think global act local (+playlist)

Begin with the end in mind

When you are setting up your company, there is often the attitude that you just set up and don’t worry about putting in place the structure and management practices until you really need them.

In my experience if you just plough straight in and delay putting in place best practices until you are in a real growth phase, the firefighting aspects of the growing pains is likely to affect your decision making, resulting in a compromised solution. In this cycle you have to reinvent processes and the business over and over again, which becomes increasingly costly.

I think one of the best pieces of advice is to begin with the end in mind. Start from the perspective of seeing what you will need, as a successful organization and then work backwards from it.

An example is Human Resource – if you are planning to have employees, what practices will you need to have in place to run an effective operation with engaged employees, who are loyal and committed to the business?

The discipline of researching best practice and working out how best to implement it for your business will facilitate growth, not act as a barrier to it.

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Be clear on your reason for starting or owning your business

Given that I like to begin with the end in mind (thank you Mr Covey) the question is why do you want to start a business or why did you start your business?

What was and is your end game and has it changed? There are probably four main reasons for starting a business. One is you have replaced your job with your business and have built your income. I accept that you may also like the freedom of being your "own boss". The next is that you have a definite goal of building a business that has enough appeal and value for someone else to want to buy it. You may see a future where your business is a merger target and you may sit on the board of a much larger operation. Finally you may see the business as a "legacy" staying in the family, but with you continuing to receive an income.

The reason for me detailing these options is that one of them should be your ultimate reason for starting or being in business. Depending upon which one you have chosen, the needs of each option are different.

You do need this clarity, right from the outset. Your priorities may change, along with your ultimate vision, but do begin with the end in mind. It will provide the best focus for how you need to develop the blueprint for your business and it's ultimate success.

So the first step - get clarity on why you want to go into or are already in business.

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Optimizing your business

The point about optimizing elements and activities within your business is to ask the question - "am I achieving the maximum of what is possible?"

If the answer is no then you need to analyse what is happening, on a step by step basis. You might be generating great demand from your marketing activities, but find your conversion rates are low. There can be many reasons for this, but essentially you are wasting marketing dollars if you are not achieving the right level of sales.

Try rating your performance on a scale of 1-10 for each critical area (and be honest). Where you are scoring 6 or less then these are areas for priority action.

Another classic question to ask is how many customers did you lose yesterday, last week, last month. Do you have an accurate number? More importantly do you know why they left? What value went with them - in other words how much potential revenue have you lost because they left. Did you thank them for their custom and say you were sorry they had gone elsewhere but that they are welcome back anytime?

You can see from this one example how we often gloss over what is really important, but sweat the small details. So to optimize you need to work out what is important.

If you have employees - ask them about how they see what they are doing and whether it is both efficient AND effective. If the answer is there is room for improvement then ask them how they would improve things. You should also go a stage further and keep checking with customers to see how they view your product and service, after all they are the ones exchanging money for them. If they feel something is amiss they will be gone to a competitor in the blink of an eye.

Finally don't fall into the trap of thinking cutting prices will help the optimization process. Focus on the value proposition you are providing. The value should be your differentiator not the price.