Spring has sprung, and it’s a good time to take stock, action a ‘springclean’ of your business, energy and mindset.
As business owners, it helps to focus again on that which we can celebrate and be thankful for:
- Appreciate anew the fact that you are still in business. You have the possibility to thrive. You are in a position to make decisions that can impact yourself and your business for the better.
- Problems. Yes, it’s something we’d rather not have, but they are part and parcel of building a business. You are in the unique position of being able to be part of the solution. We have experienced challenges and tough trading conditions before – and we will see them again. We need to get good at having strategies at hand, habits and disciplines that work, and a plan as to how to fix what needs fixing.
- Opportunity with a capital O! Difficulty births creativity in ways ease doesn’t. Uncertainty births chances to do things differently, question the status quo, look with new eyes, innovate and learn. It keeps us firmly out of our comfort zones.
- Fourthly, others are relying on us, which means what we do now and next is purposeful. We remain a fulcrum for our teams, suppliers, customers and families as well as our prospective employees, suppliers and customers.
In short then, we can choose to have a positive lens, and channel our energies into that which is productive and worthy.
So, to spring into action, let’s revisit some essentials. Let’s call them your business Spring Survival Kit:
An Action Plan.
What you need to do to grow your business day-to-day, the next 90 days, next 6 months and the next year.
This plan needs a list of actual prospects by name; a list of actual strategies that you and the team can execute on, and that you know already work. For example:
- A calendar on which you record who’s doing what, when; daily, weekly and monthly goals to break even and make profit.
- Concrete targets reflecting how many sales per day/month you need, how many leads per strategy you expect, how many calls you need to make and coffees per week to have “enough” production.
- Who is the appointed, dedicated champion to get this work done with whom the buck stops.
- And lastly, when you will meet over this plan – daily, weekly and monthly to ensure STUFF. GETS. DONE.
A successful business comes back to the actions you are willing to take as the owner. Take the right action, correctly and on time – and you’ll succeed.
“Many a road to hell is paved with good intentions” is the old saying – as is making the mistake of working harder, but not smarter or differently. We have to behave our way into success by taking the actions that successful business owners do.
Fuel Pipelines – Talent AND Prospects
No sales. No money. No money. No business. No life. Sales is your first important task – especially now.
Equally important is investing some of this income into having a talented, motivated team to help you deliver, scale, manage the load and share the pressure.
Both of these work better by following a process, as both benefit from proper targeting and scripting. They birthed in day-to-day practice.
You can’t “learn to sell” well unless you actually do it. And convincing enough people to buy your product or service, or persuading the right talent to work for you and not someone else, is in fact a sales game at its heart. It is being able to professionally persuade others to “buy” the value proposition behind your product/service/job opportunity that will solve both your and their problem.
Don’t delude yourself it’s someone else’s task – it is yours. Don’t hide behind “no-ones buying right now” or “there’s no good people out there”. Don’t wait for better days, or do what you’ve always done, or worse – think word-of-mouth is enough. What happens if it isn’t, or dries up? Equally critically, don’t assume that just because you’ve hired a recruitment specialist or placed an ad, talent will be forthcoming or choose you. You need to sell them on you, the vision, the role and what’s in it for them. They have choice.
The key now is to learn to sell to both prospects and talent by getting out, setting an example and doing it. Target prospects and talent you’ve carefully and thoughtfully earmarked as inclined towards, and persuadable by your value proposition.
Good, on-time and reliable NUMBERS to watch
Numbers don’t lie.
- If you engage in marketing – what’s the result you’d like/expect?
- If you’re going networking for three hours – what’s the outcome that makes the time well spent?
- If you’ve set a target, how close did you get to it in actuality?
- Which of your four sales efforts got you the most cost-effective response?
- If you didn’t reach the weekly turnover, what will you and the team do differently to get the numbers up?
- How did you upsell every client this month?
- What costs did you save to budget?
- How spot on were your labour portions of your quotations for this quarter?
- Did you send out enough quotes, to the right people to preserve your conversion rate (which hopefully you know?)
And so on. These are all really good questions, the likes to which you need to know the answers.
Team Clarity – as evidenced by good, proper, finished, in-use job descriptions and daily, weekly, monthly and quarterly feedback.
Your team needs clarity, so give it to them. Write proper job descriptions that clearly, unequivocally and fully describe what needs to get done, how and by when. Make sure they clearly understand what actions they need to take, and then use your meetings rhythm to catch the people who are doing it right, dine the ones not doing it at all, or correct the ones doing it wrong.
- Use the time each day to solve the problems that get in the way, and ensure each level of your business leadership does likewise.
- Use the time each week to ensure you’re on track to the right numbers and who’s got to do what by when.
- Use the time each month to look back at what you all agreed needed to happen (budget), and then what actually happened, why, and how you’ll do things differently to get back on track.
- Use the time each quarter to see if you achieved the longer-term goals, and what you all did that made it possible. Or to find out what went wrong.
Don’t do this and the team will not be properly managed or led. Problems won’t get solved and wrong behaviours will become “just the way things are done around here”.
Celebrate the little wins on the way
Sounds trite, but it’s not. People are people, and many are at some level disheartened, discouraged, tired and weary. We need something to look forward to – even in the good times.
We need mini breaks, little celebrations, small opportunities to “thumbs up”, share a coffee, smell a rose, or be lifted by our favourite song.
Our teams are no different, neither are our prospects, families, suppliers and customers. Neither are the waitrons, our bus drivers, the shop assistants or bank tellers in our lives. Be slow to take offence, don’t use others as punching bags or assume the worst, and don’t forget to celebrate what went right.
Business owners who action these simple, easy-to-execute on, (albeit sometimes hard to get started on) essentials are getting results. Try it this spring.
