While COVID-19 continues to impact the lives of many, and with flu season rapidly approaching, we’re no strangers to pausing our daily lives to take our temperatures, assess how we’re feeling, and take necessary precautions to make sure we stay healthy and avoid risky situations. As we head into 2021, it’s also important to take a moment and evaluate your business’s health. Is it performing at its best or are there symptoms that something is not up-to-snuff? Can one poor-performing aspect of your business impact the whole organizational body?
 
Annual Planning (or as we like to call it, Strategic Thinking and Execution Planning) is a great time to ask yourself the hard questions to diagnose the health of your business and determine your course of action for a stronger, healthier 2021. As we get closer to the new year, ask yourself the following:
 

• Are you and your team aligned in direction, goals, and priorities?
• Is your team engagement and culture creating an energy of excitement for future success?
• How clear is your marketing message with the result of outperforming your competition?
• Do you feel your organization is more proactive or reactive?

 
To succeed in today’s competitive marketplace, your organization must be proactive and aligned for success. Evaluate your organization through the 5 Disciplines of Adding Growth to see where you can improve to create a more sustainable, predictable, stable, consistent company that is emotionally connected to your customers, your community and your team.
 

Evaluate your business strategy:

 
Your business strategy is your articulation of the way you do business. It consists of two parts: where you want to go (your goals), and the roadmap that gets you. Mastering these Disciplines makes your business sustainable.
 
Strategy is not about products. Strategy is about skillful management that attains an end. And that end is more than margin, profit, or revenue — it’s sustainability: your business outlasting your competition and, ultimately, you. We call this winning.
 
Does your current roadmap match the goals you have for your organization? What changes do you need to make to it to get you there? How can you make your goals more actionable (defining WHO does WHAT by WHEN)? Break it down even further by developing 90-Day Action Plans for each employee with clear outcomes that they are responsible for.

Evaluate your business development:

 
Business Development goes well beyond sales. The more a business focuses on customers instead of sales, the more likely it is that the business will succeed. Mastering this discipline results in predictability, the holy grail of business.
 
If you only focus on sales (profit), you’ll lean toward competing on price. But focus on your relationship with your customers, and not only will you learn what led them to buy from you in the first place, you’ll also learn what keeps (or could keep) them coming back. In other words, instead of generating random sales through pricing structures, you’ll be adding zeros through your growing base of satisfied customers who like you and want to continue their relationship with you.
 
How can you take customer service from an afterthought to a cornerstone? What can you offer that your competitors can’t, which will not only attract new customers but could keep them coming back?
 

Evaluate your people:

 
As a leader, you don’t build your business. Instead, you develop your people and they build the business. Exceptional people build excellent companies. When CEOs get this right, everything flows from there. This discipline is all about the stability of your organization.
 
A company that lacks stability in this discipline:
 

• is often distrusted by its staff;
• struggles to find the right people to hire;
• lacks clarity in defining the organization’s roles;
• has a team that works to the absolute required minimum.

 
An organization that is stable in this discipline has:
 

• high employee morale;
• a very high staff retention rate;
• customers and employees who are treated with the same respect.

 
Is employment and retention at the core of your business culture? How can you regularly and consistently assist in the development of your people’s skills and assets? Is your leadership helping or harming your employees’ potential?
 

Evaluate your execution:

 
If there’s a general lack of consistency among team members, departments and divisions, you’ll have too much variation in customer interactions. This can give each customer a wildly different experience with your company.
 
This is extremely problematic for the sustainability of your company because today’s consumer demands reliability from your organization. Consistency provides familiarity and a level of assurance that you have your act together, that you’re in control, and that you’re dependable.
 
Are your processes and expectations clear? Do your employees know what is going on and are on the same page as management? How can you make communication stronger internally? How can you ensure follow-through without micro-management?
 

Evaluate your mission:

 
Mission is not having a great mission statement, but having a clear purpose that everyone inside and outside the company understands. This allows a company to create deep and lasting emotional connections with all stakeholders.
 
A company should spotlight its impact on the world and answer its employees’ question, Why do I go to work every day? This is a more profound existentialist question about what the company does in the here-and-now.
 
What are your company’s core values? What is your purpose for existing? How do you give back as an organization?
 

Let us help with your Annual Planning!

 
“Plans are nothing, Planning is Everything” – Dwight D. Eisenhower
 
Our process focuses on Strategic Thinking and Execution Planning. Our Certified AddingZEROS Facilitators will not only lead you through thinking long term, but they will ensure you and your team have a clear action plan for implementation.
 
During your Strategic Thinking and Execution Planning session, we will focus on 5 Disciplines; Strategy, Business Development, People, Execution and Mission. Our desire is to help you create an organization that is sustainable, predictable, stable, consistent and has an emotional connection.
 
Our facilitators focus on the mid-market and have executive experience so they are quick to understand your needs and will bring immediate value to your organization.
 
Learn more by clicking here or visit www.AddZerosNow.com.  Call 515-222-9193 by October 26 and receive a complimentary 5 Disciplines Assessment for your organization.
 
How can we help make your business healthier? Let’s make 2021 an amazing year!