Creating an Action Plan

Every owner of a company has certain objectives they set out to accomplish in order to run and grow their business. While increasing sales and making money would be a rather universal goal, there are a number of action items that need to be put in place to achieve this. Once you have taken the time to identify your goals and objectives, you need to create an action plan that clearly defines the proper strategies to achieve them. Unfortunately, many owners do not take the crucial step of writing an actual plan that creates an agenda for what must be done.

Not having a written action plan is like driving to a new location without any directions. You know where you want to go, but you have no idea the best way to get there. This doesn't have to be an elaborate process, rather all it takes is some time on your part to prioritize your objectives, delegate who in your organization will be the lead for each one, develop the strategies to achieve them, designate a time line, and create a system to measure your results. Completing this exercise creates your map to reach your destination.

An action plan ideally has only four to five initiatives. Any more than that will tend to bog you down. Once one is achieved to your satisfaction, a new one can be added. You must be very clear when assigning responsibility as that has a way of getting blurred if not properly put in place. Strategies must be practical and the necessary resources to achieve them must be available. Keep your time lines as short as possible in order maintain everyones focus on what must be done now, not six months from now. The most important piece is how will you track and measure results. Too many times action plans fail because no one is actively recording results. You want to make sure the actions are on target and actually moving the dial. This also helps to keep everyone focused on the tasks at hand.

While this may sound a bit silly but, once you have your action plan make sure you follow it. I have seen some of the best plans in the world go to waste because they were never executed or executed poorly. If these are items that are crucial to the success of your business, it is your job as the owner to make sure everyone involved has bought into the plan and thus has a vested interest in its success. Not adhering to this basic concept has derailed many companies over the years. Remember this plan is your map and your destination.

Prioritizing Your Critical Issues

Every business is faced with issues that effect the level of success they will and can achieve. Some of these are positive and can drive the overall growth of the company, while others are negative and left unattended, will ultimately hinder this growth. As an owner, it is important you fully understand the forces that are guiding your business before you begin to try and address them.

The first thing you need to do is list everything you can think of that is having an effect on your business. The goal in this step is to identify what is working and what is not. Write down some opportunities that exist as well as the obstacles you need to overcome to take advantage of them. Determine which activities are productive and need to be increased and which ones are not, and need to be eliminated. Remember, there are many issues that influence your business, this exercise is designed to identify the ones you can control and change if needed. If you complete a thorough examination of your current state of affairs, you should end up with a fair amount of items on your list.

Next comes the hard part, prioritizing your list. The goal here is to identify the top four or five issues that are having the biggest impact on your business. These will then become your company's "critical issues". These are the ones that obviously need the most immediate attention in order to keep or get you back on track. The other items on the list cannot be ignored, but they will not demand the same amount of energy your critical ones will.

Both of these steps require the proper time and commitment on your part in order to derive the most benefit from this analysis. You need to be willing to make an in depth and honest evaluation of the issues you currently face. You are probably going to find things you didn't realize were so bad, as well as find some that are better than you thought. The whole goal is to identify what is making your company run and what needs to be done to make it run better.

Keeping a Sense of Humor in these Troubled Times

It has gotten to the point where I avoid the daily news on TV, look away from the newspaper's headlines, and dread opening up my computer's home page each morning. Bad news keeps getting worse, doom and gloom are societies most popular couple, and there is no real incentive to even get out of bed each morning. To make the steepest economic downturn in seventy years even worse, most expects are predicting we haven't even come close to hitting the bottom and it may take three or more years to spiral out of this.

While I do admit things are bad, getting consumed in it is counter productive. Most everything that has gone wrong is completely out of your own control. Even if you did make some unwise financial decisions in the past, it is far to late to undo them now. One thing you can control is your attitude and your outlook. An extremely important aspect of this is keeping your sense of humor. While we are all facing some pretty serious stuff, fight the urge to take it too seriously. Take time out of each day to laugh. Go on the Internet and seek out things that are funny and when you do find something, send it to everyone you know. Make it a point to watch some comedy shows on TV. There is enough drama in the real world, why surround yourself with more when you are trying to relax. Buy a book of jokes and entertain your family and friends. Most importantly develop the ability to laugh at yourself.

It appears that we have a long dark road to go down until we get to the light of day. You can choose to walk it with your head down and a frown on your face, or with your head up high, smiling and laughing. We all have gone through hard times in the past. It simply comes down to how do you want to get through this current rough patch.

The Power of Peers

As a business owner or sole proprietor I'm sure that you often feel as if you are stranded on an island with no one around to help. When the weight of the world around you falls squarely on your shoulders and you are solely responsible for the decisions you make, the stress can sometimes be too much to bear. Before these feelings overtake you, take a step back and remember you are not alone. In actuality there are thousands of other people in your shoes. While their problems and concerns may be different, these peers share the same burdens and blessings of responsibility as you.

There are numerous opportunities to share and learn from your peers. It could be an organized group that meets on a regular basis, or simply an Internet forum where opinions and information can be exchanged. The main thing you need to do is seek out a group or groups that best suit your needs. If you cannot find one, then start your own by gathering a few close colleagues who are willing to learn from each other. The main result you want to achieve is to shed the notion that as a leader you have to go it alone and tough things out. The weight of any decision will still be on your shoulders, but you will have a support group that can help you carry the load. As long as you are open to an honest exchange of information, you will learn new ideas you never thought of before and handle situations in ways you never did before.

Everyone in a position of responsibility has made mistakes and has had success. By sharing these with others, the entire group can benefit. I love the saying "hindsight is twenty/twenty" because it is so true. Mistakes are often made due to lack of experience or knowledge, so why not try to learn from one and other to help avoid them in the first place. Make the effort to learn from your peers as well as let them learn from you. When put into action this concept becomes a very powerful tool.

Evaluating Strengths and Weaknesses

Have you ever met someone you thought was good at everything? Did you believe that anything they attempted to do never failed? I'm sure if we think back, we all know someone who falls into this category. In reality, that person does not exist. Every single person has certain strengths and certain weaknesses. Some rare people are extremely good at covering up their weaknesses, but believe me they are still there.

It is very important that you take the time to make a serious evaluation of your overall strengths and weaknesses. You need to evaluate all areas of your personality including mental, physical, emotional, intellectual, and spiritual attributes. To properly engage in this type of thinking you have to be okay with the fact that you have actual weaknesses, and that some of your perceived strengths may in actuality be weaknesses in disguise. You will derive absolutely no benefit from this exercise if you cannot or are not willing to take a true and honest picture of yourself. I myself am aware of my glaring weaknesses, but sometimes fail to recognize some that obviously exist. That is why a complete and thorough examination is needed to really understand your abilities.

The main benefit from this evaluation is creating opportunities to channel your energy toward your strengths and minimize your exposure to your weaknesses. In simple terms, do what you do best and let others help you with what you do not. Adopting this philosophy will help boost your confidence and reduce your frustrations in both your business and professional life.

Clearly Define Expectations

As a business owner with employees, manager, or anyone else who supervises others I am sure that you have experienced the problem of someone not correctly doing their job. It could have been caused by carelessness, poor attitude, inexperience, or a number of other causes that effect someone's performance. One area we sometimes fail to consider are expectations. Did you properly explain what you expected from someone, or did you just take it for granted they knew what to do? Did you have a system in place that can measure actual results against predetermined objectives? Did you help them through proper training and support to be prepared to meet these expectations? These are questions you have to ask yourself when trying to examine someone's work.

I have managed enough people to know that with some, no matter how much time you spend working with them, they just aren't going to get it. You want to focus your attention on the people who can truly perform the job, but need some additional guidance to get it done right.

I spent most of my career in the wholesaling industry. One of our biggest tasks was to gain additional distribution for our products. We were having tremendous difficulty gaining distribution for a particular brand. Being extremely frustrated at our lack of progress, I immediately blamed our sales people for the problem. When I examined things a little closer, I realized they did not fully understand the company's expectations and there was no system in place to convey them. By developing a set goal, an action plan to achieve that goal, and a tracking system to measure results, each person knew exactly what was expected from them. This was also designed to hold them accountable for their results. The end result was a consistent gain in distribution, leading to a consistent gain in sales.

Take the time up front to make sure someone knows what their job is, how you want it performed, and what results you expect. Creating a system that communicates expectations will have a positive impact on performance. It will also help eliminate some common excuses such as "I did not know that was my job", or the more blatant one, "that's not my job." Once expectations are clearly communicated you pass the responsibility of properly executing work tasks onto their shoulders and off of yours.

Sampling: A Powerful Marketing Tool

I did some work this week with an associate on a marketing plan for a company that is looking to launch a specialty food product. It is the classic story of someone cooking something up in their kitchen, serving it to their friends, and then deciding to try and sell it to the general public. There are thousands of successful products that got started this way. In fact there are quite a few very successful companies that got started this way. The one thing they all have in common, is that they created a product that people liked.

When putting together a plan to market this product, we went over the basic steps that need to be done to get this project off the ground. You have to formulate your pricing strategy, fine tune your packaging and presentation, define your target market, create a promotional plan to support your roll out just to name a few. A vital part of this plan has to be an aggressive sampling program. After all, why did you decide to try and sell this product in the first place; the people who tried it, really liked it.

Sampling is the most cost effective way to promote your product. Your plan should include as many sampling opportunities as possible. Getting your product into people's hands, or mouths is the fastest way to generate interest as well as sales. If people like something they will buy it. Not only will they buy it, they will recommend it to their friends and family. Word of mouth advertising is still the most effective form of advertising there is. Offering to sample your product is also an effective way to gain distribution in outlets where you hope to sell your product. Store owners will be much more willing to carry your product if you agree to conduct some samplings that will encourage sales. Even if you just supply product for the store owner to use as samples, it is a good use of your marketing dollars.

Remember this simple formula; distribution is vital for growing sales, sampling will create demand, and demand will increase distribution. As long as you keep producing a quality product that people enjoy, use sampling to continually fuel the fire of sales growth.