The Right Plan Needs the Right Combination
Posted: January 24, 2017 Filed under: business advisors, Business Plan, Business Vision, goal-setting, Leadership, success | Tags: business advice, Business Vision, Goal setting, strategic planning Leave a comment
With the New Year now well underway, many business owners are just putting the final touches on their business plans. That doesn’t mean, however, that adjustments can’t be made to ensure your goals can be reached in 2017.
As a business advisor for many years, when it comes to planning, I tend to come across two types of approaches: the visionary and the executor. Both approaches have their pros and cons, but as I’ll explain, a combination is what you, as a business owner, should strive for, especially throughout the business planning process.
A visionary knows where they want to go. They have a “big picture” vision and are often concerned with growing the company by setting goals. However, they lack tactical deployment and detailed plan as to how to attain this vision. They tend to not pay much attention to the processes in which their goals are met.
On the other hand, an executor’s primary concern is detail-related. They set high performance standards but fail to align those tactics to the “big picture” of growing the business because they’re so focused on processes.
As a business owner, do these two approaches sound familiar? Whether you’re a visionary or executor, I recommend the following steps as a way to bring both visionary and executor together when developing your plan.
- Have a Vision
Think “big picture.” Have a solid idea of your current state of affairs, determine what changes you would like to make, and consider how much you want to grow and in what areas of the business. Some examples of this might be that you want to increase revenue in your X division by 10% , perhaps you want to acquire a smaller business this year to expand your national reach, or you want to offer an automated solution to your XX customers.
- Dig into the Details
Now that you know what goal you want to achieve, create a plan outlining in detail how you are going to get there. If your goal is to acquire a smaller company this year, then it makes sense that part of your plan will involve searching for available companies. The devil is in the details as they say, so capture as much detail here so the plan can be easily executed on.
At this point you’ll also need to allocate budgets accordingly and introduce the means or tactics in which the budget will apply to.
- Review your progress
As with anything in business, monitor your results. Regular progress meetings should be conducted to get an accurate picture of how your business is progressing. Most importantly, ensure you are consistently making modifications to ensure success.
A carefully thought-out plan that contains both a big picture vision and accompanying details required for implementation is crucial for success. Ensure you share the plan with your employees so they are aware of the role they play in its execution.
While your business plan is somewhat of a blueprint, having a vision of where you want to go and how you are going to get there will position your business for success.
The Business of Letting Go
Posted: January 11, 2017 Filed under: business, Business Advice, business advisors, business growth, growth, hiring, Leadership, managing risks, mentorship, success, team-building, Uncategorized | Tags: business growth, business strategy, delegation, Process, Team Leave a comment
One of the biggest challenges I have seen many small business owners struggle with is that of delegation. Most owners started their businesses on their own being the person who does everything and so letting go or delegating can be difficult from many angles. Let’s face it, if you continue to do everything, then why do you have staff and how can you ever hope to grow your business?
Delegation means letting go of the day-to-day tasks associated with that responsibility, but by no means does it mean completely letting go of that responsibility. In other words, if you have hired a sales person to take on the responsibility of sales for your company, although you may not be making the sales calls, you do need to ensure that your sales person has the right sales processes, sales metrics and that they are in fact the right person for the role.
Without the right processes, metrics and people in place, it’s likely the onus will fall back on you to get things done. Sounds familiar? Letting go isn’t easy, but having a proper delegation structure in place will allow you to focus your energy and resources on building a successful business. Here are my recommendations for effective delegation:
1) Have the right processes
Ensure you have the right processes in place to ensure that the task or responsibility will be done correctly and in accordance with your standards. For example, if you are delegating writing you will need to ensure what type of writing, how much time the writing should take, what structure the writing must have, what approvals are required, what source materials, and how the writing must be started. The process needs to be written down, explained to the person who you are delegating it to, and followed up with by you to ensure the process is being followed.
2) Measure your success
The only way you can truly know if the process is working right is to measure its effectiveness and subsequent success. To measure the success of the objective, you may want to consider KPIs as they are an effective way of measuring key business objectives, as are analytics. There are numerous measurement tools available, so finding the one appropriate for your business is important. Whatever metric you choose should be spelled out and communicated to the person taking on the delegated task or project. They need to understand that they are being measured in their responsibilities.
3) Have the right people
In a previous blog, I discussed the importance of building a solid team. Ensuring you have the right people working for you means that you can delegate appropriate tasks with the confidence they will be completed accurately and efficiently. Trust and communication are two qualities that can make or break a business. In my many years as a business advisor, I’ve witnessed numerous business owners cycle through employees simply because they had the wrong person in the role who was not fully capable of handling the responsibilities despite having the right processes and metrics in place. Invest wisely in securing the right team. With the right team in place, you’ll experience no hesitation in delegating important tasks and responsibilities.
Delegating is what most business owners crave – you want someone or something to take the huge responsibility of doing it all yourself off your shoulders. Have no fear, by ensuring you have the right processes, metrics and people in place will mean you can lessen your load, and free up the much-needed time to do what you have always wanted to do: focus on building your business.
John Womack 