Once you have identified and quantified the assessment of your business, there must be prioritization and then the creation of a plan of action for moving forward. What will you do to improve the business results going forward? If you do not make set plans, nothing will change.
This is where your business’s key management must be co-contributors. It is important for your team to understand and believe in what needs to be done to transform the business into a stronger, more agile version of itself.
There are many techniques for actually deciding among alternative actions. It is important to perform a complete cost-benefit analysis of each option as a basis for decision making. Then summarize any additional considerations and the final decision before moving forward.
Put Time Aside To Work On Your Business
Finally, put time aside for acting on those plans, or the leaking money will persist and growth is not likely to happen. Knowledge is not enough; action is required.
Identify what you want to do to adjust your business and stop leaking money!
- How are you marketing your offerings and be honest about the success/failure ratio of these activities?
- Are you resolving customer issues and internal problems, or are you expanding operations?
- What is the overall objective?
- What limiting factors do you need to consider and/or adhere to?
- How do these changes relate to the overall goals of the business?
- What is the expected bottom-line impact of this work?
- Quantify the effort in terms of real dollar costs and time, as well as the benefits associated with that effort.
- Calculate the dollars to be expended and the time away from daily operations.
- Calculate the tangible and estimate the intangible benefits associated with the expected outcome.
- Weigh these off to determine the impact on the business.
- Decide what portion of these adjustments you can afford to undertake first.
Give your action plan a name. Set a clear vision, business objective and specific, measurable goals. Decide exactly what you will accomplish and be specific about what will be set aside for later effort. Practise staying on track with that decision through focus on the measurable goals and target dates.
- Define your critical success factors and how they will be measured.
- Involve other people in your business who will be affected by the outcome. Get their willingness to be a part of the solution from the beginning by showing them the benefits from their perspective.
Set aside the appropriate amount of time for working on this project.
Step by step, identify what you need to do to get started on fixing where the business is leaking money, including:
- Identifying what needs to happen first
- Sequencing subsequent activities in an action plan for moving forward
- Adding time to keep track of everything you do to accomplish this effort
- Setting a deadline for completing the work
In our experience with small business, the main problem is either attracting enough leads to create sales, or wasting effort and money in the business trying to get work done… and often ending up with unhappy customers in the process. When customer service is great, these customers can become very loyal. Why not prevent those problems from happening in the first place by fixing those broken processes and saving money at the same time?
Know When To Reach Out
It can be very tough to manage a business, service customers AND create an action plan that you can stick to. But, it is important if you want better results and to grow your business. This is when it is important and more efficient use of your time and money to get help from experts who have been there done that.
The number one cause of failure among established businesses is failure to adapt to outside change. Are you adapting to the rapid change in the way people shop for your product or service? If not, failure is a matter of course. 90% of businesses are not keeping up with the pace of change these days. Just look to the long list of department store closures to see this in real life.
Bloomberg Article: Stores Closing At A Record Pace as Amazon Chews Up Retailers
Contract what is happening with these stores, with a Canadian Retailer that used our services to deploy technology in their stores that created an immersive experience for customers that could not be found anywhere else in the world! As a result year over year sales doubled and they have no worries about lack of sales!
Everybody in business needs a coach. Someone that has an outside perspective on your business, who can help you see your blind spots, and can be an advisor when difficult questions arise. Multi-millionaires, Billionaires, and world class athletes have coaches that help them with specific areas of achieving their goals. We have 3 sets of coaches, and our coaches all have their own coaches as well. Do you have a coach or do you go it alone in your business?