and appropriate schedules for the completion of these goals.
d) It will provide a framework for the guidance of those charged with implementing various components of the plan as to where their activities fit in relative to the achievement of the overall business objectives.
e) It will allow for financial control in the form of the allocation of budgets for each of the tasks which need to be undertaken in building the business to become a viable concern.
f) It will provide a scorecard of sorts, against which progress can be measured, necessary adjustments made, and final outcomes evaluated to determine the effectiveness of the actual planning process in the delivery of the results expected.
g) It will provide a certain level of confidence in that the planning process will have taken into account all of the known variables, thereby reducing the risk of the unknown by a significant degree and as a consequence, providing a more solid platform upon which to grow the business.
h) It will ensure that all statutory and regulatory factors are known, the necessary compliance structures are established from day one, and all necessary training requirements are scheduled and managed.
i) It will instill the discipline of the planning process for the future years that the business will be operating, and the lessons learned from evaluating the effectiveness of each year’s process, can be utilised in making the following year’s planning more robust.
The preparation of the initial formal business plan does not have to be a laborious or expensive process, although the more time taken and the degree of expert input involved, may mean the difference between an average plan with average outcomes versus a dynamic well structured plan designed to maximise the profit opportunity for which it has been prepared to exploit.
The old adage, those that don’t plan are actually planning to fail, holds as true today in business as it always did. As a business owner, it is your responsibility to plan for the success of your business, and the extent that you embrace this responsibility, will determine the future profitability of your business.
Are you planning to succeed through embracing a formal business planning process?
If you are not familiar with such a process, are you willing to learn the process or engage those who can assist you develop a realistic plan for your business?
Can you see that an investment of time and capital into ensuring your business has a formal business plan as the framework for its future growth, will return great dividends to you, as the business owner?
Preparing a formal business plan can be an eye opener for someone without a business degree or previous exposure to formal business planning processes. Business owners, who engage consultants to help them in this process, quickly become aware that there can be a lot more strategic and operational matters to be considered than they expected, and they often acknowledge that their limited understanding of the importance that these matters assume as a business grows, would most likely have cost them dearly if they had proceeded without a plan.
A business owner contemplating creating a formal business plan should consult others (which should at a minimum include legal, accounting and business advisors) who will question their assumptions, their projections, the substance of their offering to the market, and even their competence to successfully translate their ideas into a viable and sustainable business. The investment made in engaging these advisors is generally money well spent, providing of course, that the advisors are chosen carefully.
I would suggest that a business plan will never be passé, and I am confident in saying that anyone who prepares a comprehensive plan before embarking on the launch of any business venture, will give themselves a far greater chance of succeeding, than if they proceeded without one.
The most obvious benefits that a business owner will gain from the process of preparing a comprehensive business plan include the following;
a) It will force a move down from the big picture solution to the level where the detail becomes critical to the overall success of the business, and the planning required to co-ordinate all activities effectively and efficiently, becomes self-evident.
b) It will allow an early determination as to the feasibility of the proposed business activities relative to the human and financial resources definitely available to commence operations.
c) It will assist in setting the business owner’s vision in concrete, and from there allow the formulation of realistic goals, and appropriate schedules for the completion of these goals.
d) It will provide a framework for the guidance of those charged with implementing various components of the plan as to where their activities fit in relative to the achievement of the overall business objectives.
e) It will allow for financial control in the form of the allocation of budgets for each of the tasks which need to be undertaken in building the business to become a viable concern.
f) It will provide a scorecard of sorts, against which progress can be measured, necessary adjustments made, and final outcomes evaluated to determine the effectiveness of the actual planning process in the delivery of the results expected.
g) It will provide a certain level of confidence in that the planning process will have taken into account all of the known variables, thereby reducing the risk of the unknown by a significant degree and as a consequence, providing a more solid platform upon which to grow the business.
h) It will ensure that all statutory and regulatory factors are known, the necessary compliance structures are established from day one, and all necessary training requirements are scheduled and managed.
i) It will instill the discipline of the planning process for the future years that the business will be operating, and the lessons learned from evaluating the effectiveness of each year’s process, can be utilised in making the following year’s planning more robust.
The preparation of the initial formal business plan does not have to be a laborious or expensive process, although the more time taken and the degree of expert input involved, may mean the difference between an average plan with average outcomes versus a dynamic well structured plan designed to maximise the profit opportunity for which it has been prepared to exploit.
The old adage, those that don’t plan are actually planning to fail, holds as true today in business as it always did. As a business owner, it is your responsibility to plan for the success of your business, and the extent that you embrace this responsibility, will determine the future profitability of your business.
Are you planning to succeed through embracing a formal business planning process?
If you are not familiar with such a process, are you willing to learn the process or engage those who can assist you develop a realistic plan for your business?
Can you see that an investment of time and capital into ensuring your business has a formal business plan as the framework for its future growth, will return great dividends to you, as the business owner?
Tuesday, September 15, 2009
Are you missing out in the new business race?
The question really should be; what is it that you are not doing, that if you did it, you would see a dramatic upswing in the fortunes of your business through the regular acquisition of new customers or clients?
Whether you like it or not, if you own a business of any kind, you are primarily in the sales business and despite the array of social media tools available today, the greatest and most effective tool anyone in the sales business has at their disposal, is still the telephone.
In the right hands, the telephone is the cheapest and most time effective means of introducing any offering to a target market and making appointments to present directly to the key decision maker.
To succeed in virtually any business, you need to have a consistent flow of appointments, to get appointments you need to talk to decision makers or their gatekeepers, to do this effectively you need to master the telephone and use it frequently to contact potential prospects who you want to become your customers or clients.
You can engineer a dramatic upswing in the fortunes of your business if you master the telephone, and make a minimum of twelve (12) calls to targeted business owners each and every business day, without fail.
After doing so for a few weeks, refining your pitch as you go along, you will find that at a minimum you should be converting at least 5 to 10 percent of the 60 weekly calls to appointments, where you will have the opportunity to make a sale. Covert a reasonable percentage of these appointments into new customers or clients, and you will be well rewarded.
The trick to succeeding in this endeavour is to set aside a minimum of 45 minutes each day, find a place where you can work free of any distractions, and do nothing in this time but make the calls. It works even better if you assign the same block of time each day to this activity.
Any business owner who adopts this discipline, sticks to it religiously on a permanent basis and at the same time works assiduously at refining and improving their pitch to the targets involved, cannot help being successful at the key task of getting in front of as many prospects as possible, in the time they have available.
To maximise the effectiveness of this simple solution, business owners need to learn the art of the three minute telephone call. Buy an egg timer and if you see the sand has run out, and you have not arranged an appointment, terminate the conversation and move on to the next prospect.
It also helps if you keep daily records of the number of calls made, the number of appointments gained, the conversion rate of calls to appointments, and then track this ratio on an ongoing basis as you develop your skills in this area.
Who to call? You call anyone that you wish to make a customer or client within the niche you wish to create for yourself. The best sources of business leads for cold telemarketing have always been the yellow pages, local business directories, local newspaper advertisements, businesses letter drops in your local area, your local government authority, and the local chamber of commerce.
What to say? Prepare a very well crafted mini sales pitch for your product or service which will quickly grab the attention of the prospect you call, which focuses on the benefits for the customer or client, and which allows you to quickly uncover whether or not the prospect has a need for your offering.
Overcome your reluctance to pick up the telephone and then commit to simply making 12 calls each and every day to make appointments with prospective customers or clients, and before long, you will see the results and your business will be more successful.
Remember, that to make this a habitual activity and to ensure that you refine your sales pitch until it works brilliantly, you need to commit to this discipline for a minimum of 21 business days.
Is your business acquiring as many customers or clients that your product or service deserves?
Do you have a disciplined approach to telephone prospecting?
Will you devote a minimum of 5 hours per week to producing an upswing in the fortunes of your business?
Whether you like it or not, if you own a business of any kind, you are primarily in the sales business and despite the array of social media tools available today, the greatest and most effective tool anyone in the sales business has at their disposal, is still the telephone.
In the right hands, the telephone is the cheapest and most time effective means of introducing any offering to a target market and making appointments to present directly to the key decision maker.
To succeed in virtually any business, you need to have a consistent flow of appointments, to get appointments you need to talk to decision makers or their gatekeepers, to do this effectively you need to master the telephone and use it frequently to contact potential prospects who you want to become your customers or clients.
You can engineer a dramatic upswing in the fortunes of your business if you master the telephone, and make a minimum of twelve (12) calls to targeted business owners each and every business day, without fail.
After doing so for a few weeks, refining your pitch as you go along, you will find that at a minimum you should be converting at least 5 to 10 percent of the 60 weekly calls to appointments, where you will have the opportunity to make a sale. Covert a reasonable percentage of these appointments into new customers or clients, and you will be well rewarded.
The trick to succeeding in this endeavour is to set aside a minimum of 45 minutes each day, find a place where you can work free of any distractions, and do nothing in this time but make the calls. It works even better if you assign the same block of time each day to this activity.
Any business owner who adopts this discipline, sticks to it religiously on a permanent basis and at the same time works assiduously at refining and improving their pitch to the targets involved, cannot help being successful at the key task of getting in front of as many prospects as possible, in the time they have available.
To maximise the effectiveness of this simple solution, business owners need to learn the art of the three minute telephone call. Buy an egg timer and if you see the sand has run out, and you have not arranged an appointment, terminate the conversation and move on to the next prospect.
It also helps if you keep daily records of the number of calls made, the number of appointments gained, the conversion rate of calls to appointments, and then track this ratio on an ongoing basis as you develop your skills in this area.
Who to call? You call anyone that you wish to make a customer or client within the niche you wish to create for yourself. The best sources of business leads for cold telemarketing have always been the yellow pages, local business directories, local newspaper advertisements, businesses letter drops in your local area, your local government authority, and the local chamber of commerce.
What to say? Prepare a very well crafted mini sales pitch for your product or service which will quickly grab the attention of the prospect you call, which focuses on the benefits for the customer or client, and which allows you to quickly uncover whether or not the prospect has a need for your offering.
Overcome your reluctance to pick up the telephone and then commit to simply making 12 calls each and every day to make appointments with prospective customers or clients, and before long, you will see the results and your business will be more successful.
Remember, that to make this a habitual activity and to ensure that you refine your sales pitch until it works brilliantly, you need to commit to this discipline for a minimum of 21 business days.
Is your business acquiring as many customers or clients that your product or service deserves?
Do you have a disciplined approach to telephone prospecting?
Will you devote a minimum of 5 hours per week to producing an upswing in the fortunes of your business?
Tuesday, September 8, 2009
Are You Fishing with Blunt Hooks?
An extremely important component of growing any business to the point where it becomes self sustaining is prospecting for suitable clients or customers. As a business owner, you need to set the lead for others to follow if you want to elevate the importance of prospecting for future business to its rightful place as a key component of your business plan.
All business owners have to prospect, and some are far better at it than others. If you, and those you employ, avoid the seven common mistakes that others frequently make when prospecting, you will become very good at it, and your business will grow quickly.
The first and most common mistake in prospecting is simply not doing enough of it. As a business owner, you must understand that the work you do today, in uncovering suitable prospects, represents your income for weeks or months down the track. The absence of constant prospecting activity equals no constant income in the future, and creates the real and dangerous potential for cash flow problems to develop in your business.
The second mistake is prospecting with the wrong attitude towards the job. When you prospect with a positive attitude towards the work which needs to be done, and you expect that work to generate good business leads, you will usually prove yourself to be absolutely right.
The third mistake is not having a good system in place to ensure that all leads generated are followed through with, and all income potential is maximised. Without systems, too much falls through the cracks and unproductive activity will prevail. Before you commence any prospecting activity make sure that your business has a CRM package in place, and that all involved in the prospecting activities are familiar with it, and understand the importance of recording all activity and outcomes.
The fourth mistake is prospecting the wrong people in the first place. Are your potential prospects going to deliver your business a high enough return on the investment made, are they geographically positioned to make servicing them a cost effective option, do they actually want what or need what you are offering, are you face to face with the decision maker or a key advisor to the decision maker?
The fifth, and a killer of a mistake, is not asking the prospects you do get in front of, for referrals. It is vital for all business owners to remember that when you are prospecting, you are not only prospecting the prospect, but anyone else they know, who may have a need for your offering. Always remember, if you don’t ask – you don’t get.
The sixth mistake in prospecting is a reluctance to invest in direct mailing to potential prospects that you have on any database you own or control. Mail them monthly at a minimum, and the frequency of touches will eventually deliver a regular stream of people wanting to take up what you are offering, and who will also be willing to give you referrals.
The final, and an all too common mistake made by business owners, is to stop regular and consistent heavy prospecting just because they have a few good weeks or months flowing on from previous prospecting activities. Never forget, that a drop off in prospecting will inevitably result in a drop off in income for your business in the coming months.
How does your business measure up in terms of the returns from your prospecting activities?
Does your business have a program of activities which constitute a constant and effective prospecting machine?
Do you need to sharpen your hooks?
All business owners have to prospect, and some are far better at it than others. If you, and those you employ, avoid the seven common mistakes that others frequently make when prospecting, you will become very good at it, and your business will grow quickly.
The first and most common mistake in prospecting is simply not doing enough of it. As a business owner, you must understand that the work you do today, in uncovering suitable prospects, represents your income for weeks or months down the track. The absence of constant prospecting activity equals no constant income in the future, and creates the real and dangerous potential for cash flow problems to develop in your business.
The second mistake is prospecting with the wrong attitude towards the job. When you prospect with a positive attitude towards the work which needs to be done, and you expect that work to generate good business leads, you will usually prove yourself to be absolutely right.
The third mistake is not having a good system in place to ensure that all leads generated are followed through with, and all income potential is maximised. Without systems, too much falls through the cracks and unproductive activity will prevail. Before you commence any prospecting activity make sure that your business has a CRM package in place, and that all involved in the prospecting activities are familiar with it, and understand the importance of recording all activity and outcomes.
The fourth mistake is prospecting the wrong people in the first place. Are your potential prospects going to deliver your business a high enough return on the investment made, are they geographically positioned to make servicing them a cost effective option, do they actually want what or need what you are offering, are you face to face with the decision maker or a key advisor to the decision maker?
The fifth, and a killer of a mistake, is not asking the prospects you do get in front of, for referrals. It is vital for all business owners to remember that when you are prospecting, you are not only prospecting the prospect, but anyone else they know, who may have a need for your offering. Always remember, if you don’t ask – you don’t get.
The sixth mistake in prospecting is a reluctance to invest in direct mailing to potential prospects that you have on any database you own or control. Mail them monthly at a minimum, and the frequency of touches will eventually deliver a regular stream of people wanting to take up what you are offering, and who will also be willing to give you referrals.
The final, and an all too common mistake made by business owners, is to stop regular and consistent heavy prospecting just because they have a few good weeks or months flowing on from previous prospecting activities. Never forget, that a drop off in prospecting will inevitably result in a drop off in income for your business in the coming months.
How does your business measure up in terms of the returns from your prospecting activities?
Does your business have a program of activities which constitute a constant and effective prospecting machine?
Do you need to sharpen your hooks?
Tuesday, September 1, 2009
Momentum - The Best Business Fertiliser
Without momentum in your business, everything just grinds to a halt, and all effort is effectively wasted. With momentum, anything is achievable. If you want to be successful as a business owner nothing could have more relevance, or should assume greater importance, than the building and maintaining of momentum in your business.
In this context, and as a business owner, you need to clearly understand what momentum is, and how to make sure it is happening in your business. To begin, you must have a business plan, you must work that plan, and you must be willing and able to grow with your business and to overcome the challenges which will arise as your business grows.
Business momentum can be simply described as the outcome of your own level of productive effort multiplied by the degree of persistence you consistently provide to working your business plan. You know you have momentum when your business is continually busy and the evidence establishes that it in being busy it is accomplishing everything laid out in your business plan.
Building up momentum, in order to establish a manageable and productive funnel of opportunities which deliver regular and growing income, takes considerable time and effort. The following four suggestions, if implemented in your business, should assist you get to the point where you can effectively see and feel the required momentum.
The first suggestion is to know where you are going with your business, why you want to go in that direction, and then attaching basic numbers to what the business must achieve on a daily basis, in order to be successful. This clarity will assist you to work on your business, rather than just working in it without giving much thought for the future.
The second suggestion is to walk to the end of the cliff and jump off, fully knowing that unless you immediately attract customers or clients, it is all over for your business. There is nothing like having no fall-back position to focus your mind, all of your energy, and absolute commitment to the taking immediate actions required to get your desired outcomes. Remember that the desperate and hungry dog will always beat the pampered pooch to any available rewards, and that is the mindset you need to have when looking to develop momentum in your business.
The third suggestion is to step right out of all of your comfort zones and embark on the emotional roller coaster that is directly aligned to successful business ownership. Learn how not to be discouraged by the inevitable setbacks, how to avoid making excuses for not succeeding, and how to immediately kill any thoughts of giving up now or in the future.
The fourth suggestion is to develop a healthy support mechanism so that when times get tough along your journey to success you have somewhere to turn to provide you with the support you need to pick yourself up and continue to persevere with your plan of attack in accordance with your business plan. Don’t try to achieve it all alone, a journey shared with someone who can contribute support when you most need it is one that once you achieve success, you will look back upon with greater pleasure than any solo trip you might take.
Does your business currently have sufficient momentum so that work is self generating?
As the business owner are you helping or hindering the development of momentum in your business?
Are your employees aware of the concept of building momentum?
Is it time to fertilise your business?
In this context, and as a business owner, you need to clearly understand what momentum is, and how to make sure it is happening in your business. To begin, you must have a business plan, you must work that plan, and you must be willing and able to grow with your business and to overcome the challenges which will arise as your business grows.
Business momentum can be simply described as the outcome of your own level of productive effort multiplied by the degree of persistence you consistently provide to working your business plan. You know you have momentum when your business is continually busy and the evidence establishes that it in being busy it is accomplishing everything laid out in your business plan.
Building up momentum, in order to establish a manageable and productive funnel of opportunities which deliver regular and growing income, takes considerable time and effort. The following four suggestions, if implemented in your business, should assist you get to the point where you can effectively see and feel the required momentum.
The first suggestion is to know where you are going with your business, why you want to go in that direction, and then attaching basic numbers to what the business must achieve on a daily basis, in order to be successful. This clarity will assist you to work on your business, rather than just working in it without giving much thought for the future.
The second suggestion is to walk to the end of the cliff and jump off, fully knowing that unless you immediately attract customers or clients, it is all over for your business. There is nothing like having no fall-back position to focus your mind, all of your energy, and absolute commitment to the taking immediate actions required to get your desired outcomes. Remember that the desperate and hungry dog will always beat the pampered pooch to any available rewards, and that is the mindset you need to have when looking to develop momentum in your business.
The third suggestion is to step right out of all of your comfort zones and embark on the emotional roller coaster that is directly aligned to successful business ownership. Learn how not to be discouraged by the inevitable setbacks, how to avoid making excuses for not succeeding, and how to immediately kill any thoughts of giving up now or in the future.
The fourth suggestion is to develop a healthy support mechanism so that when times get tough along your journey to success you have somewhere to turn to provide you with the support you need to pick yourself up and continue to persevere with your plan of attack in accordance with your business plan. Don’t try to achieve it all alone, a journey shared with someone who can contribute support when you most need it is one that once you achieve success, you will look back upon with greater pleasure than any solo trip you might take.
Does your business currently have sufficient momentum so that work is self generating?
As the business owner are you helping or hindering the development of momentum in your business?
Are your employees aware of the concept of building momentum?
Is it time to fertilise your business?
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